


The Never-ending Road

by laventadorn



Series: The Never-ending Road [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Background Remus/Sirius, F/M, Female Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Snape smokes, background Tracey Davis/Daphne Greengrass, girl!Harry, it's a magical war so some characters have to die, romance pending, this is pretty much genfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 06:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 92
Words: 557,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laventadorn/pseuds/laventadorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. When Lily died, Snape removed his heart and replaced it with a steel trap. But rescuing her daughter from the Dursleys in the summer of ’92 is the first step on a long road to discovering this is less true than he’d thought. A girl!Harry story, starting in Chamber of Secrets and continuing through Goblet of Fire. Future Snape/Harriet. (OotP - DH will continue in a separate story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hermione's Letter

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 한국어 available: [끝없는 길](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10490898) by [laventadorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laventadorn/pseuds/laventadorn), [willowwayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowwayne/pseuds/willowwayne)



> -A while back, I wondered what might have happened if, instead of being stuck with a child whom he viewed primarily as James Potter's, Snape had to protect a child he considered predominately to be Lily's. 
> 
> -I also wanted to augment and explore Harry's extraordinary capacity for love, an aspect of the series which intrigued me and which I'd have liked to seen more of.
> 
> -I have rated this fic as "Mature" both to account for future chapters that have not yet been written, and because this pairing, particularly in the context of this fic, where Harriet and Snape know each other from her first year, is one that many people may find hard to accept. My rating is meant in respect of that distinction.
> 
> -Cheat Sheet: If you want CoS, start with Ch 1. If you want PoA, start with Ch 15. If you want GoF, start with Ch 49. GoF is still ongoing. 
> 
> -Finally, sometimes I quote from canon, but I don't have it marked because that always really jars my reading experience. Considering that this is fanfic, I'm sure you're used to assuming that anything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling, who deserves all the credit. We wouldn't be here without her.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, but loving someone deeply gives you courage.  
\--Lao Tzu

PART ONE: The Chamber of Secrets

Summer lay thick across Hogwarts, the sunlight like butter. Hagrid was reporting a record number of bowtruckle births; Sprout had gone to holiday in Egypt; Minerva was up to her whiskers in preparations for the upcoming term. Dumbledore spent the time being inscrutable and mysterious, but that was so typical of him it was hardly worth remarking.

Severus was enjoying a castle free from impossibly shrill little nitwits, grading, and everything that encompassed that most loathed of career pastimes, teaching. He avoided the staff room lest Minerva try corralling him into something bureaucratic and because Flitwick was revising his syllabi again. With the optimist’s incurable daftness, he could never comprehend that Severus would never do more as a professor than the minimum required. He was still using the same syllabus he’d drafted at twenty-one, which he’d drawn up a week before classes were due to start. The little buggers could learn something from it, or not, as they chose.

But today, the beatific absence of students wasn’t enough to ensure his mood was fit for human consumption: Dumbledore had finally selected a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Like the eleven times before, he’d called Severus up to his office, to ply him with tea and sweets and sour them with the news that, once again, he’d passed over Severus’s application in favor of some rank new fathead.

And this time, the selection was worse than usual.

“Gilderoy Lockhart?” There wasn’t a curse in any language Severus knew, magical or Muggle, that could possibly convey the depths of his loathing and revulsion. He said as much.

“Well,” Dumbledore said with a meekness that Severus didn’t believe for a second, “after what happened with the last applicant, I thought perhaps it would be best to choose someone whom it seemed very unlikely that Tom would possess. Jam doughnut, Severus?”

Severus ignored the doughnuts, which had pink icing on top and what looked like raspberry jam inside. A single bite would probably put him in a sugar coma, he thought longingly.

“And if he pops off, it’s no great loss,” he said as snidely as he could manage.

“Now, Severus,” Dumbledore said, but Severus fancied his heart wasn’t in it. How could it be? They were talking about Gilderoy Lockhart.

“The man is an eyesore,” Severus said. “Literally. He wears sequins.”

“I have a fondness for sequins myself,” Dumbledore said, his mustache twitching. His robes today were a deep twilight purple, embroidered with a glittering constellation map. Capricorn shimmered on his right sleeve, Lyra on his shoulder.

“Staff meetings should be very entertaining,” Severus said. “I can picture Minerva’s face even now.”

Dumbledore smiled, but then it faded, and his gaze drifted to settle on the logs crackling in the grate. The fire whited out his irises. Severus remembered a time when Dumbledore hadn’t fires in the summer. He was getting older.

The sleeping Heads of Hogwarts watched them from the corners of their drooping eyes. One day the man sitting in front of him would be up there, pretending to doze. Severus was always rather surprised by how much he didn’t like to think about it. He wondered if Dumbledore’s portrait would be half as clever, conniving and uncomfortably insightful as the real thing.

If Dumbledore died before he’d made an end of the Dark Lord, they had better hope so.

“Have you felt anything?” Dumbledore asked, his eyes so clear and bright it almost hurt to look at them.

The fire popped. Severus’s left forearm prickled with awareness, though not with the burning-cold ripple of primordial magic. He did not rub the Mark, but it took effort. “Nothing as yet.”

“Well.” Dumbledore sat back in his armchair, pressing his long fingers tip to tip. “It does seem too soon, after only two months . . . ”

Severus remembered the crumpled ruin of Quirrell’s body, the hole in the back of his head, the gory mess of his ruptured face, and felt the urge to smile. But he repressed it. Dumbledore would only become grave and say they should never cease to mourn the passing of their enemies, which was the kind of noble, maudlin rot Severus had no patience for.

“How do you think he fled?” he asked.

“I believe him to be something between spirit and corporeal, at this point.”

Severus wondered how the bastard had survived in the first place. Dumbledore, he knew, had his theories, but he was mysterious and inscrutable about them, the old bugger.

“He can hardly dominate England without a body,” he pointed out.

“No,” Dumbledore agreed. “He cannot. Which means that one day, he will need one. What form do you think he will take?”

“What are you asking?” Severus said. “Whether I think he’ll return as a giant centipede?”

Dumbledore’s mustache twitched again, but he asked calmly, “Is it your belief that Lord Voldemort—”

“Don’t,” Severus said, his voice jagged and brittle, “say his name.”

Dumbledore opened his mouth, but then closed it again. His eyes showed a terrible compassion, and Severus loathed it.

“Forgive me, my dear boy. Do you think Tom will possess a body, as he did this time?”

Severus forced himself to think of the Dark Lord, not as he’d been two months ago, a sickly, grotesque imprint on the back of a fool’s head, but as the wizard who had branded the Dark Mark into his forearm. The Dark Lord’s face had been as white as bone, his eyes tinged with red, like blood on the water, his hair curling and dark like loam.

_Do you give me your devotion, Severus? Do you swear to me your loyalty? Do you offer me your soul?_

Even then, it had seemed like love twisted into something it should never become; should never become, but could transform into so easily.

“That was a means to an end,” Severus said as the memory washed away like the light of a dying fire. “Quirrell . . . was weak. The Dark Lord would have used and despised him, and discarded him in the end, no matter what end it came to. He would consider no one truly worthy of holding him.”

“That is my belief, too,” Dumbledore murmured. “He will want his own form again.”

“There are ways to construct that. I can think of several without even trying.”

Dumbledore gave him one of his Looks, although Severus couldn’t tell whether it was meant to be stern, solemn, or approving. Necromancy was one of the Darker branches of Dark magic, something Dumbledore disapproved of exponentially, but there weren’t many in his circles of goodness and light whom he could discuss it with.

“How many other of his followers would know?” he asked Severus, who shrugged.

“Not many. Bellatrix. Lucius could find out without much effort, although study,” of anything not under a skirt, he added privately, “was never one of his interests. But the Dark Lord will know—he’ll only need to find a follower willing to assist.”

“And of those who escaped Azkaban, how many . . . ?”

“Of those who escaped Azkaban, none,” Severus said flatly. “But you had better hope Bellatrix stays locked up.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore agreed. “We had better.”

Then he smiled. It didn’t look like a forced effort, although Severus didn’t see how it could be genuine. “Well! Thank you, my boy, for your estimable insight. That is enough of darkness for one afternoon, I think.”

Severus thought he left the rest unspoken: _There will be long days and nights of it to come._

“Have you written a new syllabus yet?” Dumbledore asked, a low-level twinkle glimmering in his left eye.

“Not since 1981,” Severus said, unabashed. “And I won’t, until the students become any less moronic.”

“Now, Severus—even you occasionally find the will to acknowledge that one of your students is very nearly intelligent. What about Miss Granger? Young Harriet Potter’s friend.”

And there it was. Severus had known they would come to it eventually. Dumbledore hadn’t mentioned the girl all summer, not since she’d climbed aboard the train with all the other foul little miscreants, but Severus had known it was a state of forbearance that couldn’t last. Well, he wasn’t going to take the bait. He wasn’t going to be tricked, cajoled, or entreated into sharing his thoughts about that girl. Dumbledore had tried again and again, all last year, and Severus had always managed to coolly deflect—

_What do you think of Harriet, Severus? You had your first class with her today, I think?_

He could still see it—that class—it was always disconcerting to meet the first years for the first time, to see how young they were; to fight off the rush of memories of being that young and not knowing into what dark and treacherous thickets the future would wind. The wizarding world was so small, it was always full of the same faces in different incarnations . . . but that class . . . Draco’s white-blond hair and eager smirk, a little carbon copy of Lucius, and the girl . . .

The first thing he’d thought—the first time he’d seen her, beneath the flickering brilliance of the banquet candles—he’d thought _Potter_ with a rush of loathing so powerful, it had churned in his stomach, a physical presence. She had the same sloppy hair, the same thin face; and the glasses and shapeless school robes created the androgynous illusion of a small James Potter returned from the dead to remind Severus of everything he’d feared and witnessed come to pass.

The feeling had rushed back in Potions class the next morning at the sight of that thin, Potter-like face and the name on the roster. He’d located the girl in the dank gloom of his dungeon, stared at her with naked hatred, he was sure, and she’d gazed back with wide, nervous eyes, not backing down but somehow making herself smaller, as if she was trying to preserve her dignity and her safety at the same time. Potter had never looked at him like that. Potter never would have. Potter had been smug and superior and would never have seen the need to shrink in on himself. He had never known what it felt like.

Severus knew that need. He understood it. And he’d remembered that somewhere, behind the mop of black hair and the ugly glasses, were Lily’s eyes, staring fearfully at him, the way she never would have done. She had stared at him in disbelief, in loathing, in contemptuous indifference, but never in fear. She never would have lowered herself to fear him.

This was all that was left of her, this wide-eyed little girl with horrible glasses, sitting in his Potions class. This was what he had given his future, since he was twenty-one, to protect: this little amalgam of two people whom he’d killed, with Lily-eyes and Potter-hair.

_What do you think of Harriet, Severus?_

She was the last of Lily, and he’d sworn to protect her. That was all he knew. It was all he needed to know.

He hated children, anyway.

“Miss Granger,” he said now to Dumbledore, in his sun-bright study—and he tacked on a sneer, to do the thing properly, “is not as big a dunderhead as most of the little monsters, I’ll grant you, but she lacks originality. She’s also too hungry for praise.”

Dumbledore looked amused. “Surely this isn’t coming from the Head of Slytherin?”

“She shouldn’t be so damned obvious about it.”

Dumbledore’s beard twitched in that way that suggested he was smiling broadly. “But she’s not so easy to crush, I think?”

“I wish she were,” Severus groused, envisioning six long years made even longer by the overzealous length of Granger’s essays.

“Miss Potter can only benefit from having a friend of such tenacious spirit,” Dumbledore said. “Raspberry scone, Severus? You haven’t touched the desserts at all.”

Something in the corner behind Dumbledore’s desk gargled what sounded like a death rattle.

“Your phoenix looks about ready to drop dead,” he said, grabbing a scone and crumbling it.

“Burning Day is almost upon him,” Dumbledore said. “But,” he rose from his armchair, delicately knocking crumbs off his beard, “he does need some help feeding, at this point—thank you for reminding me, my boy.”

Severus was saved from replying by the house-elf that cracked into the office clutching a standard-sized Muggle-looking envelope.

“A letter for Master Head Professor Dumbledore, sir,” squeaked the house-elf, bowing low and thrusting the envelope above its head.

“Would you take that, Severus?” Dumbledore asked, bending over his phoenix.

The elf held up the plain white paper envelope as if it were an offering to a prince of ancient Persia. Severus took it and, with the same wrist, flicked the elf’s dismissal.

“It’s Muggle post,” Severus said, turning it over as the elf vanished. He stared at the return address. “From . . . Miss Granger.”

The familiar sight of her tidy handwriting made his eyes ache. Too many bloody essays. He vowed to deduct an entire letter grade the next time she went a quarter of a centimeter over the required length.

“Miss Granger?” Dumbledore truly sounded surprised. “I would have thought she possessed an owl. Well, we live to be contradicted. Open it, Severus, would you, and read it out to me?”

Severus tore off the end of the envelope, blew the thing open, and unfolded the letter. Halfway through the first paragraph, he crushed the empty envelope. He was almost surprised by his own vehemence. He wouldn’t have thought he cared this much.

“Severus?” said Dumbledore.

“I knew it,” Severus said. He continued reading the letter to the end even as he snarled, “I bloody knew it.”

“Knew what, my boy?”

“Petunia,” Severus said, hearing the venom in his own voice over the echo of hers in his memory. _You’re freaks that’s what you are_ “Once she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that the girl was a witch, all her old hatred and jealousy would return. I told you.”

He really had said it, once he’d muddled through the opening stages of his grief. He’d pictured Lily’s face if she knew her child had been handed over to her magic-hating sister, the one who despised her own ordinariness so much she couldn’t bear anyone else to be special; and the despair of knowing that Lily would never know what had happened had blocked out every other thought, including his embryonic consideration for the infant itself, until he had all but forgotten about her. At least, he hadn’t remembered in any immediate way. Sometimes her existence would bob to the surface of his thoughts, like flotsam stirred by the sea; but the daily currents of life had always pushed her away again, into the depths of his remorse and self-hatred.

Dumbledore rustled back over to the armchairs. “Severus, if something had happened to Harriet, I should know,” he said, with something so like gentleness that Severus saw red beyond the garish Gryffindor crimson tainting the room.

“Oh?” he hissed. “‘Sir, Harriet hasn’t answered any of my letters, nor any of Ron’s. I must have written to her twenty times and told her over and over how worried I was, but I haven’t received a single letter and Ron wrote me that Harriet had received a letter from the Improper Use of Magic Office for an unauthorized Hovering Charm and I’m more worried than ever because we haven’t even covered Hovering Charms, as they’re not till this year—’”

He broke off, his eyes narrowing at some telling flicker of emotion in Dumbledore’s face. “You knew about the letter from the Ministry.”

“My friends there keep me reasonably well-informed, yes,” Dumbledore said composedly.

“Well?” Severus brandished Granger’s letter at him. “And how well-informed are you about this?”

“You believe Petunia Dursley is refusing to let Harriet communicate with her friends?”

It sounded petty and exactly like Petunia, and the small nature of the offense made his anger seem ludicrous. He knew that. But he remembered the girl at the Sorting Feast, her hair cut short and horrible, wearing those ugly plastic glasses, smiling like she expected to be told to stop, eating like she expected to have the food taken away from her, and the decades-old echo of Petunia’s words had run through his head: “You and that Snape boy, you’re freaks, that’s what you are—it’s good you’re being kept away from normal people, for our safety.” He would never have put it past her to drill the same vindictive trash into the girl’s head, but it had only taken one look to tell him that Petunia had sunk even further than he’d imagined.

It had been a long time since he’d been surprised by what cruelty any one person was capable of. And he bullied children on a regular basis.

“I wouldn’t put it past Petunia to burn the letters in front of her.”

Severus couldn’t define Dumbledore’s expression, but it reminded him of being nine years old and wishing he had never told Lily that he hated going home.

“What would you have me do, Severus?” Dumbledore asked, his tone inscrutable.

“Threaten Petunia,” he said without a trace of irony. “Or let me do it.” Oh yes; he would enjoy that . . . he’d never been able to threaten Petunia the way he’d wanted . . . he’d always had to hold off. . .

Dumbledore gazed across his study at a closed cabinet, the doors of which were carved in a raised pattern of vines. In there, he kept photographs of members of the Order, personal snapshots that they’d sent him. He had one of Lily. Severus knew it was there, but he’d never looked at it. He was sure she would be standing in the circle of Potter’s arms, perhaps even on her wedding day.

It shouldn’t still have hurt, but it did. He despised himself for feeling it. He wished he could crush the ache that flickered inside him every time he set eyes on her daughter, but not once last year had he been able to.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said slowly. “Yes, I think you should go.”

At first, Severus was sure his ears were deceiving him. “What?”

Dumbledore looked at him, as bright and unreadable as a one-way mirror. “You should go to the Dursleys.”

Severus stared, then picked up his cup and looked pointedly down into it. “What was in this tea?”

“An update from Miss Potter would not go amiss.”

Severus set the tea cup down hard. “You’re not afraid I’ll relapse?” he said bitingly. “It wasn’t too long ago it was my job to threaten people in their homes.”

Dumbledore’s gaze was calm and deep, like the lake at midday. “I think that was a long time ago, my boy."

 _Some things will never be long enough_ , whispered a cold voice inside Severus.

“You’ve never permitted me to even know where they live.” He felt perversely determined to show Dumbledore why he shouldn’t give Severus what he wanted. Why he should keep Severus away from the temptation of being cruel to someone he despised.

“I trust you, Severus,” Dumbledore said.

The words were like a chain.

 _You should never trust a Slytherin, Headmaster._ “The address?”

Dumbledore told him.

As Severus wound down the twisting staircase, he found himself wondering if Lily had told her sister what he’d done to destroy their friendship.

He found himself hoping she had told Petunia everything. 

* * *

 

“Maybe I should give myself a prison tattoo,” Harriet said. “What do you think?”

Hedwig fluffed her feathers.

“Fluff them this much for yes”—Harriet held her thumb and forefinger a couple of centimeters apart, then widened the gap—“this much for no.”

Hedwig tucked her head under her wing.

“That’s less than helpful, you know,” Harriet said, stroking her fingers over Hedwig’s head. Her owl hooted moodily.

“I know,” Harriet sighed. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

They were locked up in the Dursleys’ smallest bedroom, with extra bolts on the door and bars on the window. Technically Hedwig was supposed to be trapped in her cage, but Harriet had picked the lock with a broken quill nub she’d found in her jeans pocket. She couldn’t let Hedwig out to fly—the stench of owl droppings said that, if nothing else—but she could at least let her out of her cage.

“I dunno how I’d make one, anyway,” she said, petting Hedwig, whose talons were clamped onto Harriet’s footboard. Harriet hoped they were leaving marks, and that Aunt Petunia wouldn’t find out until after Harriet was safely concealed on Platform 9 ¾.

But then she looked at the bars and the way they cut up the sky and remembered Uncle Vernon’s purple, piggy face looming close to hers, hissing, _“You’re never going back to that school . . . and if you try to magic your way out, they’ll expel you . . . ”_

“I know what it would be, though,” Harriet said dully. “Hogwarts. A nice remember-me-by, since I’ll probably never see it again.”

Hedwig gave her a peevish, yellow-eyed look, as if to say, _Please, are you being melodramatical again?_ Although it might have been, _It’s all your fault if we don’t._ Maybe even: _Not to mention that we haven’t had a proper meal since they locked us in here._

Their last meal had been a bowl of stone-cold tinned soup. Harriet had given Hedwig most of the soggy vegetables, since Hedwig was the more innocent one of the two of them. Although it hadn’t been Harriet who had smashed the pudding and brought the owl swooping in to terrify that stupid Mrs. Mason; it had been that bloody house-elf.

Dobby. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf. That’s how he’d introduced himself. He’d given Harriet the peculiar experience of not only meeting him—which had been very peculiar—but also of feeling sorry for someone at the same time you’d gladly have wrung their little green neck. She’d thought she had it bad at the Dursleys until she met Dobby . . .

Hah. That meant more than one thing, now.

She’d pestered Hedwig with questions and theories about Dobby and what he could have been about. A great danger at Hogwarts? What could that be? How did he know? Why would he go to the trouble of trying to warn and protect Harriet, who’d never, of course, met him before?

Hedwig had no contributions to make besides ruffling her feathers and going to sleep, but Harriet didn’t have anything else to do or anyone else to talk to. At least now, though, she had no one to talk to because she was shut up in Privet Prison and not because she didn’t have any friends. Dobby had been the one hoarding her letters.

Hermione and Hagrid and Ron must be worried. At least, she hoped they were, because then she might not be left here to rot. Maybe Hermione would figure it out somehow . . . or find Harriet, somehow . . . or let a teacher know . . . although Harriet wasn’t sure the school could do anything if her legal guardians wanted to keep her here . . .

She was just imagining Hermione finding her bleached bones lying on the floor of the Dursleys’ smallest bedroom when she heard the floor outside her bedroom door creak. Was it time for dinner already? Her stomach ached with hunger, so hard she felt nauseous. She’d been smelling Aunt Petunia’s roast chicken for what felt like hours. Not that she’d get any of it, that was for sure.

She sat up straight when something outside the door went clickickickickick.

The locks were being undone all at once.

She stood up from the bed, staring—and then took a step back when the last lock wrenched open so hard that pieces of wood flaked to the carpet and the door banged inward.

Hunger must be making her delirious, because the dark shape filling the doorway looked like Professor Snape.

The Snape-delirium stepped into the room, his face locked down in rage. Harriet had never seen him this angry—she’d never seen anyone this angry—but she was pretty impressed with her imagination, because this Snape looked damn scary.

His eyes moved across the room like they wanted to peel it apart. Over the crooked wardrobe, the drab wallpaper, her messy bed, her desk with Hedwig’s dropping-covered cage. His expression flickered when it scanned past her, but he spent a lot more time glaring at Hedwig’s cage than he did looking at Harriet. Her imagination was probably drawing on what it knew: Snape had almost completely ignored her all last year.

Then he turned away. Her heart jumped, thinking he was leaving, because even if it was just her going crazy, Snape was a part of Hogwarts, of magic, and she missed all that so terribly.

But he wasn’t leaving. He was looking down at the cat flap in the door, where Aunt Petunia had pushed her food through.

When he turned back, the expression on his face made Harriet’s skin tingle with cold.

For a moment, he looked straight at her, in a way that was so fierce it was almost like hatred.

“Where are your things?” he asked. It was just like class: he spoke just above a whisper, but you heard every single word. They cut into your ears like winter.

“Erm . . . my school things?” Her voice came out thin and high. When he just stared at her in that fierce, unnerving way, she said, “Er—downstairs in the cupboard under the stairs.”

“Get whatever you need out of this room and come with me.”

You didn’t ask Professor Snape _Why_ , you just did what he said. She stuffed her few blouses, trousers, socks and knickers into her old Muggle rucksack (trying to block the knickers from Snape’s sight), and then went to coax Hedwig into her cage. Except Snape was in the way, standing between her desk and the bed, looking out the window. At the bars.

He didn’t say anything, and Harriet didn’t either. She just coaxed Hedwig onto her arm, glad she’d thought to pull on a windbreaker when Hedwig’s talons prickled her through the nylon.

Snape picked up Hedwig’s cage and swept out, the hem of his robes slithering into the silence.

Silence . . .

Harriet followed him into the hall, straining her ears. She could hear the telly going downstairs, playing a car commercial, but she didn’t hear any real voices or movement. The smell of gravy and rosemary from Aunt Petunia’s cooking hung thick on the landing. Her mouth watered painfully and her stomach ached with sickness and longing.

Professor Snape had magicked open the cupboard door and hauled out her trunk, and was bent down looking inside the cupboard as if to check that was all she had.

“It should all be there,” she said. “Erm. Sir. I haven’t been in it since school was over.”

“Very well.” Snape slammed the cupboard door so hard it seemed to shake the house. Harriet winced.

When he moved to pick up her trunk, she saw the Dursleys.

They were sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner. Aunt Petunia had knocked over her wine glass, and it had spilled across the table and run over the edge onto the carpet. It had happened so recently that the wine was still dripping off the table onto the floor.

It was the spreading stain and the fact that Aunt Petunia wasn’t moving to clean it up that chilled Harriet the most.

She stepped slowly past Snape, fully into the room. The Dursleys’ eyes followed her—their wide, locked-open eyes. Dudley’s fork was stuck in his mouth, his hand glued to the handle. Aunt Petunia’s hand was caught in mid-air where it must have struck her glass. Uncle Vernon was twisted half around in his chair, as if he’d been about to rise when Snape had frozen him. He’d frozen all of them.

The tinny laughter on the telly jangled in the silence.

Harriet met all the Dursleys’ eyes, one by one as she walked up to the table. She didn’t say anything, and they couldn’t.

Then she grabbed a leg of chicken off the platter in the center and said coolly, “See you next summer.”

Back in the hall, she found Snape standing with the front door open, his bottomless black eyes glittering.

“Come.” His voice was so cold, the edge of it burned.

Harriet stuck the drumstick between her teeth, steadied Hedwig, and followed him out the door.


	2. Dobby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -First off, thank you to everyone who's left kudos and comments! They make me so happy to see. :)
> 
> -When anyone calls Harriet "Harry," that's not a typo but a nickname.
> 
> -Also, it's probably impossible to Apparate as far as Snape does. I acknowledge this, but I did it anyway.

❧

Severus shrank the girl’s trunk, Scourgified the cage (although even that didn’t improve it much, it was so filthy), and told her set free the owl.

“Why?” she asked, Lily’s eyes wide behind the most hideous spectacles Severus had ever seen. Round and enormous, with clear plastic frames—Petunia must have picked them for her precisely because they were so ugly.

“I’m not Apparating with your familiar,” he told her. “She can find her own way to Hogwarts.”

The girl hesitated but then did as she was told, stroking the bird’s snowy feathers and whispering to it. The bird treated him to a yellow-eyed, impertinent stare. Then it nipped the girl on the ear, spread its wings, and took off into the gloaming sky.

“What’s Apparating?” the girl asked.

“You’ll soon find out.” He held out his arm. “Hold on.”

Lily’s eyes flickered from his arm to his face, and then the girl rested her fingertips so lightly on his forearm, it was little more pressure than a butterfly’s weight.

“More tightly than that,” he ordered. “My arm doesn’t bite.”

With an expression that said she was only doing this because it was better than being locked up in her bedroom, she gingerly wound her fingers in his sleeve.

He sighed, shook her off, and gripped her wrist. Then without a word of warning, he Apparated.

Hogwarts slammed into sight like the rushing tide, the golden light of the setting sun knifing long across the grass, burnishing the towers and turrets. The girl gasped like she’d been underwater for too long.

“You could’ve warned me!” she said indignantly, but then darted a wary look up at his face. “Sir,” she said, a bit sulkily.

He probably could had. “This way,” he said, ignoring her glower, and strode toward the gates. At the motion of his wand, their locks slithered open like vines growing in reverse.

He felt her annoyance with him draining away as they climbed the path to the castle. He had to force himself to slow down and not leave her behind. She looked excited, hardly daring to hope, but also sickly and exhausted. He thought of the cat flap in the door, the rank smell of the room, of bird droppings and unwashed bodies, and had to recite the instructions for the Draught of Living Death step-by-step so as not to outpace her and descend upon the Headmaster’s office to rip it apart from carpet seams to vaulted ceiling. 

_Severus, if anything had happened to Miss Potter, I would know—_

Oh, how Dumbledore owed him for letting those human shitstains live . . . for walking out of the house without doing anything worse than freeze and terrify them. . . Locks on the door, bars on the windows, and that little cat flap for pushing food through—

The Draught of Living Death wasn’t complicated enough. He tried to remember the Wolfsbane, a werewolf prophylactic whose preliminary findings had only been released last month. He’d been following the progress of that one ever since the early stages were announced ten years ago. It was fiddly and dreadful and potentially lethal, and took three days of brewing to complete. Once he had the ingredients’ list and instructions memorized, he’d have minutes of anger management on hand.

He glanced down at the girl to make sure she was still following as he mounted the great staircase. Would Pomfrey be in the staff room trying to prescribe Minerva analgesics, or would she have retired to her infirmary in a huff after Minerva refused them like an angry cat?

The former, he found when he swept the girl into the empty infirmary.

“In,” he said shortly when she lingered reluctantly in the corridor.

“I’m not sick,” she said.

“That is for the matron to decide.” When she replied with a look that mingled obstinacy and uncertainty, he said, “Tell me what was the last full meal you had, and when.”

“Er. . .” She looked down at her hands, clearly intending to count on her fingers while trying to be subtle about it. A Ravenclaw might as well try to say three sentences in a row without using “thus.”

“That should not have been a difficult question to answer.” He pointed inside the vacant hospital wing, with its rows of pristine beds glowing white and gold in the light of the setting sun.

The girl flushed. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said, but she slouched into the room and sullenly permitted him to stare her to a chair close to Pomfrey’s office.

 _No child deserves to be starved as a punishment,_ he thought, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “House-elf.”

The girl’s eyes widened before one of Hogwarts’ elves answered. When it appeared, she stared as if fascinated. She was surprised but not shocked. He filed this unexpected discrepancy away for mulling over later.

The house-elf bowed to him without speaking. All the Hogwarts’ elves had quickly learned that if Severus called them, it meant he wanted something and they didn’t need to ask pointless questions or deliver empty greetings. 

“Bring me a bowl of rice gruel, adding no spices or flavors but salt. And fetch Madam Pomfrey—and Professor McGonagall—from wherever they might be. Tell them why.” He considered asking the elf to bring Dumbledore as well, but he wanted to rage at the old man in private before he saw the girl, to maximize the impact. If Dumbledore could be made to feel guilty. Sometimes, Severus wondered.

The elf bowed again and cracked away.

“I told you, I’m not sick,” said the girl, but she was staring at the place the elf had stood and seemed more curious than mulish. “There’s a house-elf at Hogwarts?”

“There are over a hundred,” Severus said. “Even a magical castle doesn’t clean itself.”

Now she was frowning at the spot the elf had stood. “Are any of them named Dobby? The elves, I mean.”

Severus stared. “Dobby? You’ve met a house-elf named Dobby?”

Her eyes flickered up to his face again, and he saw the moment her curiosity retreated behind a shield of wariness, like a film of ice spreading across a pond. She shrugged, an overly nonchalant motion.

For the love of—children were so bloody annoying, whether they were Lily’s or not.

A small platter winked into existence on one of the little swinging tables meant for bed-ridden patients. Although it seemed outside the realm of possibility for house-elves not to adhere to the letter, he conjured a spoon and tasted the gruel. Adequately tasteless, although they’d included a pink and white orchid in a vase. 

“That’s nice,” the girl said, touching the orchid. 

“Drink that,” he said, vanishing his spoon, “and if you can keep it down, you may eat again in a couple of hours.”

She glowered but reached for the bowl. As he’d suspected, she couldn’t finish half of it. 

“Don’t force it or you’ll be ill,” he told her as the infirmary doors clattered open and Pomfrey rustled in, followed by Minerva, who had her mouth pressed into a line so thin and hard, it could have cut diamond.

“Severus,” she said, undercurrents of wrath in her voice, “there had better be a good explanation for . . . ”

She trailed off as she got a good look at the girl. Pomfrey had already swooped in, diagnostic spells unspooling from the tip of her wand in red and blue trails.

“Gracious Rowena,” Pomfrey said, taking the girl’s pulse. “You’re not fevered, at least,” she added, peering into the girl’s red, mortified face. 

Since Minerva wouldn’t be likely to pack her off without a due injunction from Dumbledore, Severus figured the girl would be safe enough in the infirmary. “The Headmaster?” he said shortly.

“He left for Hagrid’s after dinner,” Minerva said. “I needn’t ask where you were.”

“Clearly not,” he said, and left them: Pomfrey grimly officious, the girl protesting that she really wasn’t sick, and Minerva presiding. Hagrid would have been a better comforter. Both Pomfrey and Minerva were too no-nonsense, the sort to fuss with glares and sharp orders . . . rather like Severus himself.

❧

Dumbledore was indeed at Hagrid’s, sitting outside on a sort of crude lawn chair that was about five times too big even for a man of his height. They were both smoking pipes, the sickly sweet smell curling into the descending twilight.

“Ah, Severus.” Dumbledore’s mustache moved in a way that suggested he was smiling, though his eyes did not twinkle at all. “How did you find Miss Potter?”

Severus had to count to ten in fractions of a quarter before he was able to answer. When he did, he could barely unclench his teeth.

“Pomfrey will no doubt be able to tell you when she’s done examining her.”

“Wha’?” said Hagrid, inhaling a wad of pipe tobacco. “Harry’s here?” he asked once he’d cleared his nose and wiped his streaming eyes.

“In the infirmary,” Severus said, his gaze fixed on Dumbledore, who stared back at him through a curling haze of pipe smoke.

“Miss Potter has come a bit early to school this year,” Dumbledore said, his voice smiling now. “I’m sure she’d be delighted if you went up to say hello, Hagrid.”

“Righ’!” Hagrid pulled himself out of his chair. He spent a few moments crashing about inside his hut, and then re-emerged, his sleeves pulled down and sloppily buttoned, and loped off across the lawn.

“Won’t you have a seat, Severus?” Dumbledore asked, as if he was genuinely concerned.

Severus just watched him, feeling his fingers curling into claws like Minerva’s.

“I knew the moment you took her, of course,” Dumbledore said, peering over the top of his spectacles.

Severus had no doubt about that. He was fairly certain, too, that Dumbledore had been surprised, though not unprepared. 

“Do you know what a cat flap is, Headmaster?” Severus asked softly.

Dumbledore didn’t blink, but a slight crease appeared between his bushy white eyebrows. “I’m afraid I don’t, dear boy.”

“Muggles install them in their doors to allow their cats access to closed rooms. They’re quite small.”

“Large enough to allow a cat to pass?”

“Precisely,” Severus said, even more softly. “Miss Potter had one into her bedroom—so Petunia could push the food in to her without undoing the five bolts on the door.”

Dumbledore did not move at first. Then he slowly lowered his pipe. Finally, finally, his eyes held a glint of something cold, like fury.

But “I see” was all he said.

“I told you.” Severus could feel his heartbeat in his throat, smell the room, hear the drip of the wine as it dribbled off the table onto the soft carpet. “All those years ago, Dumbledore, I told you—”

“Severus,” said Dumbledore, in a voice that was somehow both gentle and final, with a hint of warning that it might not be gentle for long if Severus continued to push. “I remember, dear boy. And I remember what I told you—”

“Then go see her,” Severus hissed, wishing he had the power to make Dumbledore flinch; but no one did, not even the Dark Lord. “Go up to that fucking infirmary and see her.” 

He turned to leave, and then stopped and snarled over his shoulder, “And ask her about a house-elf named Dobby. Maybe she’ll tell you.”

Then he left to find something to smash.

❧

It felt good to have a bath.

When Madam Pomfrey had told Harriet the date, she realized she’d only been locked up in her room for five days. She said only because it had felt much longer than that. They had let her out to use the bathroom morning and evening, but not allowed her time even for a shower; just a sponge-bath with a bowl of cold water, a hard bar of soap and a flannel pushed through the cat flap. 

Now Harriet wallowed in the enormous infirmary bath, big enough that if she stretched out her arms to either side she was just short of touching the rims, where the water was so hot it steamed the air and turned her skin pink. The shampoo smelled like mint and the soap like honey.

How weird that she owed her current happiness to Professor Snape. 

He was an odd bloke, Snape. Odd-looking and odd-acting, and not just today. Of course, today he’d been extra odd, but he was never what you’d call normal. He was definitely the meanest teacher in Hogwarts, and a couple of older Ravenclaws were doing a research study to determine if he was the meanest teacher in the world.

He’d never been mean to Harriet, though. On the first day of Potions class, when she had already been unnerved by the cold dungeons and pickled animal fetuses floating in jars along the backlit walls, he had looked up from his roster and glared at her, his eyes dark and cold like empty tunnels, and she’d forced herself to keep staring back. And his gaze had hardened, then flickered, and he had glanced away, moving on down the list to Dean Thomas.

He’d never really looked at her again—not during that class, not for the whole year. Whenever he would swoop around the dungeon berating the other students for their crappy potions, he went right past her. The only thing he ever wrote on her homework was the letter grade, and he always dropped the parchment on her desk instead of handing it to her. Although he unpleasantly surprised the Gryffindors with pop questions during class, he never once called on her (and always ignored Hermione’s hand, but with a different air than the one he used to ignore Harriet). 

Harriet had been confused but grateful, though she’d also lived in dread of doing something that would confirm her as another Neville in his eyes, and then he’d call her a blithering worm-brain or an incompetent fathead and pick apart her failures. But Snape was never as nasty to the Gryffindor girls as he was to the boys. True, he had once told Lavender Brown that she would fail out of his class before the end of term if she couldn’t stop thinking about Myron Wagtail for two minutes together, and if Hermione answered a question when she hadn’t been called on he told her to stop being an overachieving show-off, but he let Harriet alone. She worked very hard to be let alone, using techniques she had perfected at the Dursleys to appear meek and insignificant. Of course, at the Dursleys’ her temper always spoiled it, and a time or two some of the things Snape said to Ron or Neville had made her steam, but Hermione always kicked her under the table before she could open her mouth and bugger things up. 

And really, Snape was scarier than Uncle Vernon. Uncle Vernon was just mean and stupid; Snape was clever and really mean.

He’d also saved her life by counter-jinxing her broom when Quirrell had tried to kill her, and then refereed the next match to stop him from trying it again. But all the while, he’d barely seemed to care that she existed.

Now he’d shown up at the Dursleys’, hexed them immobile, and brought her to Hogwarts. It had a pretty strong flavor of rescue to it. 

It was as weird as that visit from Dobby. 

This was turning out to be a weird summer. It must be the Hogwarts influence, she thought contentedly. She was all right with her life being weird as long as it was connected to magic.

She checked her toes and found them very pruney. Also, the water was now only warm, not steaming hot. It was probably time to get out.

Someone had hung a nightdress and dressing gown from a hook on the wall and laid out a fluffy white towel stitched with the Hogwarts crest. A house-elf, maybe? 

That’s right: Hogwarts had house-elves. If Dobby didn’t work here, maybe one of them would know how to find him. Harriet still had several things to ask him. Like what at Hogwarts could possibly be so dangerous to make a lifetime of imprisonment at Number Four worthwhile.

Especially when Dobby had said it didn’t have to do with Voldemort . . .

She pulled on the nightdress, wondering why Snape had been so surprised that she knew a house-elf named Dobby. He’d seemed specifically shocked about the name. Was it a weird name? A bad word in house-elfish? Or did he know a house-elf named Dobby?

Outside the steam-thick bathroom, the air in the infirmary felt thin and chilly. She shivered. Castles in the highlands weren’t exactly warm in summer. The stone was clean but cold beneath her bare feet. 

It was nighttime now, and the high windows that lined the ward were black and glimmering. In a wide pool of lemony lamplight sat Professor Dumbledore, reading a book with a brightly painted, moving cover that showed a boy and a dragon sailing a boat on an ocean.

“Professor?” Harriet said in surprise.

He looked up at her, bright-eyed and curious, and smiled. Or at least, she assumed he did; it was a bit hard to tell behind all the beard. But it moved in a smiling way.

“My dear girl, good evening,” he said, marking his place in the book and setting it in his lap. “Madam Pomfrey told me you were enjoying a much-deserved bath.”

“Yes, sir,” Harriet said. Her eyes went to a tray of food sitting on a table next to him. She wondered if he’d conjured it: the table had curling griffin’s feet, a blue tablecloth embroidered with shooting stars, and a centerpiece of yellow flowers that chimed softly like little bells. 

“I don’t remember that being in the hospital wing before, sir,” she said, pointing at the table.

“Ah, no.” His smile widened. “I went a little overboard passing the time. I used to be the Transfigurations professor, did you know? Before the unparalleled Professor McGonagall joined us. I do miss the constant occasion to transfigure all manner of things, so I occasionally find ways to indulge myself.” He shook his long sleeve back from his hand, extending his wand. “What’s your favorite color, my dear?”

“Green,” Harriet said, surprised. Aunt Petunia hated it when she wore green. It was Slytherin’s color, too, but green couldn’t help that any more than her wand could help having the same kind of core as Voldemort’s.

Dumbledore drew a shape in mid-air, and a real armchair formed like a starburst, upholstered in a beautiful dark green that reminded Harriet of the color of the Forbidden Forest in the sunset that evening. 

“Thank you, sir,” she said. The upholstery was the softest velvet she’d ever felt.

The smell of the food made her mouth water. More gruel (she grimaced), and rice, and thin strips of some kind of fish. 

“Please,” Dumbledore said, gesturing. “I’m sure you must be hungry.” He smiled again, but Harriet thought she sensed something hiding behind it, as if there were several closed doors and a curtain between her and that extra emotion.

She felt awkward and embarrassed in a way she didn’t understand, just like she had all evening, with Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall looking grim and trading grown-up eye-messages over her head. The more she’d said she was fine, the grimmer they had looked. 

“They feed me normally,” she said to Professor Dumbledore. 

“I am glad to hear it,” he said, but somehow it made her want to hide. She busied herself with the rice and the soup, clinking her spoon noisily against the bowl to fill the silence.

“You might be wondering why I am here,” Dumbledore said a few moments later, all traces of that unsettling emotion gone. “Besides the indisputable enjoyment of your company, of course.”

Harriet paused like Dudley with her spoon stuck in her cheek. “I thought you sent Professor Snape to get me?” 

“You are quite astute, my dear,” Dumbledore said. Harriet was sure she’d imagined the tiniest pause. “But did you not wonder why?”

“I thought maybe Hermione had done something,” Harriet admitted. “After Dobby told me he’d been stealing all my letters, I figured she’d know something was up, and she’s . . . she’s not really the do-nothing sort, Hermione, sir.” 

“Yes, I had a letter from Miss Granger—by Muggle post, in fact. I take it she doesn’t have an owl? Surmising that our world has spies in the Muggle post is just the sort of redoubtable action I’m always delighted to encounter.”

If that wasn’t Hermione all over. Harriet wished she was one eighth as clever. 

“Who is Dobby, by the way?” Dumbledore asked curiously.

“Oh—a house-elf. He came to warn me about some danger he said was at Hogwarts. Is he one of the castle elves?”

“I’m afraid I have never made the acquaintance of a house-elf named Dobby,” Dumbledore said. “At Hogwarts or elsewhere. But he sounds like the sort of chap I’d be most interested to meet. Did he tell you nothing about himself?”

She described Dobby’s ratty old pillowcase (which made the clothes she wore at the Dursleys look like they’d come from Harrods, although she didn’t tell Dumbledore that), and that his wizarding family was apparently horrid.

“. . . and he kept banging his head on things whenever he said something wrong, to punish himself,” she said, remembering Dobby beating himself with her desk lamp. “He said he was always having to do it—he was going to have to shut his ears in the oven door for coming to see me, even, and warning me—and his family let him and even told him to do more.”

She stopped, embarrassed again, but also hot with anger. But Dumbledore was looking grave and not smiling at all.

“The house-elf’s way of life is a form of enslavement so binding that it shapes the core of their very being,” Dumbledore said. “Many of our old families look upon it not as a sacred contract between wizard and elf, but as a right their magic grants them, and they abuse their power terribly. As a result, house-elves like this Dobby suffer greatly. You are right to dislike it.”

Harriet’s ears were burning. “He said it was even worse when Vol—sorry, You-Know-Who—”

“You may say the name, my dear,” Dumbledore said, his smile glimmering again before fading away. 

“Well . . . Dobby said it was worse for house-elves when Voldemort was in power. He was glad he’s gone and came to warn me, he said, because he . . . liked me, I guess, for—you know,” she mumbled. It sounded so self-important to say for defeating him when she’d been so young she couldn’t even remember doing it—and in May, she’d just held on, literally, until the professors saved her.

“It sounds, my dear, that if Dobby risked detection and courted punishment to warn you, he must admire you greatly. And he would be right to,” Dumbledore said, making Harriet’s face and neck flame. 

“He admired you, too, sir,” she mumbled.

“And yet it was to you that he came. Although he had never met you, he cared enough for you that he put himself at risk for you. It was a noble action, worthy of the greatest of us. Remember that, Harriet.” 

Then he made a steeple of his fingers and gazed up at the dark ceiling, which Harriet was grateful for, because tears were prickling thickly at her eyes. 

“Did Dobby tell you the nature of this danger?” Dumbledore asked, still staring into the shadows overhead.

“No.” Harriet blinked several times against the tears. She wasn’t going to cry, not today of all days, when she had everything to be happy about. “I asked him if it had to with Voldemort”—Dumbledore’s eyes fixed sharply on her face—“but he was really positive that it’s not.”

“Not to do with Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore repeated. “He told you nothing more?”

“Well, he was acting like that was some kind of a clue, but he couldn’t get anything else out. He started having a fit when he tried. Then he wanted me to promise not to go to Hogwarts, and when I said I couldn’t . . . ” She told him about the smashed pudding, the letter from the Ministry, and a very glossy retelling of her punishment. She wondered how much Snape had told him.

Dumbledore followed alertly along, nodding when she was done. “You do know how to live, don’t you, my dear?” he said, eyes twinkling like the stars on his robes. 

“Oh, no, sir,” Harriet said. “I like the quiet life.”

“In that case,” he said, “perhaps I shouldn’t have arranged for you to spend the remainder of the holiday with the Weasleys?”

Harriet was sure she couldn’t have heard right. She held her breath. “You did? Sir!” 

“In fact,” he said, twinkling even more brightly, “Mrs Weasley was quite insistent that she have you in her sight this very night. She had a few suggestions on what she might to do me were I tardy, fates which put me rather in mind of your friend Dobby—”

Harriet dropped her spoon into her bowl. “I’m ready! I’ll get dressed—it’s not too late, is it? What time is it,s ir?”

“A quarter past eleven, but Mrs Weasley assured me she would wait all night,” he said. “While assuring me what she would do to me, were I so remiss . . . ”

“I’ll be quick!” Harriet promised, dashing away.

Against all expectations, this had turned out to be a pretty wonderful day after all.

❧

For the first time in a month, Severus wished there were some students around. In his present state of temper, he would have loved to terrify a few of them into tears and dock a few hundred points for illicit snogging.

But without the little cretins to bully into submission, he had to resort to other methods. He withered a whole field of dusk-blooming violets, frightened a family of innocent voles in their burrow, insulted Filch (though not his cat, since he needed the caretaker as an ally), got into a bolt-shooting skirmish with Peeves, and rounded off his juvenile behavior by upsetting all of the birds in the owlery. 

The girl’s snowy owl hadn’t turned up yet. Well, it had several hours of flying ahead of it and was probably glorying in its freedom, if owls did such things.

With these stresses taken out on the undeserving, he retreated to his quarters to indulge in a good brood.

The air of his dungeon was less stale at this time of year than usual, seeing as he’d been there for most of the summer. With the Dark Lord’s cameo in May, Dumbledore had asked Severus to be on hand for those times when he wanted to strain information from him. Severus got very little information in return, but he preferred a summer spent at Hogwarts with Dumbledore at his most cryptic to several weeks in dreary Cokeworth, even if it was much easier to get cigarettes at Spinner’s End. 

He brooded over to the mantle. Years ago, Dumbledore had handed him a box of old photographs and asked if he wouldn’t deliver them to Minerva, as she had been asking after pictures of the Order from the old days. In it, Severus had found a recent photograph of Lily, sans Potter, Black, even her child. Of course, the box contained other photographs with her and some combination of the others, but he had slipped the Lily-only photo out before dumping the rest in Minerva’s lap. He kept it framed on the mantle, although he’d spelled it so that nobody but himself could see it.

“Your child is an ill-mannered brat,” he told her. She put her hands on her hips and gave him an arch look.

“But they all are,” he said, “and she has more reason than most.”

Far better reason than most . . . 

The memory of Petunia’s face when she’d seen him standing in her dining-room returned to the fore, clear and sharp as Technicolor. She’d hated him from the first moment of their meeting as children but had never looked at him that way before. Lily had told her about him, then, all those years ago.

But he remembered her darting glance toward her son, her hand flashing out toward him, a silent, frantic communication of No. The boy had been staring at the flickering television, stuffing his face, not even realizing what was happening until Severus had frozen them all and he hadn’t been able to pull his spoon out of his mouth.

And Petunia’s eyes, so full of agony as she watched Severus’s wand . . .

There had never been much resemblance between her and Lily, but in that moment he’d wondered how similar their feelings had been in fear for their children. And then he’d gone upstairs and found the girl locked up, hollow-eyed and disbelieving, and even without Leglimency he’d wondered if her incredulity hadn’t come so much from the sight of him as from the possibility that someone would come help.

Unless someone went and performed the counterspell, the girl’s family would be trapped in his Immobulus until some time tomorrow, like mosquitoes in amber. It would be an uncomfortable and frightening time.

“They’re lucky to still be breathing,” he told Lily’s photograph. It gave him an inscrutable stare and then looked away. Well, why shouldn’t it? He was a cruel bastard. 

Right now, he liked that about himself.

A small glass globe on the mantle glittered gold, signaling that Dumbledore was at the door to his quarters. “Come in,” he barked.

The headmaster rustled in, his robes twinkling in the lamplight like the sky on a clear night in winter. 

“Good evening, my boy,” he said. “I hear you’ve been enjoying yourself. Was it you who dropped that old grandfather clock three stories onto Peeves’s head?”

Severus pushed away the memories of Petunia and her son, of Lily and her daughter, like winding up a skein of yarn and putting it in a cabinet, shutting the door. 

“He threw the axe,” he said coolly.

“I believe that clock was over three hundred years old,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. “A gift of Charles II to Headmaster Hyde.”

“Neither of them has needed to tell the time for centuries.” Then, because being rude had no effect on Dumbledore, positive or negative, he asked, “What do you want?” 

Dumbledore conjured himself a seat uninvited next to the fireplace (because Severus only kept one armchair for a reason) and sat, and damn him if his eyes didn’t skim across the mantle. But Severus was sure he couldn’t see the photograph. He just guessed that it was there. 

“I thought you might like to know that Harriet is safely tucked up at the Burrow by now.” 

Severus made no acknowledgment: only stared at him, flat and indifferent.

“And I wanted to tell you,” Dumbledore went on, now examining a Muggle print that Severus had found years ago in an old re-sale shop, a woodland scene of an old man petting a doe, “that you did the right thing in bringing her away.”

Severus hated the way his heart jumped with gratitude. He hated disappointing Dumbledore to roughly the same degree that he despised hating it. 

But, coldly he said: “I knew that without you telling me.”

Dumbledore smiled at the print of the old man and the doe. “Of course. Did you want to hear what Harriet told me?”

 _Yes and fucking no._ “Did she mention the house-elf Dobby?”

“Yes.” Dumbledore finally looked at him, expectant.

“Dobby,” Severus savored it, “is Lucius Malfoy’s house-elf.”

Dumbledore blinked once, then sat up a little straighter. “Does he wear a filthy pillowcase and have green, tennis-ball sized eyes?”

Severus nodded. Dumbledore pressed his fingertips together, then against his mustache. 

“Harriet said he came to warn her that there terrible danger awaits her at Hogwarts,” he said, staring at a spot in mid-air. “A danger so great that remaining with her Muggle family would save her life.”

Severus felt as if he had dropped straight through a hundred feet of ice into arctic water. His own eyes shot to the mantle, where Lily’s photograph watched them, her eyes as bright and curious as her daughter’s.

“Do you credit it?” he asked hoarsely.

“That depends,” said Dumbledore, still staring at that spot in midair. “Anything is possible, but do you think it probable that Lucius Malfoy’s house-elf would do such a thing unbidden?”

“You mean, is it more likely one of the Malfoys is pulling a prank, or that the family is involved with something Dark at Hogwarts?”

“Quite so.”

Severus sank into thought. Although both he and Lucius had been sworn Death Eaters, Lucius had only ever congratulated Severus “on getting away so cleanly.” Lucius didn’t scruple to discard whatever loyalties he needed to in order to save his hide, but he respected the need in others to do the same. But Severus had naturally never told Lucius that his agenda had really changed. Lucius had always taken it for granted that he and Severus thought alike on the subject of the Dark Lord and extricating themselves from the ensuing scandal, but Severus was quite sure that, should the Dark Lord return, Lucius would be among the first to scrape back into his good graces, trampling any and all others in the mad rush to protect his own interests.

“Do you think it’s likely that Lucius has been contacted by Tom?” asked Dumbledore, his eyes grave yet penetrating.

“No,” Severus said with flat certainty. “The Dark Lord would not stoop to begging of servants who deserted him. If he returns”—and he felt a powerful surge of cold, burning hatred course through him at the thought of that creature walking the earth again—“he will only appear before the wayward when he’s regained his former power. He’ll want us to abase ourselves, those who escaped punishment. I’m fairly sure Lucius thinks the Dark Lord is dead for good.”

Dumbledore looked straight at him. “Do you think you could find out?” 

“Naturally.”

The Headmaster smiled.


	3. Sons and Mothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry these beginning chapters are pretty slow, action-wise! I'm trying to avoid transcribing canon and just changing "Harry" to "Harriet" - even though this is free reading, that would be such a rip-off. Canon is going on in the background, only factoring into the fic when I feel it's pivotal that it do so. Since this is a rewrite of the Chamber of Secrets, the canon plot will move into prominence when the school year starts (which it does nnnnext chapter, I think).

❧

Petunia had always hated magic.

_hated it because you can't have_

It was wrong, it was unnatural, it was perverted—it perverted everything it touched. Flowers returning to life after they'd fallen, dead, off their stalks. Humans flying free through the air, like their bones were as hollow as a hummingbird's. Things changing their shapes, people changing their hearts, changing who they were, who they loved . . .

As a girl, Petunia hadn't been able to decide which she hated more, magic or Severus Snape. Maybe one or the other couldn't have taken her sister away, or maybe they could have, she'd never know, but both together . . . Even when Lily had finally seen what a freak Snape was, when she cut him off without any remorse and Petunia had taken to saying his name to watch and relish the way Lily's face twisted, she hadn't come back. There had still been that chasm between them, broken open by magic, by Snape. There had been no putting it back together.

_all the king's horses, all the king's men_

Petunia hadn't seen him since he was a skinny boy of sixteen—fifteen?—seventeen?—the last time she'd been forced by her parents to greet Lily at that terrible (wonderful, exhilarating, wretched, hateful) platform. Lily and Snape had been fighting that time, so it might have been the start of that summer, but they had always fought. They were always rowing, always quarreling, and Lily would slam doors and shout and tell everyone she was never speaking with him again, only to flash merrily down the stairs the next day, calling I'm meeting up with Sev, don't wait up on her way out the door. Then she'd come back smelling like cigarettes, her clothes all dirty and dusty, her face flushed and her tongue sharper, tossing her hair and thinking she was queen of Cokeworth.

But after that summer, except for a distant glimpse of him somewhere—up the street from the grocery, maybe, or on the edge of the park near their house, down by the curve of the river—Petunia had never seen him, because Lily had told the truth for once and hadn't made up with him. Even if she was never again Petunia's sister the way she once had been, Petunia had at least gotten that triumph: Lily wasn't hers, but she wasn't Snape's, either.

Lily had warned her about him. _He's going to be a Death Eater. It's hard to explain—no, just listen, would you, Tuney? Death Eaters, they're like this cult, this death cult, they practice awful magic—not really like Satanism, but think of it that way if you want—no, not yet, but he will be, all right? They hate Muggles like you and Mum and Dad and Muggle-born witches like me. So if you see him . . . just watch out._

And there he had been _watch out_ in Petunia's dining room _so if you see him_ all grown up. Beyond ugly, beyond nasty, terrifying _just watch out_ his face white and twisted and his foul, uneven teeth bared _watch out_

His wand was made of black wood.

She'd reached for Dudley, staring at the wand, the sight of it burning into her retinas, knowing she couldn't do anything but just watch she had to try.

And then he'd frozen them and just walked away. Taken the girl. And she'd gone with him.

Petunia didn't know about Vernon and Dudley, what they thought; but she had known that Snape could have killed them if he'd wanted to, and they'd have been able to do nothing except die.

She hated magic hated it hated it

The telly kept playing. The clock in the parlor ticked. The wine she'd knocked over was staining the carpet for good. Her muscles were aching, protractedly and unnaturally, all over. She could barely breathe, couldn't even blink. Her eyes stung like ants were crawling in them. Sweat was running down the side of Vernon's face. She couldn't see Dudley. Her hand was stretched out toward him but she'd been facing Snape in the doorway.

He'd taken her. God only knew what he was doing with her even now, the sick, nasty, perverted freak of a wretch—not that Petunia cared, it served them right, but it was sick, all the same. . .

The clock in the parlor began to toll midnight. How many hours was that (five)?

When the last gong died into the ticking silence, it left the house quiet enough that she heard the front door click open.

Her heart began to race. Her whole body filled with the desperation to move, to protect her baby, to call for help, but it couldn't move, not even an inch, not even a hair—her throat crowded with her breath, unable to expand, frozen as it was—

The intruder climbed the stairs. The faint creaks were audible but subdued, like footsteps calmly walking. In the midst of panic, Petunia was bewildered. Had this intruder also come for Lily's brat? Well, he wouldn't find her.

Please God let him not be angry that he couldn't find her let him just go

The stairs creaked as the uninvited guest walked back down, a few minutes later, and a shadow undulated across the wallpaper in the hallway outside the dining room. Coming toward the dining room. She couldn't blink, but would she had if she could? Would she have closed her eyes even for that long?

A man appeared in the doorway, tall and wearing ludicrous wizard's (freak's) clothes in glittering purple, with layers of silvery beard and hair reaching to his waist. Petunia knew him, she remembered him, from Lily's funeral, when he'd walked her up to the coffins and held her hand until she'd shaken him off.

His wand was in his hand now, abhorrent thing, making her sick. He waved it in the air like a child drawing invisible pictures and said clearly, "Finite Incantatum."

She felt Snape's spell lift, like plastic wrap peeling off of her skin, like electricity shooting across her muscles. She, Vernon and Dudley all gasped, sagging, clutching their throats, trying not to slip out of their chairs to the floor.

Dudley's breaths were sobbing and loud, wrenching at Petunia's heart, and she forced her stiff, aching body out of her chair to gather him against her. He clung on, and somewhere in the depths of her fear and her relief and her loathing (for magic and Albus Dumbledore and Snape and Lily and her brat), her heart flew, because she couldn't remember the last time her baby had done more than suffer her affection. Dudley was growing up, becoming a man, and although it made her burst with pride, she ached for those years when he had reached for her, crying real or false tears, because he wanted to be held, and her world had revolved around that. It still did, even though it was seldom allowed.

But now he hung onto her, miserable and bewildered and scared, because of these wizards, and she felt a sense of rightness and of shame.

"You." Vernon's voice was garroted, gurgling. He had pushed himself to his feet, but he had to lean unsteadily on the table to stay upright. Petunia couldn't help noticing how the old man towered over him . . . but it didn't matter whether Dumbledore was the larger man or whether he was as small as Snape, whom Vernon could have crushed if it weren't for magic wands. Because there were magic wands, and no competition would ever be level between those who had and those who hadn't.

"You—get out of my house," Vernon croaked, "before I call the police—I'll have you locked up, so help me—"

Dumbledore had folded his hands into his wide, bell-like sleeves, was listening to Vernon with every sign of courteous interest. In that moment, Petunia despised him almost more than Snape.

"I doubt the attempt would alleviate the suffering tonight has caused you," Dumbledore said, almost gently. "And you must have seen . . . that it would be little more than an attempt."

"You—" Vernon had got his voice back; Petunia could tell he was now only speechless from fury and the memory of what had happened. "You-u filthy old—"

"Bullies." Petunia was startled to hear her own voice, a whiplash of venom, that made Dumbledore turn his attention serenely on her. "Cowards and murderers—you come into our home and you threaten—"

"I make no threats," Dumbledore said, and she loathed how tranquil he was. "If Professor Snape delivered any, you may now consider them withdrawn."

Professor? Petunia's rage, driven off-course, gave way to confusion, and she stared in silence; Vernon, too, Dudley snuffling but listening, watching around the sharp angle of her own arms.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, as if hearing every unspoken yet incredulous question, "Professor Snape is one of Harriet's, your niece's," his voice cooled, Petunia heard it, and could have killed him, "teachers, and under my employ. I sent him to check up on Harriet after I received an alarming communication that she was not being allowed certain natural freedoms."

He tilted his head to look at them over the tops of his spectacles. His gaze was not kind or threatening, or even considering: it was the gaze of a priest, of a man with the power of God to see into your soul, all the stains of sin and guilt inflicted on it through the years. And like a priest in a confession box, he made no condemnation, but he had heard you through that thin partition, and he knew what you'd done.

"I have little wish," he said, "to involve the authorities, but conditions such as Professor Snape informed me of, and which I have now verified for myself, are matters which could place you, Mr and Mrs Dursley, in an awkward position with the law. Forceful imprisonment and starvation are matters that child protective services would not easily condone."

"Then call them," Petunia whispered, her voice hissing out in a bitter taunt. "Either call them or get out of my house."

"That's right," Vernon said, his voice so loud that Dudley jumped. "Either call the ruddy authorities or get out of my house before I call them, you pompous old windbag—"

Dumbledore held up his hand. Even though it was empty of his wand, they all froze. He gazed at them . . . sadly, Petunia thought.

A carving knife for the chicken lay on the table, bits of flesh stuck to its blade. She could feel the phantom weight of it in her hand, the dimensions of the handle, the chill of the stainless steel. She wondered how the impact would judder through her bones if it sank into living human flesh.

"Eleven years ago," Dumbledore said quietly, "I asked that you take Harriet into your home and provide her with love and care. The first part of my request you answered . . . however begrudgingly. But can you tell me that you have answered the second? After what I have seen upstairs, can you tell me this?"

The clock chimed three light notes: a quarter past midnight. No one spoke.

"I regret what Professor Snape has done," Dumbledore said, still serene but solemn, too, still in that priest-like way. "But I regret infinitely more what has been done to that poor child he took away with him."

"We couldn't stop him," Vernon said immediately. "Shouldn't you, with all your ruddy magic, be able to find the bastard, if you're so ruddy concerned about the blasted girl? Not that she didn't go with the freak all willing—"

"Mr Dursley," Dumbledore said, in a voice like a professor calmly restoring order in a classroom, after a student has just said something lewd or racist, "Professor Snape brought Harriet straight to Hogwarts. I am sure you will be relieved to hear that Madam Pomfrey—our resident . . . physician, as you would call her, I believe?—was able to combat Harriet's malnourishment. She is now quite safe in the company of her friends."

"Good," Vernon said with feeling. "Then she can ruddy well stay there. We're not having that little freak back in this house. We've had nothing but trouble from your lot—"

"I am afraid," Dumbledore said, "that you must accept Harriet back into your home."

There was no change in his inflection, his stance or his expression, but Petunia thought she felt, ineffably, that he did not want to say this any more than they wanted to hear it. She certainly didn't want to hear it. The very thought was a violation. Take that brat back into their home, put her within reach of Petunia's own beloved boy, when at any moment those wizarding freaks could raze the house to the ground and murder them all, with a snap of the fingers or a flick of the wrist? Who did he think he was, to ask that, who did he think she was—

She realized, then, that she had been shrieking all this out loud, screaming at Dumbledore. Dudley had ducked his head, cowering against her hip, because she'd got to her feet and grabbed the carving knife and was waving it at Dumbledore like a wand, jabbing and slashing at the air. Vernon looked horrified. His slack face, his wide eyes, said he wanted to calm her down but didn't dare.

She wasn't one of them. She wasn't a murderer, wasn't a freak. Even if they deserved it.

She dropped the knife. It bounced off the edge of the table with a clatter and thumped to the stained carpet.

"Look what you've made me do," she whispered.

The whole time, Dumbledore had been silently, attentively watching her, as if he were listening to a potent speech by the Prime Minister. She placed her hand on Dudley's shoulder and felt him quivering with fear, or perhaps with the aftereffects of being frozen for five hours, or maybe from watching his mother scream and wave a knife through the air.

"No," she said simply, her throat tight.

"I am afraid you must," said Dumbledore.

Her rage made the light in the room flare, incandescent. "How can you ask—"

"How," he returned, his pale eyes fixing her with the force of a spell, "can you have treated the daughter of your sister so?"

Do you really want to know old man do you really

"Now wait just a minute—" Vernon started.

"There is no crime a child can commit that would justify the imprisonment and starvation you have so recently inflicted." Dumbledore's voice made the pale shadows on the wall seem to warp, the brightness of their electricity to dim, the stuffy, panicked warmth of their house to cool. "Nor the emotional neglect of a lifetime. It pains me more than I can express to have no choice but to return Harriet to this place." His gaze swept the room as though it were the most rancid of prisons, like that Azkaban place that Snape used to go on about, with those creatures that could suck out your soul. "But I do have no choice. And I must remind you that you have no choice but to take her."

When Vernon spluttered, Dumbledore went on, "As I told you eleven years ago, as Harriet's relatives, you are vulnerable to Lord Voldemort's machinations and those of his followers. But if she can call your home as hers, then the protection that Lily's sacrifice gives to her will also encompass you. So long as you honor Lily's memory by allowing Harriet to have a home here, her protection is yours as well."

And Petunia could imagine it all to plainly, now: wizards, breaking into her home, coming for her precious baby, all because of Lily . . .

But something wasn't right, something he had said was wrong, very wrong, like a jagged edge that wouldn't fit. It only took her a moment to find it, while Vernon grumbled and chuntered under his breath. "Then how come he was able to get in and take her?" she demanded.

"The charm protects Harriet—and you—against those who would harm you," Dumbledore said, unfazed. "Professor Snape was acting, by his beliefs, in Harriet's best interests, from a desire to help her. But if she hadn't wished to go with him, he would not have been able to remove her from this house—"

"He put us under a spell!"

"He Immobilized you. It is not a harmful spell, and was chosen for that reason. Though I do not doubt its psychological repercussions under these circumstances," he went on before they could retaliate, "the nature of the magic allows for it. But Death Eaters—Lord Voldemort's followers—would not be so . . . benign."

"He's a Death Eater!" Petunia spat. "She told me, all those years ago—"

"Death—?" Vernon repeated, clearly bewildered.

"Please allow that the situation is more complex than can be succinctly explained," Dumbledore said. Without waiting for their reply, he said, "Will you submit to the protection of the spell and allow Harriet to return?"

Petunia wanted to say no, oh, to God she did. She didn't want that nasty, unnatural spawn of freaks anywhere near her baby (whether she meant Snape or the little brat she didn't know, she could easily have meant both, since one brought the other). But . . . if it could protect Dudley . . . if letting the girl back in would keep him from harm . . .

"All right," Petunia spat. She had to force the words out of the twisted mass of hatred in her heart, out of her throat clogged with desperation, and ignore Vernon's sputter of disbelief. (The last was the easiest part.) "Now get out."

Dumbledore inclined his head to them. "I thank you," he said. Then, without another word, he left. Perhaps he didn't want to offer any words, perhaps he knew they wouldn't have helped. Petunia didn't care. Now that he was gone, it would be ten, almost eleven months before they had to see another wizard.

Until the girl grew up or died, that was all they could hope for.

❧

Narcissa's gardens were in bloom, mostly irises at this time of the year. Today Wiltshire was sunny, and the scent of grass drifted on the wind.

There were times when the evidence of how his life had diverged from his expectations struck Severus so forcibly, he almost reeled. The approach to Malfoy Manor was like some literal manifestation of memory lane. Whenever he walked the path to the front gates, he was reminded of ambitions long turned to dust: not of wealth and influence centered in a great house and sprawling grounds, not necessarily, but of power and status. He used to come to this house to find it, back in those days when the Dark Lord's presence at one's dinner table was an honor.

The house itself was dark, heavy and imposing. It suited Lucius, although it had suited his father more. With every generation the Malfoy blood seemed to water down, producing heirs who were more sociopathically self-involved than ruthless. Looking at the steeply sloping black roof, the windows like narrow eyes, he couldn't imagine Draco becoming head of this household. The moldings in the nursery had given him nightmares until he was nine.

The smell of gravel was strong on the drive, and the fountain gushed cool, clear water. Its sculpture resembled Bernini's Apollo and Daphne so closely that Severus had always wondered whether some Malfoy ancestor hadn't robbed the Galleria Borghese and left a replica in place of the real thing. That was a pureblood all over for you: scorn Muggles and everything to do with them, but drink their wine and steal their art.

The house-elf let him in the front door, just as he'd hoped.

Its appearance was as miserable as the girl had described to Dumbledore, and there were recent welts on its ears that looked like the marks of an oven door. It cringed at his feet in a sort of abasing bow, and it was all he could do not to tell it to get up off the floor and stop cowering.

A glance said the front hall was empty of company, and the house around him was silent. He stared down at the elf, wringing its hands while it waited for directions.

"Miss Potter sends her regards," he said softly.

The elf went rigid, as if hit with a Full Body Bind. It darted a fearful, bewildered look up at his face but then screwed its eyes shut immediately.

"D-dobby does n-not know wh-what Profess-ssor Snape Sir-r means—"

"Don't lie to me," Severus hissed, checking again to make sure the hall was empty. "Where is Lucius?"

"Mmmmaster Malfoy and Young Mmmaster Draco are at D-diagon Alley—" the elf squeaked.

"And Narcissa?"

"On the s-south terrace!"

He made a dash for an umbrella stand, in punishment for what, Severus didn't know, but he grabbed it by its skinny little arm.

"What is coming to Hogwarts?" he demanded.

"Dobby cannot say!" it squealed. "Dobby cannot! Dobby has told Harriet Potter she must stay away to be safe! Dobby—" He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head so hard his ears went flap flap flap.

Internally, Severus swore. Leglimency didn't work on house-elves; their brains were too different. And, he thought as the elf thrashed in his grip, straight interrogation wasn't going to work.

He was under no illusions about himself: if it would help to torture the elf, he would do it. But he knew enough about house-elves to know that it would do no good. They were magically bound to serve one family until released either by decree or by death, and that service was absolute. Their masters didn't have to order the elves to keep their secrets; it was so deeply ingrained into their being that the elf had punished himself for delivering a warning. More than the warning he wouldn't be able to give.

The elf gasped, "Dobby must go!" and vanished from beneath Severus's hand.

Swearing aloud this time, Severus headed for the south terrace. He had known how it would be, and yet he was disgusted and furious.

He debated setting some of Lucius's silk damask drapes on fire but decided that while it wouldn't make him feel any worse, he wouldn't feel any better, either.

As he let himself out onto the south terrace, he wound up all his feelings of frustration, anger, anxiety and slipped them underneath his everyday contempt. Although he considered himself to be, in some ways, particularly subtle, he was aware that he had only two ways of getting information: frighten it out of them, or snoop. The first technique had failed, so now it had to be the second.

Of course, anyone who tried to frighten information out of Narcissa Malfoy had obviously never met her.

Malfoy Manor suited Narcissa even less than it did her son. It was no surprise to find her sitting on her tiered terrace beneath a sunshade, drinking lemonade from a long-stemmed crystal goblet at a wrought-iron table painted white. The long, full hem of her silvery gown rippled in the breeze. Narcissa always reminded him of a Watteau.

"Severus, my pigeon," she said, glancing up as his shadow fell across the table. Her mouth did not smile because she didn't want to risk wrinkles, but her eyes said she was pleased. "It's good to see you—and looking more like Dracula than ever. How ever do you manage it?"

"I live in a dungeon," he said. The chairs were likewise white-painted wrought iron, but someone had applied a cushioning charm and they weren't uncomfortable at all.

Narcissa sighed, a soft, wistful, almost yearning sound. "Don't you wish summer was longer?" she asked, staring around at her garden, which the house-elf no doubt tended for her. If Narcissa had ever had dirt under her fingernails, the last time must have been when she and her sisters had still plaited ribbons in their hair.

"I wish it were indefinite," he said, thinking drearily of all the long days and coming nights when the students would be back in residence. His Slytherins had appalling tendencies to knock on his door at all hours and tell him the most inappropriate stories, most of which ended with his suggesting flatly that they invest in contraception and preventatives against disease.

"If only it didn't have to be boarding school," Narcissa said. "If only Draco could come home in the evenings, the house wouldn't feel so wretchedly empty. I'm re-decorating the Slightly Greenish Drawing-room just to have something to do. And Potentilla Parkison has far too much time on her hands to nurture everything about her that is insufferable now her last daughter's out of her hair."

"I'm shocked to think she was ever involved in that girl's life at all," Severus said. Pansy Parkinson demanded too much attention from everyone to suggest otherwise. She particularly loathed Lily's daughter for taking some portion of it away from her.

"I couldn't believe it myself, but what else could be the explanation? The wretched, ugly girl went off to Hogwarts at the same time as Draco. Severus, darling, you'll let me know if it seems like Draco might do something horrific like fancy the little gorgon, won't you? Young men always take the most ludicrous fancies to the most unsuitable girls . . . "

It isn't Pansy Parkinson you're going to have to worry about, Severus thought. No, if Draco's constant attempts at one-upping Lily's daughter and sulking when he failed were any indication, he'd be nursing a full-blown crush by the start of next year, if not sooner. Severus hoped the girl, at least, had better taste. He was very fond of Draco, but he it would probably take him a good fifteen minutes to think of a more self-absorbed little prat . . .

No, in fact, it wouldn't. "You won't believe who's going to be the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"Ooh," Narcissa said, sparkling at his tone. "Someone dreadful, is it?"

"If I don't wind up developing an ulcer, I'll probably commit murder before Easter."

"Oh, that tells me nothing. You want to murder at least twelve different people every quarter of a minute. Who is it this time?"

"I believe it was you who told me you saw him in Baudelaire's Beatific Parlor, having his hair set."

"No—not Gilderoy Lockhart?" Narcissa gasped. When Severus grimaced, she let out a peal of silvery laughter. "Him, teach Defense? He can curl an eyelash with the best of us, but Defense? What is that absurd old man thinking?"

"That there were only two applicants for the position, and one of them was me," Severus said with a sneer that conveyed his many-layered disgust.

"Oh, well, then," said Narcissa. "No, Severus, he's too afraid you'll torture the little beasts—or that the curse will get you. Come now, my lamb," she said when he snorted, "there's not been a single teacher who could hold that post more than a year, not since before we were students . . . and if you dare to recall how many years that is, I will give you a good sharp jab in the eye with my sunshade. It must be cursed."

He scowled at a patch of yellow iris. "Well, it's done. They won't learn a bloody thing, unless it's about eyelash curling."

"He has written all those books, you know," Narcissa said contemplatively, rotating her sunshade so the shapes of the shadows on her arms warped like a kaleidoscope. "And the majority of them are on the booklist that dreadful McGonagall sent, in fact. Speaking of gorgons . . . Well, this explains it."

"I'm sure he plagiarized every word," Severus said.

A clatter on the terrace above made him look around. Draco had run out, wearing Quidditch robes stitched in the same cut and colors as the Appleby Arrows and dragging a broom that Lucius must have just bought him; all the twigs were sleek and in place and the mahogany handle gleamed in the sunlight. No twelve-year-old boy could keep a thing in such good condition if he'd owned it more than a day.

"Mum!" he said imperiously, strutting down the steps toward them. "See the broom Father's just bought for me! Oh hullo, Professor," he added with a negligence that he must have been practicing for some time; it was quite good. Very decently obnoxious.

Narcissa paid the broom several practiced compliments, even managing to sound to Severus's cynical ears as if she meant them.

"Well, I'm off to fly her," Draco said, and in his excitement forgot to act like the heir of a crashing snob. He ran down the flight of stone steps to the bright lawn below, looking for a moment as if he were just a normal twelve-year-old boy, not a child who might be living on the verge of a long, dark shadow . . . some of which might soon be cast by his own father.

Severus gauged the expression on Narcissa's face as she watched her son. It was tender yet fierce, pride mixed with humility.

"He's happy at Hogwarts," he told her.

"Yes." Her eyes looked bright, but he was certain that if he tried to count the years it had been since Narcissa had last cried, she'd jab him in the other eye with her parasol. "He had a delightful first year. Although he was quite put out about that business with the House Cup at the end of the year—"

That. Severus had refused to speak to Dumbledore for twenty-six days. To abase his House like that, in front of everyone . . . Severus had always been aware of Dumbledore's House bias, but that stunt had been even more blatant than anyone (mostly Minerva) had ever accused himself of being.

"But it's to be expected," Narcissa said, her lip curling with ladylike distaste, "from a school run by Gryffindors."

"A great many atrocities are to be expected from such quarters," drawled Lucius's familiar voice, so posh it sometimes made Severus's teeth ache to listen to it. He always winced inside when Lucius pronounced 'years' with an 'h.'

". . . But what is it this time?" he asked, coming to a stop next to the table and looking down his straight, aristocratic nose at them. Severus felt old habits clicking on, like lights in a Muggle house: betray no new expression, watch for the subtle tells of lies, agendas, anxieties.

Lucius looked like someone who wanted to bring something up, but was waiting for the opportune moment.

"Lucius darling," Narcissa greeted him. "Oh, Severus and I were only rehashing that criminal business with the Cup."

"Ah." Though naturally less ladylike, his sneer had all the precision of his wife's. "Of course. Draco wrote us, and we had—"

"Mu-u-um!" Draco's voice went wheeling overhead. "Hyyyyyaaaaaaah!"

"Spectacular flying, my darling," Narcissa called after him, but he was already a whooping dot in the distance. "Another broom, Lucius?"

"I purchased the lot for the Slytherin Qudditch team, I had to get him one, too," Lucius said irritably.

"The whole team? What in Merlin's kingdom for?"

"For Draco to bribe his way on, naturally," said Lucius, as if it should have been obvious but he was pleased with himself nonetheless. "What do you think, Severus?"

Severus would be dearly disappointed if this was all Lucius had been waiting to talk about. "What position?"

"Seeker," Lucius said, with a subtle look and grimace that dared Severus to connect this to Draco's nascent obsession with the girl.

"I thought Draco preferred Chaser," Narcissa said, which told Severus that she had skimmed right over the parts of Draco's letters that had even remotely dealt with Quidditch.

"All I know is that Seeker is the desire he professed," Lucius said. "It might be Beater tomorrow, for all I know."

"Whoohoo-hooo-ooh!" Draco commented as he shot overhead in a sou-sou-westerly direction.

"Seven Nimbus 2001s," Lucius told Severus slyly. He must be in a good mood today to play the bribery game to the hilt; normally, he would have bribed just for the sake of acting the part of the Honorable Slytherin while not-so-subtly reminding Severus what sort of lamentable social position he occupied.

"Which will naturally give them an edge over the whole of the Gryffindor team," Severus said blandly, "whose best broom by far is a Nimbus 2000." And the girl's.

"I have full confidence in Slytherin's ability to outperform the Mudbloods and pinheads of Gryffindor," Lucius said smoothly. "But there's no harm in doing the thing properly, is there?"

"None at all," Narcissa said warmly, while Severus forced his fingers to uncurl from his palms. His skin stung where his nails had dug in. "Draco will be so happy to be on the team, Severus, he talked of it endlessly all last year." So she had read that much. There had probably been no avoiding the general impression.

"I'll let the captain know," Severus said. His voice, he was pleased to hear, sounded as normal and subtly self-satisfied as Lucius's. Of course, this was only a small test of his ability to feign and dissemble, but for the moment it had returned to him as naturally as breathing. And he was here in the capacity of a spy.

He might have expected to regret that, even though he could find no trace of the feeling. These people had been his friends for years. Draco had thrown up on him more times than he could count during infancy (whenever anyone looked at him sideways, it had seemed).

But he remembered the girl's skin when he'd torn her away from Quirrell: as cold as marble and hot as dry ice, gray tinged with green, only the whites of her eyes showing. If Lucius was plotting something at Hogwarts that would threaten her, then a line was drawn and crossed.

He wasn't going to fail Lily again.

"Dobby," Lucius said coldly.

With a crack, the house-elf appeared on the terrace, looking just as miserable as before. His bow this time looked like an attempt to tie himself into a knot.

While Lucius abused his elf with an order to bring wine, Narcissa murmured, "Oh dear. Draco's decapitated the topiary."

A few moments later, Draco clattered over to the table, dragging his broom (several of whose twigs were already snapped), his white-gold hair sticking out like a haystack infused with a corona of broken leaves.

"This broom is brilliant," he declared, throwing himself into a chair next to his mother, who began picking the leaves out of hair. She could have used a spell, but she didn't.

"I'll leave those Gryffindorks in the dust," he gloated. "Won't I, sir?" This last was said to Severus, who had apparently returned, for the moment, to the ranks of People Worth Noticing. But not too far: without waiting for a reply, Draco went on haughtily, "Even Potter won't be able to keep up with me."

"That Potter girl plays Quidditch?" Narcissa asked, and if she didn't use any insulting epithets, it was only because they were sewed into her tone.

"Mu-um," Draco said, aggrieved, "I told you this only like a billion times!"

"Is that how you speak to your mother?" Lucius asked coldly, and Draco went pink.

"I apologize, Mother," he said, stiffly formal, deflating in relief only when Lucius permitted him an infinitesimal nod of approval.

The house-elf reappeared with a crack, carrying a carafe of porcelain so delicate, the wine shone dark red through the vessel's sides in the sunlight.

"I'm terribly sorry, my darling," Narcissa told her son, smoothing his hair. "It must have slipped my mind. Well, I don't consider it remotely ladylike. But even when I was at school, Gryffindor girls played on the House teams . . . " Her expression conveyed her explicit thoughts about these girls, and her deep satisfaction not to have been one.

But the girl flew like it was in her blood, with a speed and flair that had sent Minerva clutching at Severus's arm in terror and Flitwick squeaking _Gracious Rowena! Goodness me!_ Severus had watched her drop like a stone through the air, his own stomach shooting into his throat, not seeing how in Hell she was going to manage to pull up—and then she'd toppled lightly onto the grass and coughed up the Snitch into her palm. He remembered Dumbledore's delighted laughter, a sound of pure, unfettered joy. The girl's beaming face when she'd held up the Snitch to stadium-wide cheers had made Severus ache with the knowledge that his choices had stolen Lily's chance of ever seeing this. He had told her photograph about it later, feeling maudlin and foolish, and the photograph had smiled at him.

It always smiled when he talked about the girl. But it wasn't smiling a smile for him, he knew. It was a smile for her daughter, the mirror image of Narcissa's when she looked at her son.

Feeling weary, Severus glanced at Lucius, who was listening to Draco natter about Quidditch with an expression that could only be described as boredly indulgent. Of all the truly dreadful things Severus knew about the man, he couldn't imagine him doing something to endanger his own son.

"I expect you'll make me proud this year, Draco," Lucius said as the Quidditch drone wound down. "I hardly anticipate that your exam scores will again be bested by a girl of no wizarding family whatsoever."

Draco's cheeks flamed, while Narcissa shot Lucius a look like a frozen bradawl; but he was busy tasting his wine.

"Yes, sir," Draco said, still pink. Then his expression darkened to a shade between sulky and menacing, and Severus was reminded that he was growing up. Many things came with adulthood, including an adult's hatred. "I would had last year if that miserable old coot of a Headmaster hadn't stolen the Cup from us to give to Potter and Weasley and that Mudblood Granger."

Severus wondered if he could convince Draco that when he docked him points for saying that word, he was really doing it for showing a lack of Slytherin subtlety.

"We saw them in Diagon Alley today," Draco went on, his pale eyes glinting, "all those stupid Weasleys and Potter with them all covered in soot, don't know what she'd been—"

The house-elf dropped the carafe. Before the echo of breaking porcelain had faded, Lucius had cracked Dobby upside the head with his cane.

"Idiot elf!" he snarled, hitting Dobby on the other side. "That was the '47! There are only five bottles of it left in the cellar!"

"Dobby is sorry, Master!" the elf squealed. "Dobby will not do it again!"

"It's no wonder he can't do anything right, if you beat him around the head like that," Severus observed. "His brain must be addled from rattling around in his skull."

"He's always been useless," Lucius said in disgust. "That had better not have been the last of it you dropped," he told Dobby with a menacing snarl. "Fetch the rest! And if it's ruined . . . " He let the promise of unspeakably terrible punishments linger in the air.

"Thank you, Master Malfoy Sir, thank you," Dobby gasped, and vanished.

"That house elf is so stupid," Draco said. "He can't do anything right."

"It _is_ down to personality," Narcissa said. "My Aunt Walburga had the most delightful creature—wretchedly ugly, of course, but so devoted. You know, I wonder what happened to him? I sometimes wonder if Regulus's death didn't carry him off . . . "

Both Lucius and Draco were clearly uninterested in the deaths of people whom the former had never cared about and the latter hadn't ever met, so she left it at that, with only a single, fleeting glance at Severus. He inclined his head the barest amount to acknowledge it. Walburga Black meant nothing to him, but he'd known Regulus. They still didn't know what had happened to him. If the Dark Lord had killed him, even by proxy, they'd have heard; the Dark Lord had never let his kills suffer anonymity. Severus had always suspected Regulus's murderer had been Sirius Black, which was why it had been no surprise to him when he killed— after his own brother—

The house elf returned, thank God. He almost wished it would do something else foolish; the beating would distract him from thoughts of—

"Oh!" Draco said, bouncing. "And that ponce Lockhart is going to be our Defense professor! What a load of rubbish. He'll probably teach us all to curl our hair. Though Granger doesn't need it, at least," he said, sniggering.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Lucius said softly. "If the old Muggle-loving fool Dumbledore really wishes to teach the children to combat darkness, he's failing miserably. Well." His sneer shifted to a smile, but one that was no less unpleasant. "After this year, he may find himself deeply regretting his negligence."

Severus's attention sharpened to a knife point, cold and hard and pinned on the elf's miserable unhappiness, the subtle triumph in Lucius's face, the flicker of wariness in Narcissa's pale eyes.

"Why?" Draco asked eagerly. "What's special about this year?"

"Now, Draco," Lucius told him, gray eyes glinting, "Good things come to those who wait."


	4. A Few Spots of Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Got some bits of canon dialogue in this chapter, especially in Lockhart's lines. They're some of my favorite parts of CoS; I couldn't pass up using them.
> 
> -I know that "bally" is pretty old-fashioned slang, but it just seemed like something wizards would say. They're old-fashioned sorts.

"That was a nightmare," Harriet said grimly, trying to drag her trunk up the sloping grounds without putting too much weight on her left ankle.

"Of all the rotten luck," Ron said, "we had to hit the tree that hits _back_."

Their luck had certainly been patchy all day. First they'd been shut out of the barrier at 9 ¾, which had seemed like the worst thing that could possibly happen; especially to Harriet, who'd more than once drifted out of nightmares where she was back at the Dursleys' with bars on her window and locks on the door. It had always taken her a while to fall back asleep, staring at the patch of starlight glittering through Ginny's small, bright window.

But then, brilliantly, Ron had remembered his parents' car. They'd flown it out of London and followed the train to Hogwarts, making good time; but then the engine had failed as they'd flown in, and they'd crashed into a tree that had nearly beaten them to death.

"And my bloody wand," Ron moaned, trying to stuff a catatonic Scabbers into his pocket. "How am I supposed to do anything with my wand bloody broken?"

"I'm sure they'll be able to fix it?" Harriet said.

"They'd better," Ron said grimly. "Or Mum'll sew my skin back on once she's done taking it off for losing the car, just so she can skin it right back off."

"Surely someone'll be able to find the car?" Harriet said, wincing at this disgustingly horrifying picture. "I mean, how far can it go?"

"I don't want to find out. Here, let's stop before my legs break off, they feel like they're halfway there already."

They dropped their trunks at the foot of the front steps. Windows glowed golden high overhead on the turret's faces; stars shone against the silky backdrop of the night. A few low clouds skimmed the tallest towers, and moonlight glittered on the black waters of the lake below.

Professor Sinistra had told them the stars made humanity aware of its own insignificance, but for Harriet it was Hogwarts, only in a good way. It was easy to believe that Hogwarts had always been there and always would be; that it would outlast everyone, and yet there would always be someone new to come home it.

When she placed her hand the castle's wall, she was surprised to feel it was slightly warm, as if it still remembered the afternoon sun. She thought of the tables full of food in the Great Hall; of her four poster in the messy red and gold of Gryffindor tower; of the passageway she and Hermione and Ron had found that grew over with violets; and the permanent smell of dog and pipe smoke on everything in Hagrid's hut.

 _I'm home_ , she thought.

For a second, she thought she felt the castle stone flaring warmth beneath her hand. Surely it was her imagination, but she smiled anyway.

But then something moved in the darkness that made her smile and all the blood drain from her face.

"Hey, it's the Sorting!" Ron said, standing on his trunk to peer into a bright window near ground level. "There's Ginny! Harry, come see . . . Harry?"

But Harriet couldn't answer or go over to the window. She was frozen to the spot in terror, because melting out of the shadows, his gaunt face white as bone, his teeth bared in fury, was Professor Snape.

❧

"Do you have any idea WHAT YOU'VE DONE?"

For the first half of the sentence, Harriet had been marveling (in a dread-filled way) how Snape could make you want to cringe just by whispering; but in the second half his voice rose to a shout and she did cringe. She'd never heard Snape shout before.

"Hon-honestly, Professor," Ron stammered, "that tree did more damage to us than we—"

" _Silence_ , Weasley," Snape spat, and Harriet tread on Ron's foot, because Snape looked about two seconds away from murdering them right there in his office. "You don't grasp the enormity of the situation, do you? You are guilty of more than being criminally stupid." There was such venom in his voice that Ron flinched.

"Wecouldntgetthroughthebarrie r," Harriet blurted, "ithadjustturnedtosolidbrick—"

"Oh?" Snape hissed in a voice somehow as icy with rage as it was hot. "And you felt that justified stealing the Weasleys' property and leaving without a word to anyone? Did it not occur to you, you foolish girl, that after the events of last May, it might be rightly assumed that your _life was in danger_?"

"I . . . " Harriet didn't know what to say. Snape's sneer could have peeled paint.

"Or," he said, and threw a newspaper down on his desk, where a black and white miniature of the Weasleys' car flew across the front page photograph, "that a twelve-year-old is hardly the world's most accomplished driver, that a Muggle vehicle enchanted to fly is hardly reliable, and the pair of you could have crashed and killed yourselves? Have you ANY CONCEPT—"

He stopped, breathing audibly through his uneven, yellowed teeth, which were bared like a dog's.

"You two," he hissed, "will wait here. Right here, in this exact spot. If you move by _so much as a centimeter_ , you will wish I had never been born."

Then he swept out, the door banging shut behind him.

Even though he was gone, Harriet and Ron didn't dare look at each other. Harriet was sure that Snape would count moving her head as moving in general.

"If we're going to die," Ron said suddenly, speaking like he was trying not to move his lips or teeth too much, "I just want you to know, it was nice having you for a mate."

"Even if I'm a girl?" Harriet asked. But she stopped her smile in case Snape would also count that as moving.

"After five brothers, I don't mind girls," Ron said.

❧

It was bad when Professor McGonagall came, but more like badness layered on top of badness: she was clearly angrier with them than she'd ever been, even when she'd caught Harriet and Hermione out of bed last year after they'd gotten rid of Norbert, but her anger had nothing on Snape's. He stood in the shadows, his black eyes staring cold-blooded death threats.

Then Professor Dumbledore showed up, and it was worse.

He heard them out in silence. When they had finished, he said nothing for a few moments, and that silence was somehow the worst part of all.

"We'll get our stuff," Ron said in a hollow voice.

"What are you talking about, Weasley?" snapped Professor McGonagall, as if she'd had quite enough of them acting stupid.

"Well, you're expelling us, aren't you?" Ron asked.

There was a tiny pause, but when no one said _You bet your arse we are_ , Harriet dared to look up.

"Not today, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said, though he was still grave. "But I must impress upon both of you the seriousness of what you have done. I must also warn you that if you do anything like this again, I will have no choice but to expel you."

In the corner, Snape made a soft sound like he wished that moment would come sooner rather than later.

"Professor McGonagall will decide your punishment," Dumbledore told them, and glanced at her. "I must go back to the feast, Minerva. I've a few notices to give. Come, Severus, there's a delicious-looking custard tart I want to sample."

Snape treated Harriet and Ron to one last look of disgust before allowing Dumbledore to sweep him away. Harriet, feeling like someone had taken sandpaper to her skin, was glad he was gone.

She'd been right: being on the receiving end of Snape's temper was awful.

❧

Everyone in the Gryffindor common room wanted to congratulate them for the ultimate coolness of flying a car into the Whomping Willow—except for Percy, whose horn-rim glasses flashed dangerously when they stumbled through the portrait hole, and Hermione, who wasn't even there. When Harriet tore herself away from everyone (Lavender and Parvati saying, "You're famous, why couldn't you have flown in with someone so much _cooler_ and _better-looking_ than _Ron Weasley_?") and escaped upstairs, she found Hermione in her nightdress reading Voyages with Vampires.

For a split second Harriet was so glad to see her, she could have cried. But then Hermione looked up, her scowl just like Percy's, and Harriet almost groaned aloud.

"Please," she said, "Snape tried to take my skin off with sandpaper, and I didn't know McGonagall's mouth could go that thin, and Professor Dumbledore was even worse, and it wouldn't have happened if I'd thought about Hedwig, I know, but we couldn't get through the barrier!"

It came out like one huge, long word. When it was done, Harriet stood breathing heavily, and Hermione sat staring fixedly at her, Vampires open on her knees.

Then she said, "You could have been expelled."

"I know—"

She slammed her book shut. "You could have _died_!"

"I know—"

"Muggles saw you!"

"I KNOW," Harriet said, tugging at her own hair. "Look, Snape already yelled all this, I mean yelled, with whispering, too, and glares, and we wouldn't—we wouldn't have done it if we thought, we just weren't! Didn't, I mean! We . . . " She pushed up her glasses to rub her eyes. "I didn't mean to scare everyone, honestly. I never wanted that."

Hermione stood up, her lips pressed together like McGonagall's, her scowl tight, her eyes narrowed. Then she said, "What do you mean you couldn't get through the barrier?"

Harriet told her how the gateway to the platform hadn't been just an illusion but real, solid brick. Muggles had stared at them, and then eleven o'clock had passed, and the train had gone . . .

As if she couldn't help herself, Hermione said, "You could have just waited for the Weasleys to come out—"

"Hermione!"

"Well, I just don't understand how you could have thought of flying the car to school but not thought of any of the obvious solutions!" Hermione said, like she really, really couldn't understand and it was driving her mad.

"I don't know either," Harriet said wearily, dropping onto her bed. "It all seems so obvious now. And we're in so much trouble . . . "

Hermione went as white as her nightdress. "You're not expelled!"

"Nono," Harriet assured her, waving her hands. "But we've got detention and Dumbledore said if we break any more rules we will be. Expelled, I mean. And he's writing to our families . . . not that the Dursleys will care, they'll just count it an unlucky miss that the Willow didn't squash me flat."

"Well," Hermione said, frowning, "it could have been a lot worse. And your family are horrid," she added.

"I know," Harriet sighed, dropping face-first onto her duvet.

❧

Dumbledore force-fed him tea with a Calming Draught. Severus knew it was in there from the way the steam drifted sideways over the rim of his cup, but he drank it anyway because he thought that otherwise he might murder Ron Weasley in his bed.

The Calming Draught also allowed him to sleep a good portion of the night, almost six hours, and so it was with only (for him) low-level rage that he ascended to the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning.

The hall was already ringing with the raucous voices of those demons in human form known collectively as students. Dumbledore had saved him a seat next to himself, and smiled at him, no doubt wanting to remind him that if he poisoned the Weasley boy, it would place Dumbledore in an awkward position.

Severus scanned up the Gryffindor table. When he saw the girl, something in his chest clenched in the region of his heart. But he didn't have a heart anymore. It had been surgically removed and replaced with a steel trap.

She looked much healthier than she had at the beginning of August, thank Molly Weasley, who had also trimmed up her hair but been unable to lessen her resemblance to a hedgehog. Granger sat on one side of her, the Weasley female, who appeared to be gazing at her worshipfully, on the other. Granger had her nose in a book, and even halfway across the hall she radiated chilly displeasure. On the other side of the table, Ronald Weasley was stuffing kippers in his mouth, the nauseating cretin.

Speaking of nauseating cretins . . .

"I see Lockhart's not here," he observed, stabbing a kipper.

"Setting his hair, no doubt," Minerva said with asperity.

"I wish mine looked half so good," said Sprout, leaning around Severus to help herself to toast and tomatoes. She smelled like she'd been rolling in the dirt all morning; typical Sprout.

"It would if you spent Godric knows how many Galleons on hair potions and several hours applying them," McGonagall retorted. "You've better things to worry about."

Severus almost admired the way neither of them looked once at his own hair during this exchange.

"Definitely better things to be doing," Sprout agreed, heaping marmalade onto her tomatoes in all defiance of gastronomic decency. "Been slinging the Willow all morning after those dear Gryffindors of yours, Albus—bless their wretched little hearts—flew that bally car into the blasted thing—"

"Speaking of which," Dumbledore murmured. "I believe we're about to witness the conclusion to last night . . . "

Severus looked back at the Gryffindor table as a tureen exploded from the kamikaze descent of someone's owl and a sausage hit Longbottom between the eyes. Weasley extracted a red envelope from a milk jug and then thrust the thing out at arm's length as if it he'd just realized he was holding a scorpion. The Weasley female's eyes fixed on it, round and fearful; Longbottom looked horrified and sympathetic; Granger and the girl perplexed. Severus wished he could see more than the back of the Weasley boy's head. His expression might have been worth the sight of his face.

A second later, Molly Weasley's amplified voice exploded to the vaulted ceiling, rattling the windows and turning heads.

". . . _STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU_. . ."

"Ah, how I do miss being young, sometimes," Flitwick said as Molly Weasley's Howler continued to rage at her son.

"Now?" Minerva said, attempting to hide her smile in her tea.

"I remember the Howlers, of course," Flitwick said, beaming, "but I remember the things I did to deserve them with significantly greater clarity."

"Right you are, there," said Sprout, chortling. "You should've heard the one I got from my mother right before N.E.W.T.s, God rest her soul. Was almost a shame Howlers let it all out at once, that one could've been preserved in a museum. Well, I'm off." She stuffed the last of her toast between her teeth. "Got the second-years potting mandrakes, bless them. I wouldn't miss the looks on their darling little faces for a galleon of Galleons."

Severus was glad she was gone. Morning people were insufferable. Minerva was the only one he could abide at breakfast; Sprout was as sunny as Dumbledore. At least Minerva was always in a suitably catty mood.

"I want Miss Potter's detention," he told Minerva across Dumbledore, who was eating toast very neatly to avoid getting boysenberry jam on his beard.

Minerva made a noise that sounded like poor girl. "Not Weasley's, too?"

"Not on your life. Give him to Filch," Severus said.

"I had been planning on it," she said tartly.

A sudden silence pressing on Severus's ears like cotton meant that Molly Weasley's letter had stopped shouting. A small curl of smoke was rising from the table in front of Ronald Weasley, who'd sunk below the bench, and the girl looked both mortified and miserable.

He was surprised to feel the faint tendril unfolding inside him as he looked at her was something like sympathy.

❧

"Mandrakes are fascinating, aren't they?" said Hermione as they headed across the lawn, away from the thick heat of the greenhouses toward the castle. The scent of perfumed earth followed them, rubbed onto their robes after the mandrake-potting.

"Although I think it's rather cruel to cut them up as soon as they've grown—" she went on.

"I don't," Ron said with feeling. "Unless it's cruel to us not to cut them up sooner. I wonder if that's what Slytherins look like as babies?"

"I don't really like it either," Harriet said, remembering the way the mandrakes had squirmed and wailed, unheard through their magical earmuffs. "It doesn't seem fair to let somebody grow up just because you need them to get big before you can . . . you know . . . "

"They're only plants," Ron said.

Harriet ignored this. "It's like that book with the pig and the spider."

"What book with a pig and a spider?"

" _Charlotte's Web,_ " Hermione said automatically.

"Right." Harriet nodded. To Ron she explained, "There's this pig, see, named Wilbur, who's supposed to die because he's a runt, only this girl named Fern thinks it's too cruel, so she makes her dad, who's the farmer, not kill him. He says all right, but actually he's only going to wait for Wilbur to become big enough for slaughtering—"

"Well, that's what happens to pigs, isn't it?" Ron said as the shadows to the entrance hall folded over them. "We've got to have bacon."

"It may seem like nothing to you—" Hermione started hotly.

"Only there's this spider in the barn," Harriet raised her voice to break over their bickering, "named Charlotte, and she doesn't want Wilbur to die either, so she writes things in her web to make all the humans think Wilbur is an amazing pig and they won't kill him."

"Sounds a bit barmy," Ron said, sitting down across from Harriet and Hermione at the Gryffindor table, where platters of lunch had started appearing between the empty plates.

"It isn't," Hermione said resentfully. "It's a beautiful and touching story. Charlotte saves Wilbur's life."

"But then she dies," Harriet said, not reaching for the baked potatoes that had appeared next to her. "I hate that bit."

"It is very sad," Hermione said. "But that's what the whole book is about, you know—death, and how it's natural, even though we don't want it to be."

"You know what I don't want?" Ron said. "Double Potions with the Slytherins."

He was probably thinking about Draco Malfoy. Harriet was thinking about Pansy Parkinson, and she'd bet Hermione was, too. They all grimaced.

"I mean, bad enough we've got to suffer two hours with Snape," Ron said. "But always with Slytherins on top of that? Why couldn't it be with the Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs?"

"Really, Ron," Hermione said as she helped herself to buttered asparagus. "After the troll and the Devil's Snare and the giant chess set, is Double Potions with the Slytherins and Professor Snape really that terrible?"

" _Yes_ ," Ron said. "I dunno how you can even ask, Hermione. Compared to Slytherins and Snape, that other stuff was a lark."

Harriet finally dragged a baked potato onto her plate, but she had trouble doing more than poke it with a fork. She didn't admit it aloud, but she was nervous about Double Potions. It would be the first time she was meeting Snape since she and Ron had crashed into the Whomping Willow, when he'd been so furious. Was he going to be mean and nasty to her now?

She ate her potato because it was silly not to. She knew the value of food. But she ate less than she otherwise would have, and she was sure it didn't taste as good as it ought to have done. When it was time for Potions, she pushed her plate away, shouldered a bag that felt oddly heavy, and plodded down into the icy dungeons with Hermione and Ron.

Snape didn't have his door open yet, curse him. Harriet hoped he'd let them in before the Slytherins arrived. Last year, Pansy Parkinson had really enjoyed taunting Harriet and Hermione in the queue so that everyone could hear and her gang of girls could laugh until the cold, dark corridor rang.

Yes, Harriet decided: she'd rather deal with Snape about to murder her and Ron on his office rug than listen to Pansy's taunting. It wouldn't be so bad if she could punch Pansy in the face, but if Snape did his nut because she and Ron ran a car into a tree, she didn't want to know what he'd do if she smacked one of his precious Slytherins.

"Oh, no," Hermione whispered with distaste as the unpleasant sound of a gaggle of Slytherins echoed through the dungeons. A moment later, they showed up, like bedbugs in clean linen.

Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, and sundry Slytherins. Urgh. Harriet didn't know what it was that made Slytherins seem so ugly, because really, they didn't look any better or worse than Hermione with her overlarge front teeth or Ron with his long nose and freckles or Harriet herself with her hedgehog hair and horrible glasses. But every time she saw the Slytherins in her year, she just wanted to give them fat lips. Maybe they reminded her too much of Dudley and his gang and her aunt and uncle: she could feel them itching to do something mean.

"If it isn't Potter the Glamour Girl," said Pansy Parkinson, to the snickers of her posse. She had a short, turned-up nose—literally turned-up at the tip. It made her look rather like a pug, but she thought she was God's gift to second-year Hogwarts' girls because her hair was sleek and shiny and she wore handmade Italian shoes and always had perfectly manicured fingernails. Well, that's what Harriet guessed. She couldn't see what else it could be.

"I'm surprised your family could afford a car, Weasley," Malfoy drawled. "Or did your brothers steal it off some Muggles too stupid to defend themselves?"

Harriet and Hermione grabbed the back of Ron's robes as soon as his face started turning maroon.

"Maybe you can sell some of Potter's signed photographs," Malfoy said, while Pansy pointed at Ron and laughed. "Buy another car . . . or at least a small piece of it or something."

"Leave it, Ron," Harriet said shortly, doing her best to act as if the Slytherins weren't laughing in loud, carrying voices. "He's just a jealous git because he'd never—"

She bit off the sentence when the classroom door swung open. They all waited to see if Snape would appear—the Gryffindors apprehensively, the Slytherins eagerly—but when he didn't show, Hermione grabbed Harriet and Ron by their elbows and hustled them inside. Snape had a cauldron set up on his desk, the fire lighting his face eerily from beneath as he stood over it. He made no sign that he'd seen them as they scuttled past his desk.

"Sir," said Malfoy over the scrape and clatter of settling in, "sir, Weasley tried to attack me in the corridor just now, I thought you should know—"

"He did," Pansy added. "I saw it, Professor, we all did."

"He did not!" Harriet said loudly, before she could stop herself.

"Harriet!" Hermione whispered in a frightened voice, struggling to grapple with Ron as he tried to push to his feet.

Snape looked up at Harriet's table, not at his Slytherins. His expression was so cold and remote, it made Harriet shiver.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley," he said in that voice like cold, dark tunnels. "Your disruptive behavior ends now. Do I make myself clear? Miss Granger, release Mr. Weasley or I'll have another twenty from you this time."

Ron was gripping the edge of the table, on his feet. Harriet's heart pushed hard and hot against her ribcage. She did not look at Malfoy or Pansy because she was afraid that if she did, she'd throw her cauldron at them. The injustice of it flared so incandescent inside her, she couldn't clearly see or hear what was going on around her.

"Sit down," Snape snapped at them.

Harriet dropped numbly into her seat.

She'd been expecting it, really. She didn't know why it stung so badly.

❧

"—and then," Sprout was saying as Severus pushed open the staff room door late that afternoon. She paused, glancing toward the door; Minerva, Flitwick and Pomfrey mimicked her.

"It's only Severus," Minerva said, as if it weren't obvious. "He'll want to hear this."

"We're abusing Lockhart," Pomfrey said to him in a stage-whisper.

" _Don't_ let me stop you," he said, taking a seat near Flitwick, close enough to hear them clearly but not near enough to reasonably participate in their conversation. He was exhausted, anyway. First days back always did that to him. After two months of near-isolation, the return to the racket and demands of the constant presence of other (and criminally stupid) people drained him.

"He was flitting around the Willow this morning like a blasted nuisance," Sprout resumed. "Tries to tell me how to bandage the tree that I planted, and clearly doesn't know a bally thing! 'You've got to let it thrash,' he says—while I'm bandaging it? Daft daffodil brain, that's what he is. 'When I saved the historic bo tree of Barun Valley,' he goes—"

"I hope he decides to try telling Severus a thing or two about potions," Minerva said, her square lenses glinting. At least she had said potions, not his hair.

"Oh dear," Flitwick said. "Minerva, you mustn't. It would be the shortest term a Defense teacher has ever served."

"Shh!" Pomfrey said, while they all tried to muffle their laughter (except Severus, of course, since he was constitutionally incapable of laughter). "Someone's coming . . . "

They all listened avidly to the murmurs of footsteps and voices out in the hall.

"Yes, it's him," Sprout told them in a half-whisper, "I'd know that smarmy voice anywhere, more's the pity."

". . . well, of course," said Lockhart's indisputably smarmy voice through the staff room door, "soon as I heard, I knew it was all my fault—"

The door clattered open and he came in trailing Dumbledore, who was listening to him with every sign of interest. Lockhart was wearing turquoise trimmed with gold, but Dumbledore had out-done him in cerulean blue with a pattern of peacock feathers along the sleeves, the hem and the shoulders. Together, they were more than a bit of an eyesore. Severus saw Minerva lift her eyes to the ceiling.

"—could have kicked myself," Lockhart went on, shaking his head in a self-deprecating way that somehow managed to look entirely self-important. "Gave her a taste for publicity. Gave her the _bug_. She got onto the front page of the paper with me and couldn't wait to do it again."

Severus was momentarily so mesmerized by the way Lockhart managed to show every single one of his gleaming teeth at any given moment that the true meaning of this speech did not immediately register. But then he realized Lockhart was talking about Lily's daughter.

"Now, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore, ushering Lockhart to a chair slightly apart from the other teachers', "I'm sure you take too much upon yourself."

"No, no, Albus, not at all!" said Lockhart. "I understand how it is. It's natural to want a bit more once you've had that first taste, and I blame myself for giving her that—it was bound to go to her head—but—"

Dumbledore glanced at Severus, who realized that, as unbelievable as it seemed, the headmaster was enjoying himself.

"—see here, young lady, I said to her, you can't start flying cars to try and get yourself noticed! Plenty of time for that when you're older!"

"Yes," Minerva said waspishly, "when she has an operator's license."

"I'm positive she took me to heart," Lockhart said, no doubt failing to hear her because the remark contained no praise of anything to do with him. "Understood me completely! Had a look of real amazement on her face by the time I was through."

 _I'm sure she did_ , Severus thought.

"It was most kind of you to take Miss Potter's interests to heart, Gilderoy my boy," Dumbledore said, sounding fully sincere, although his eyes flicked toward Severus again. What was that supposed to mean? "She's a dear girl—quite special to us all."

"Oh, of course, of course!" Lockhart said, showing all of those perfect gleaming teeth. "You know, Albus, I wondered if I might take that detention of hers? All my fault, you know, like I said! And I think she might like to take a few lessons from me on the best way to handle fame—caught her offering to give out signed photos today! Looks a tad bigheaded at this stage, as you can bet I told her, but I'm sure she was only trying to emulate me. Dash it, she's not met anyone quite so famous before, it's no wonder she'd make a few wrong choices at first. Overcome with admiration—only seeking to emulate—stands to reason!"

Somewhere beneath Dumbledore's expression of good-natured interest was a gleam of unholy amusement, but Severus was sure one of his ribs was going to crack with the strain of not committing bloody murder.

He met Minerva's eye across the room and saw his thoughts mirrored there exactly:

_This is going to be a very long year._


	5. Detention

Harriet had never thought she would see the day when food would be sitting in front of her and she wouldn't want to eat it. Meals at the Dursleys were often sparse and small because Aunt Petunia wouldn't feed her, not because the food was inedible, and it was unthinkable that she could ignore the food at Hogwarts. Even the prospect of Snape's classes right after lunch, which still made her food less tasty than usual, didn't take away her appetite completely.

But it had totally disappeared after Professor McGonagall had descended on Gryffindor table to give Harriet and Ron their detentions. The words _Miss Potter, you'll be with Professor Snape this evening_ had sucked absolutely all the taste out of Harriet's steak and kidney pie.

"Whatever happened to lines?" Ron said once McGonagall had left. "Or manuring the greenhouses? Cleaning out bedpans in the infirmary? Fred and George got that one more than a few times, but they never got a whole evening spent with Snape!"

Hermione fussed with her bookmark in _Voyages with Vampires_ but said nothing. She didn't have to, though. Hermione could be unspeakably loud without saying a word.

"If I hadn't already learned my lesson, this'd teach me," Harriet said, pushing away her plate with a grimace.

Hermione's deafening silence seemed to say, _Well, you did break the rules_. Harriet loved her more than anyone else in the world, but right then she was just as glad to leave Hermione reading fifteen chapters ahead of their homework assignment and head off with Ron for their evening of misery. She already had detention with Snape; she didn't need Hermione suggesting she deserved every bit of it on top of that. It was bad enough to _know_ she deserved it. Her stomach coiled like a dying snake every time she remembered that Mr Weasley was facing an inquiry at work because of her and Ron.

"Good luck, mate," Ron said to Harriet as they parted at the great staircase: Ron to climb to the trophy room, Harriet to descend to the dungeons.

Snape's dungeon. She thought of the jars of ghastly floating things he liked to decorate with and shuddered.

She'd never been in the dungeons at night before, but discovered they ought to be creepy enough during the day for anyone's taste. The long, icy corridor oozed with shadows in the flickering torchlight, reminding her what castle dungeons were originally built for. She wondered if Hogwarts had included them for the same reason.

Considering her destination, she could have done without thinking it.

The door to Snape's classroom creaked ominously. She wondered if he made it do that.

Peering inside, she searched the darkness for the only bit of him you could sometimes see, i.e. his sallow face, but she didn't see anything this time. The greenish light from the walls somehow made the shadows worse, and it was horribly cold down here.

"Shut the door."

Snape's icy voice came from out of nowhere, making her jump in her skin.

He melted out of the wall, floating behind him a steel barrel that was nearly as tall as Harriet. No—not out of the wall, stupid, she told herself: he'd only been in his storeroom.

She shut the door, wishing she hadn't noticed how bad-tempered he looked. Or how the bang of the door echoed like the dot-dot-dot on the sentence: " _And then something happened, something so horrible that . . ._ "

Snape dropped the barrel in the middle of the room, where a few desks had been pushed aside in a kind of polygon. The clang echoed off the bare walls.

"Well?" he said, waving his wand to slide the lid off the barrel. It gave a nasty, ominous scrape as it came free, and she smelled the tang of formaldehyde.

Instead of looking in the barrel, which she was certain contained something really disgusting, she glanced up at Snape's face and straightaway regretted it: his eyes were glittering in a malicious yet satisfied way that she didn't like at all.

"These are horned toads," he said.

She looked at the barrel and wished she hadn't eaten so much at dinner.

"You will disembowel them."

Or anything, really.

"Without gloves," he finished.

She stared at him. He smiled in a way that shouldn't have been called a smile, and handed her a small knife with a serrated edge.

"The whole barrel," he said softly.

*

Harriet wondered (as their guts caked beneath her fingernails) if disemboweling horned toads was better than, say, helping Lockhart answer his fan mail or something. She wasn't sure. Snape now made her horribly nervous, but he didn't make her want to tear her hair out. Still, she reckoned Lockhart would probably faint at the idea of anyone gutting a horned toad, if only from what it would do to their nails.

All this past week Lockhart had kept turning up wherever she went, winking roguishly and trying to give her advice on fame. Partly this was Colin Creevey's fault: he had memorized her timetable and arranged his route to classes to cross with hers so that she ran into him about six times a day. Whether Lockhart turned up so often because he wanted to talk to Harriet about how famous he was or simply because he knew she was stalked by a fanboy with a camera and he could get into the photos, Harriet wasn't sure, but she wished Colin would just transfer his obsession from her to Lockhart. It would save her a lot of embarrassment.

Lavender and Parvati were very jealous and simply tuned Harriet out when she said they could have Lockhart and Colin for the asking.

"He's so handsome," Lavender would sigh.

"I hope he comes out with that range of hair care products he talks about in his book," Parvati said. "His hair always looks amazing . . . "

"Just find out what he uses now and yours'd look the same," Harriet retorted.

"I know he's got the wrong idea about you," Hermione would say when Harriet complained that her teacher was stalking her, "but think of all the inside information he could give you on everything he's done!"

"Harry doesn't need to listen to that idiot talk more about himself," said Ron, looking horrified at the very thought (and offending Hermione).

Harriet snorted at the memory.

"I said disembowel them," said Snape's cold voice, "not inhale them."

Harriet looked up warily. Snape was sitting behind his desk with a small mountain of marking spread out in front of him in messy piles. She knew it was marking because he was writing from a huge bottle of red ink. It gleamed on his quill tip like blood.

Snape's narrow eyes glittered at her past clumps of long, greasy hair. With that great beaky nose and the red ink staining his fingertips, he reminded her of a vulture. Ron said Neville had nightmares about him. Small wonder.

"Remember you've the whole barrel," he said, and went back to his marking.

Grimacing, Harriet pulled the toad's guts out of its belly and let them dribble into the bowl Snape had given her to hold them. She wondered if Snape actually needed these for potions or if he just kept the toads so he could give out really disgusting detentions. This made Ron's slug-spewing problem look downright cute.

She dropped the gutted carcass into the rubbish bin and reached back into the barrel. The whole thing? She'd already done about half, but she had no idea how long she'd been here, since Snape didn't keep a clock. It felt like six weeks.

She pulled out the next toad and tried not to look too closely at it. At least it was dark down here.

As she pushed the dirty knife into its underbelly, she heard the voice.

" _Come . . . come to me . . ._ "

She froze, staring down at the dead horned toad as the voice, cold like venom that had been trapped in ice for a thousand years, like hatred that cut to your bones, pierced into her head and streamed into her thoughts—

" _Let me rip you . . . let me tear you . . . let me kill you . . ._ "

She jumped back from the toad, the barrel, all of it, dropping the knife with a clatter.

" _. . . kill . . . so long . . ._ "

She pressed her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

" _. . . kill . . . KILL . . ._ "

"Miss Potter!"

Her eyes flew open. Snape was standing over her, his expression fierce yet somehow odd.

"What are you doing?" he said, gesturing at her hands.

She lowered them from her ears, heart pounding, but the dungeon room was silent. She stared at the barrel of horned toads but heard nothing.

"I . . . " Had she imagined it? Yes . . . that's probably what it had been: gutting those dead toads, down here in Snape's creepy dungeon, him sitting there like a half-full vulture—it was no wonder she was hearing voices.

Really horrible voices . . .

"Nothing," she muttered, seeing Snape still looking at her with his narrow, bottomless eyes. "I thought I heard something but I think . . . I think I was just hearing things."

"You think you heard something . . . because you heard something," Snape repeated.

"Yeah," Harriet said, a touch defiantly. "Like audio hallucinations?"

"I know what 'hearing things' means, Miss Potter." But Snape kept staring at her. "What exactly did you hear?"

"The horned toads talking," she said.

He stared at her a moment longer, almost incredulous, then glanced over his shoulder at the barrel. "The very dead horned toads?"

"Yes," she said defiantly.

"The ones with or without their intestines?" he asked with an air of mockery.

"The one I was cutting into," she said, not quite daring to glare but settling for a glower.

Snape sighed. It was very quiet, but it was definitely a sigh, the sort Mrs. Weasley gave when the twins weren't behaving but hadn't blown anything up yet.

"Very well. That will do for tonight," he said. "Know that the next time you decide rules are for others, the rest of the barrel has your name on it."

"Yes, sir," she said, in a tone of voice that was just rude enough to make him raise his eyebrows.

"Would you like the next time to be now?" he asked, softly menacing.

"No, sir," she said, deciding it was much safer to stare at her shoes.

"A good answer, Miss Potter."

She heard the lid scraping back onto the horned toad barrel. "Wash your hands," Snape said.

Harriet scrubbed underneath the icy jet from the gargoyle's mouth for several long minutes, trying to pick the gunk out of her nails.

"I haven't got all night, Miss Potter," he said from where he stood beside the open door with an air of slightly scornful impatience.

She hurried forward, wiping her hands on her jeans, and stopped in surprise when he followed her out. He shut the door behind himself and moved his wand in a soft motion that made the door glow golden.

"Well?" he said, now waving his wand at her in an obvious _shoo_. For a split second, she expected to grow horns or something. "Get a move on."

"Er?" she said when he followed her.

"It's past midnight," he said. "You have a curfew. Unless you would rather Filch entrap you with another detention already?"

"No," she said quickly. "Sir."

He walked her up to the Pink Lady in silence and waited until she was climbing in through the portrait hole before sweeping away without a backwards glance.

*

After he had seen the girl slip, bewildered, behind her portrait, he went straight to the headmaster's office. It was past midnight, but he knew Dumbledore would still be awake.

"Good evening, Severus," he greeted, looking up from where he was, to all appearances, knitting a sock for someone eight feet tall. Well, there was always Hagrid. "I trust you arranged something suitably appalling for Harriet's detention?"

He was smiling as he said it, and Severus was reminded of his amusement over Lockhart's bragging. He scowled.

"The reckless little brat deserved it," he said. "You've already forgiven her, of course."

"I try to remember what it was like to be young," Dumbledore admitted. "But it is easier to forgive others when we have learned how to forgive ourselves. You, of course," he pulled a ball of aquamarine yarn from a basket at his feet, "have still not forgiven yourself for offenses committed when you were fifteen."

He sounded like he regretted this, which made Severus unspeakably angry for a reason he didn't care to define at the moment.

"I didn't come here for a bloody therapy session," he snarled. "I came to tell you Miss Potter had a fit."

Dumbledore blinked. "Dear boy, what did you have her doing?"

"Because she was hearing voices."

Dumbledore sat up a little straighter, his gaze suddenly as piercing as an arrowhead. "Tell me."

Severus described seeing her jump and drop the knife, her face white, shocked and disturbed, and then press her hands over her ears, Lily's eyes screwed shut.

"And you heard nothing?" Dumbledore said when he'd finished.

"Not a thing. The door never opened, the ghosts cannot make themselves invisible, and Peeves would never be so subtle. With the gloating, if nothing else."

Dumbledore looked troubled. "And so you thought—"

"Yes," Severus said shortly.

Dumbledore rubbed the knuckles of his left hand absently, still watching Severus as he thought. "The house-elf must have been behind the business with the sealed barrier," he murmured, even though they'd decided this on the night the girl flew a fucking car into the Whomping Willow. "And though he couldn't give you any more information . . . "

No, and Lucius had given him nothing. When Severus had said, _If you're planning something at Hogwarts . . ._ he had only looked supremely self-satisfied and said, _I'm not planning anything, Severus, nothing at all,_ in that way that was as good as gloating. _We mustn't press it, Severus,_ Dumbledore had told him. _We must tread carefully, lest we show our hand. Lucius is clever, clever enough to keep himself out of trouble all these years, and for that reason alone he would be a good ally to Tom . . ._

Although it had been barren of particulars, that visit to the Malfoys had confirmed one thing: there was something dark coming to Hogwarts . . . and now the girl was hearing voices, voices that Severus hadn't, or couldn't hear. The elf had risked detection to warn her specifically, and Lucius had seemed so satisfied with himself and secure in the apparent knowledge that his own son would not be harmed . . .

But if the Dark Lord hadn't contacted Lucius, which Severus was sure he had not, for Lucius wouldn't have come out of such a meeting unscathed, then Severus couldn't see what the man could possibly gain. Why this particular timing? If all he'd wanted was retribution on the girl, he could have sought it last year. He would have known when she was due for Hogwarts.

The information that would illuminate everything was remaining stubbornly opaque. He hated it when life got like that. All the Houses were suffering the lowest tally of points in recent history because of his foul temper, and this was only Saturday of the first week. On Friday evening, Flitwick had even gone so far as to ask him if he was feeling quite all right, and Minerva's conversation was becoming distinctly frost-chipped.

"It's good you accepted Lockhart's application after all," he said to Dumbledore. "The way he's been following her about, if anything attacks her, it might kill him off first."

Dumbledore's mustache twitched. "Severus, your sense of humor remains irreparably morbid."

"This, coming from you, Headmaster?" Severus said pointedly. "After you've been courting the society of that obnoxious cretin?"

"I have never been able to refuse the allure of the ridiculous," Dumbledore admitted.

"With him it's practically an art form."

"He is something of a masterpiece," Dumbledore agreed.

"I maintain that he's a creep of the first order," Severus said, well aware that practically everyone at Hogwarts, even Flitwick, would probably describe him the exact same way, six days out of seven. At least.

"Well, yes," said Dumbledore. "But, in the way I believe you are thinking, relatively harmless. I'm quite sure he will never have half the interest in anyone that he does in himself. His attention to Harriet is predominately a need to pit his fame against hers."

"It had better be," Severus said bitingly, even though he agreed. He'd been watching, and when there wasn't a camera involved, Lockhart wasn't interested in the girl at all. At mealtimes, when she sat well within sight, Lockhart always spent the time admiring his own reflection in his silverware.

Because he was a bizarre man, Dumbledore smiled warmly at Severus. "I assure you, Severus, were it otherwise—should I have the slightest suspicion that Harriet or any of the children was in danger—I would dismiss Gilderoy Lockhart and take the Defense position myself."

Severus glared. "Don't trust me, do you," he said, ignoring his Inner Hufflepuff's attempts to point out that Dumbledore oughtn't and he knew it.

"The school could bear to lose me," Dumbledore said. "Minerva would make an excellent Headmistress, and in these times that, I am sure, will grow gradually darker, you, Filius and Pomona have my utmost confidence in keeping the students safe from harm. If the curse didn't finish me off—"

"That bloody curse again," Severus said.

"The curse is very real," Dumbledore said, serious for the moment. "And you must remain at Hogwarts, Severus."

He didn't add _You know this_ , because Severus did know and Dumbledore knew it. But that didn't mean Severus had to like it, nor would the knowledge prevent him from bitching about it.

"At least we only have to put up with that garish twit for three terms," he said.

"There's the silver lining." Dumbledore smiled. "I knew you would find it."

*

By Halloween, Harriet knew she hadn't been hallucinating about the voice.

The really obvious clue came when she, Ron and Hermione found Mrs Norris hanging apparently dead by her tail from a torch bracket next to a message painted in blood on the walls. Harriet was glad Mrs Norris wasn't actually dead, if only because that might have gotten Harriet expelled.

Dumbledore was very firm that she, Ron and Hermione couldn't have had anything to do with it, but Snape seemed to doubt it: after the Petrified Cat incident, he was more horrible to Harriet than he'd been so far, and took to following her around the castle and snapping at her if she did something he disapproved of. Because Things Snape Disapproved Of ranged from going to the library to eating dinner to walking up the stairs, Harriet had very little means of behaving herself.

If she'd wanted it, she had all the satisfaction of knowing she'd been right: making an enemy of Snape was a fate she could've done without.

"Miss Potter," he said one day as everyone in Potions readying to make their escape, "you will stay behind."

"What? Why? Sir," she added, because it was amazing the way Snape could make his stare feel like nails.

"Good bye, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley," he said without looking at her friends, who were hovering behind him at the door. Hermione shot Harriet a deeply sympathetic look as she dragged an indignant Ron out of the room.

"Do you see these desks, Miss Potter?" Snape pointed at them.

Harriet was tempted to say something pretty sarcastic but couldn't bring herself to be so suicidal. "Yes, sir?"

His tone became even more mocking. "Do you see what's on them?"

She grimaced at the flaky remains of their potions' ingredients. "Erm . . . tubeworms?"

"Very good," he said, in a tone of voice that wasn't anything like a compliment. "They need scraping off."

Harriet had no choice—she wouldn't had with any teacher, but somehow being ordered to do something by Snape was more binding. But she fumed as she gouged at the crusty tubeworm leftovers, honestly wondering why Snape suddenly had it in for her so bad. Was he that attached to Mrs. Norris?

 _Actually, it started when you flew the car_ , said a helpful voice in her head. At least it was nothing like that horrible, hissing, echoing voice that had led her to the scene of Mrs. Norris's Petrification, to that evil message on the walls.

But why should Snape care so much about a flying car that didn't even belong to him or anything? Everyone else has already got over it . . .

_Professor Dumbledore said he didn't like Dad, didn't he? And he only worked so hard to protect me last year because he owed Dad a debt._

Maybe now that Snape had watched out for her last year, he was okay with singling out Harriet with his temper now? But then why had he looked so angry when he saw how she lived at the Dursleys'? Aunt Petunia would love a postcard of Harriet scraping up tubeworms. She'd probably frame it . . . or maybe not, because that would mean having a picture of Harriet in the house.

Grown ups were very strange.

"Very well, that's enough," Snape said a few minutes later as he closed the last cabinet where he'd been putting things away. "Get up to lunch before it's over."

As if it had been _her_ idea to hang around in his dead creepy classroom prodding at tubeworms. She grabbed her bag and ran out the door before he could change his mind.

"Miss Potter!" he shouted after her. "Five points from Gryffindor for running!"

Grinding her teeth, she slowed to a walk as she approached the stairs, and then jumped when she noticed Snape billowing up behind her. She thought of the way he'd looked after he'd Apparated them from Privet Drive to Hogwarts, with the sun bursting golden against the pale sky and whorls of magic sinking around him like ink and water, like he could summon shadows everywhere he went.

"What did I do now?" she blurted.

"Seeing as it's lunchtime," he said with an expressive sneer, "I assume we are heading to the same place."

"Oh," she said, not sure whether she should feel weak with relief or hot from embarrassment.

"Well?" He shooed her forward and followed her into the Great Hall like a malevolent shadow.

She found Ron and Hermione waving at her from halfway down the table and walked as quickly as she could, definitely not running, to meet them.

She squeezed in next to Hermione, who pushed a plate of shepherd's pie in front of her. "Thanks," Harriet said fervently.

"What did he want this time?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"Does it matter?" Ron scowled up at the High Table. "What is with that greasy old git?"

But Harriet, who'd started to nurse the fear that Snape could not only hear a pin drop on the other side of the castle but also read minds, made a frantic shushing motion. "He'll hear you!" she hissed, watching anxiously as Snape cut savagely into his lunch.

"Honestly, Harry, he can't hear across the hall," Hermione said, but she sounded a bit doubtful all the same, and they all huddled down a bit, counting on a group of fifth-years to shield them from Snape's view.

"Where's Ginny?" Harriet asked. There were four bright patches of Weasley hair at the Gryffindor table, but none of them were Ginny's. "She wasn't at breakfast either . . . "

"Maybe we should go look for her when you're done eating," Hermione said, looking troubled. "She's been looking rather unwell lately . . . And Ron didn't help," she added with a nasty glare.

"Whaf?" Ron managed to ask around a huge mouthful of treacle tart that made his cheeks bulge like a chipmunk's who was storing for winter.

"Saying it was a shame Filch hadn't been Petrified along with Mrs. Norris—"

"She juf nobbin onna wrong fide ofilch et—" Ron swallowed. "—that's all," he finished sagely. "Once he's tried to get her with detention for tracking mud up the corridor, she'll feel differently."

"Well, I've known Filch for more than a year and I don't think it's funny to joke about people being Petrified, no matter who they are—"

Harriet let their bickering float past and concentrated on her lunch. It was extra tasty today. She wondered if house-elves had baked it.

"Oh!" Hermione said. "Thank goodness it's come!"

Harriet looked up as a magnificent tawny owl swept down overhead, so close the beat of his wings fluttered the hair on her forehead. He landed on the table with a reverberating thunk owing to the large package tied to his feet.

"Whaffaten?" Ron said, chewing.

"A book," Harriet guessed, and not just because it was being delivered to Hermione: it had a definitely bookish shape to it.

Ron wiped his chin with his sleeve. "More books? Have you read the whole library already, then?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Hermione looked amazed, though whether this was because they hadn't guessed what she was up to, or from Ron's table manners, Harriet wasn't sure. "I've been trying to find out about the Chamber of Secrets, of course! Only everyone else is, too, and I had to leave my copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ at home because of all the Lockhart books—Mum's just sent it to me—here, could you give him a treat, Ron, Mum's tied the twine too tight—"

By the time the owl had been fed some scraps of Ron's leftover lunch and sent off, Hermione had found the right chapter in the index. She read it out to them—the founding of the school, Slytherin's prejudice, his fight with Gryffindor and leaving, his secret chamber with a monster that could only be found by his very own heir, and which never had been found . . .

"Blimey," Ron said as the bell rang and the noise in the Hall grew even louder as everyone got up to leave. "I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony, but I never knew he started all this pure-blood rubbish."

"Honestly!" There were bright patches of pink on Hermione's cheeks, maybe at the idea that Salazar Slytherin would have considered her untrustworthy. "It's no wonder everyone in his House is perfectly horrid, with a founder like that! Bringing a monster into the school, to purge it of the unworthy—"

"And you heard Malfoy," Ron added darkly as they headed into the shadow of the Entrance Hall, making for the Grand Staircase. "'You'll be next, Mudbloods!' Joyful time for him that'd be, the slimy little snake. I wouldn't be in Slytherin if you paid me. Bunch of nutters, they are."

"Yes, and they . . . Harry?" Hermione put a hand on her arm. "Are you all right?"

Harriet had been thinking about Snape. His cold black eyes had followed them out of the Hall, his expression shuttered. "I'm fine," she said, turning back to her friends. "Well . . . at least now we know what Dobby was warning me about."


	6. Falling Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This was originally tacked onto Ch 5; that's why it's shorter than other chapters and why I'm posting it straightaway. :)
> 
> -Non-HP credit: the phrase "[word], if [word] is the word I want" comes from P.G. Wodehouse, who is incidentally a comic genius.

"Whoa," said Harriet, blinking numbly.

Lockhart's dazzling grin tried to stun her. Well, it wasn't so much the one grin as the several dozen of them. She would really have liked some sunglasses.

"They must have finished it," Hermione said in hushed awe.

They stood gazing at the enormous mural, if mural was the word Harriet wanted, of Lockhart. It spanned the wall between Lavender's and Parvati's beds, teeming with photographs of Lockhart snipped out of colorful magazines mostly, but some black and white newspapers, too. He grinned, winked, beamed, glittered, twinkled and posed from every angle.

"I wonder if this is what he looks like to a fly," Harriet said as a dozen different Lockharts checked their hair and flashed their teeth and blew kisses. At each other.

Hermione giggled, pink in the face.

Harriet checked to make sure Lavender and Parvati weren't in the room, because Hermione wouldn't talk about it if they were. She had outlined Lockhart's classes on her schedule in little hearts and memorized all his books (well, she memorized everything she read, honestly), but the whole time Lavender and Parvati had been working on their mural Hermione had sniffed and looked as if she had no more idea than Harriet that Lockhart's secret ambition was to rid the world of evil and market his own range of hair-care potions.

"Why do you like him?" Harriet asked. She started to say _He's sort of a loony_ but realized it was the sort of thing Ron would say and Hermione would only clam up and hide behind Gadding with Ghouls.

Hermione went a shade of deep pink that Lockhart had worn last Tuesday. "Who says I like him?" she asked, her eyes darting around as if to check, like Harriet, that they were alone except for the dozens of posing Lockharts.

"Nobody says," Harriet said, "but I'd have to be Petrified not to notice."

Hermione looked like she wanted to deny it, but then she gave up and went more deeply pink. "How can you not like him? You've read his books!"

"Actually, I've tried not to," Harriet said. "They're sort of... rummy."

"But everything he's done!" Hermione said, staring at Harriet as if she couldn't believe her ears. "The way he saved that entire monastery in Tibet from the ice zombies! And that village in Armenia from a whole werewolf pack, he did that single-handedly!"

"Well, yeah, all that stuff's really brave," Harriet said truthfully. "But I mean . . . " She watched a Lockhart in pale sea foam green wink at a lilac-wearing Lockhart in the picture caddy-corner to him, who flashed his teeth. "I just can't imagine Lockhart doing it."

"He wrote the _books_ , Harriet."

Harriet gave it up. Lockhart had written the books. She just thought it was weird that he'd done all that amazing stuff but couldn't handle some pixies, and besides, Professor McGonagall and Snape really seemed to hate him. That was normal for Snape, who everyone knew wanted the Defense position, but McGonagall? They looked disgusted whenever he talked to them, like Lockhart smelled as bad as a troll. And they would stare at each other with clear _Can you believe this?_ expressions whenever he checked his hair in the silverware at dinner.

Someone knocked on their dorm room door. It turned out to be Ginny, looking pale with dark circles under her eyes.

"There you are!" Harriet said, pulling her into the room. Ginny's hands were like ice. "Where've you been?"

"We tried to find you at lunch to see where you were," Hermione said, her eyebrows creasing at the sight of Ginny's unhealthy color. "And before dinner, too, you didn't come to either—"

"But no one could tell us where you'd gone," Harriet finished.

"Oh," Ginny mumbled.

For a moment, Ginny looked blank—not like she didn't understand, but like she wasn't there at all, like nothing was looking out from behind her eyes. A chill crawled up Harriet's back like the spiders they'd seen fleeing from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Then Ginny rubbed her eyes. "I . . . I was asleep . . . I think . . . "

"You think?" Hermione asked sharply. When Harriet poked her, she looked apologetic and softened her tone. "I just mean—have you been to Madam Pomfrey?"

"She gave me Pepper Up," Ginny said wearily. "I just felt the same."

"The same like what?" Harriet asked.

"Tired," Ginny said. "And . . . cold, kind of." She shivered.

Harriet traded a look with Hermione, whose eyebrows looked troubled and thinky, like she didn't like the sound of this anymore than Harriet did. It was almost December in a drafty castle in north Scotland, but Gryffindor tower was so warm in the winter that sometimes you had to go walk around the chilly corridors just to cool down, especially if Fred and George were letting off fireworks under the chairs of people studying for end of term exams. And the girls' dorm had a nice fire going right now. She and Hermione had thrown off their itchy jumpers and were just wearing their shirts.

They sat Ginny in front of the fire and wrapped her in blankets. Harriet wondered if students could call the house-elves like Snape had done, or if that was a teachers-only privilege. She thought Ginny would do better for some hot chocolate.

"Are you homesick, Ginny?" Hermione asked in a kind voice.

"No," Ginny said. "Honestly, it was more lonely last year when it was just me and Mum and Dad. I mean, sometimes it was heaven, not having brothers around, but weird, you know?"

Hermione clearly didn't, but she was an only child. "Well, then, is it Mrs. Norris?" she asked, more kindly still.

Ginny, whose knee was pressed up against Harriet's, went as hard and stiff as stone.

"Mrs. Norris?" she said faintly.

"Yes." Hermione stared. "Ginny, what's the matter?"

Ginny's hand crept up to her mouth. She looked like she'd seen a ghost—not one of the Hogwarts' ghosts, but something dreadful, like a piece of a nightmare.

"I . . . " she whispered, shaking all over. She stood up, the blankets falling off her. She stared at both Harriet and Hermione, her lower lip trembling, and then ran out of the room, crashing into Lavender and Parvati, who were just coming back in.

"Merlin! Watch where you're going!" Lavender squealed, but Ginny was already gone.

"What happened?" Parvati asked them, eyes wide.

Harriet looked at Hermione, who seemed equally mystified.

"We've really got no idea," Harriet said.

*

"What do you think it was about?" Hermione whispered to Harriet later that night. They'd pulled the hangings shut around Harriet's bed and the covers up over their heads, because Lavender got cranky if they kept her up whispering, even though she and Parvati sometimes talked and giggled together for hours.

"Maybe she knows something about Mrs. Norris," Harriet whispered, staring up at the crimson darkness of her canopy. "Maybe . . . maybe she can hear the voice, too."

She couldn't see Hermione's face, but she could imagine her expression as clear as the moonlight outside the window. When she was thinking hard about something that bothered her, her eyebrows drew down and her mouth thinned.

"Have you heard it at all past those two times?" she whispered.

Harriet shook her head, then remembered Hermione couldn't see her. "No. But . . . maybe different people can hear it at different times."

Hermione lapsed into a Thinking Silence. It was thicker than her Reading Silence, but not cold like her Disapproving Silence.

"Well," she whispered at last. "You should get some sleep. You've that Quidditch match against Slytherin in the morning."

"And Oliver'll want me to go at it like I'm fighting Slytherin's monster," Harriet yawned.

*

As it happened, it wasn't Slytherin's monster but a Bludger that Harriet had to fight off. She just barely managed it without breaking her neck, but it was a near thing. After hitting the mud, dizzy in the knowledge that they'd bloody won and Draco Malfoy could take that and tell it to Slytherin's monster, she fainted.

She woke up to glittering teeth.

"Oh no," she moaned, "not you."

"Doesn't know what she's saying," Lockhart told someone. Harriet made out blurs of red and gold around her, probably a crowd of Gryffindors. "Not to worry, Harriet, I'm going to fix your arm."

"No!" Harriet tried to pull it away from him, but the pain surged like a tidal wave and her vision went green and black. She thought she'd been going to say something else but she had no idea what it could have been—

Dimly, she heard a squelch and a thud.

"—gawping idiots," snarled a familiar voice. "Get back, get out of the—Miss Potter?"

"I didn't do it," Harriet said thickly, wondering if she was dreaming, because it seemed like Snape had come into her nightmare to blame her for something else. She blinked, trying to see, but her glasses were coated with mud.

Then something lovely happened to her arm—something that made it hurt less—and she was lifted gently out of the mud and onto something soft and stretcher-like.

"I thought I told you to get—" she heard Snape snarling from somewhere close-by. "If you must, Miss Granger—Weasley, move out of the way, where do you think I'm going, you daft boy—"

Harriet found out later, after Madam Pomfrey had dosed her with a pain potion and fixed her broken arm, that Snape had, according to Angelina and Katie, kneed Lockhart in the back and tread him into the mud; magicked her onto a stretcher and carted her up to the hospital wing, followed by Hermione, Ron, and the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team; and that Filch had just about had an apoplectic fit at all the mud they'd tracked through the castle (but Snape had sent him packing with a pithy remark that Fred said he'd treasure always).

Harriet dearly wished she could have seen Snape knock Lockhart into the mud, which Fred, George and Ron assured her had been an experience worth remembering. She was sure he'd also saved her arm from some horrible fate, like Lockhart turning it into an elephant's trunk.

"I'm sure he wouldn't have done anything of the sort," Hermione said a bit shrilly as they left the hospital wing to clean up. Even though she and Ron hadn't been flying through the rain, they'd gotten plenty wet and filthy kneeling over Harriet in the mud.

"I wouldn't want that nutter anywhere near me with a wand," Ron said. "Every time he gets it out, disaster strikes. He's worse than Neville."

"Oh, rubbish!" Hermione said, pink-cheeked, as they stopped where the edge of the hallway met the empty drop in the vault of staircases, to wait for one of the flights to swing over. "Look at all the things he's done!"

"He _says_ he's done," Ron said. "Oh, hurry up," he told the staircase, which was stuck waiting for a couple of Hufflepuffs to gather up their things; one of their bags had split open and they were scrambling to save everything from rolling off the stairs into the long, long drop of nothing below. "I'm starving. . ."

"Of course he's done everything he says he has!" Hermione snapped.

Harriet was only half paying attention to their row, though, because something nearby was rattling. Then it went CRASH. She looked up to see a suit of armor toppling at her, the axe swinging down. Hermione cried out, but Harriet dodged backward, neatly out of the way - and felt her foot slip off into nothing -

*

They watched the box rattle across the floor as the Bludger fought to break out.

"I always check the balls against foul play," Hooch told Severus and Minerva above the shuffling and thumping. "There was nothing wrong with this one. Bludgers always fight."

"Except that clearly," Severus said coldly, "there _was_ something wrong with it."

"I checked it before and after," Hooch insisted with a dirty look. "Go on, then, have at it. If it'll set your mind at rest."

Minerva unlocked the box and they both ran diagnostic spells over the thing while Hooch stood with her arms folded, looking like a local police chief having his work inspected by Scotland Yard in the smug yet offended knowledge that the interfering detective wasn't going to find anything. And indeed, even Severus's most sensitive Dark scans came up negative. To his magic, the Bludger was faultless.

And yet it had followed Lily's daughter across the Quidditch pitch for over an hour, screaming through the rain-whipped air, until her arm had snapped so hard he'd heard the break from the teachers' stands. He could still see her plummeting toward the ground, hanging onto her broom by nothing more than her knees. All for a fucking Snitch—

"House-elf," he snapped.

Hooch blinked as a house-elf appeared in her cluttered little office amidst the Quidditch bric-a-brac.

"Severus, what in Godric's—" Minerva started, but Severus ignored her and pointed at the Bludger in its box, which had jerked its way across the floor and was now banging metallically against a file cabinet.

"Tell me if this Bludger bears any mark of house-elf magic," he told the elf, which he thought was probably female.

She bowed and went over to the box, putting her hands on it, and the Bludger fell eerily still and silent. She stroked her hands over the Bludger's curve and tilted her head as if listening, her ears standing out from her head.

"Yes, Professor Snape Sir," she squeaked. When she released the Bludger, it immediately started shaking again. "But it is not a Hogwarts' elf, Professor Sir."

"Thank you," Severus said, and with a bow she disappeared like mist in a gale.

"House-elf magic?" Minerva asked him in a tone of voice that had an old ring of Severus Snape You Will Tell Me This Instant Why It Is After Curfew And You Are Not In Your Common Room to it. "Severus, what's the meaning of this?"

"I suggest you ask the Headmaster," he said in a way calculated to make her tail bristle, and swept out without a backwards glance at Hooch. But beneath that, he was more baffled than before. If Lucius's house-elf wanted to keep the girl safe from whatever Lucius was unleashing at Hogwarts, why in God's name would he try to kill her?

As he gained the entrance hall, he heard something swishing close behind him. "Severus Snape!" Minerva barked, now in tone of a Fifty Points From Slytherin And See Me After Class. He forced his legs to keep walking, although he turned his head slightly to show that he'd heard, and raised his eyebrows as she hove alongside.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked coolly, and thought he was lucky she wasn't transformed or he'd have had unsheathed claws coming at his face.

"You will cease to think you can emulate Albus this instant!" she said, red spots in her cheeks. "I won't have two of you on the grounds, so help me, Severus—one is almost more than a saint can handle!"

Wasn't that the truth—and if there were any saints on staff, he and Minerva would miss the short list by a mile. Still, he said, "You know how the Headmaster treasures his wheels within wheels."

"Oh, certainly," Minerva scoffed. "But I do not. And I agreed with you, if you will remember, that the Quidditch game ought to be stopped. I was in Hooch's office, investigating that infernal Bludger, while Albus is off polishing his wheels within wheels. So you will tell me this instant what house-elf magic on that Bludger means, or so help me . . . "

Gryffindors never finished their threats. "If you must know," he said coolly, knowing it would infuriate her, "it's—"

But that time he was the one who didn't finish. A noise cut him off from somewhere not too distant, somewhere overhead: a faint crash, and then a scream—

He and Minerva looked up. They'd come to the vault of staircases, stretching from the ground floor to the height of the castle . . . and something was plummeting through the air down toward them, something small and black—

His heart jolted in horror as the girl bounced off one of the moving balustrades and spun down through the air—Minerva cried out, and the ground was rushing up—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I am usually too straightforward and boring to do cliffies. Usually. Not this time, apparently.


	7. The Silver Doe

Miss Granger was crying so hard Madam Pomfrey had to force-feed her a Calming Draught. Weasley was white as chalk.

"It was a suit of armor," he croaked, his freckles standing out on his face, as stark as drops of blood. "It started to fall over, and Harry dodged it, but the staircase hadn't swung back over—"

Tears were dripping off Miss Granger's chin onto her robes, but she had stopped sobbing, and her stare was glassy and unfocused now that the Calming Draught had taken effect. Weasley was gripping her hand. Minerva stood next to to them, her hand laid over her heart. She hadn't stopped clutching at it since they'd stopped the girl from hitting the ground floor.

"She was lucky," Pomfrey whispered to Dumbledore, just inside the barrier of the curtain drawn around the girl's bed. "If she'd hit the railing at a slightly different angle than she did, she'd have been paralyzed . . . "

Severus didn't trust himself to speak. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd break every window in the ward.

Dumbledore emerged, rustling, from the curtain drawn around the girl's bed and glided over to the children. "Harriet will be all right," he told them with a kindness that sounded infinite. "Would you like to see her?"

They trailed him to the bedside, Minerva following. When Dumbledore nudged the curtain aside, Severus saw the girl looking pale but deeply asleep, her black hair spread out on the pillow like a dark corona.

"She'll be all right?" Miss Granger asked in a calm, distant voice, still clutching Weasley's hand.

"Yes," Dumbledore told her gently. "By the morning she'll be herself again and ready to see you."

Severus routinely thought his relationship with Dumbledore was as complex as the mechanics of quantum physics—it encompassed resentment, admiration, loyalty, bitterness and grief on any given day, sometimes at any given moment—but he was always baffled by Dumbledore's ability to handle an emotional crisis without any apparent effort. When turned loose in a tense moment, Severus knew hewas sure to make it a disaster whether he intended to or not. But Dumbledore was able to induce enough docility in Weasley and peace of mind in Granger to allow Minerva to lead them away without any more display of reluctance than a mulish expression on Weasley's face.

Dumbledore turned to look at Severus as the door to the infirmary closed silently behind Minerva and the children. There was no twinkle this time, no lightness in his expression; he looked grave and thoughtful. But when he spoke, it was to Madam Pomfrey.

"How is she truly, Poppy?"

"Stable," Pomfrey said, her face lit by the multicolored back-glow of the diagnostic spells webbed in the air above the hospital bed. "I've put her in a healing sleep. Spinal injuries are nothing to be taken lightly, you know."

Severus's insides twisted, hard.

"Do you foresee any repercussions?" Dumbledore asked, quite serious.

"She should be fine," Pomfrey said. "I've repaired the damage, the sleep is just to make sure the nerves and muscles rest."

"Did the damage seem to be what Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger described?"

"She hit something hard—most likely stone—at high velocity," Pomfrey said, a bit tartly. "Other than that . . . "

"Thank you, Poppy, for your exceptional skill. Severus will be sitting up with her."

Severus resumed feeling annoyed. It was his strict intention, even if he had to barricade Poppy in her office, but he hadn't said anything yet. He'd had a whole repudiating speech planned. Infuriating old—

"If he must," Pomfrey said, giving Severus a stern look. "She'll be sleeping most of the night. She might start to stir in about five, six hours as her body resumes natural sleep, but other than that, there shouldn't be much to see."

Except, perhaps, a third attempt on her life. But Dumbledore was apparently keeping this from Pomfrey. That was fine with Severus. The fewer people fluttering around, asking questions and exclaiming, the better. He didn't know why Dumbledore turned everything into an enigma, but Severus kept things private simply because people were so bloody irritating. They bleated instead of acting or making useful plans.

Pomfrey set a charm on the girl's bed that made it glow momentarily. A little light flared to life above her heart, pulsing in time with her breath. It was apparently exactly what Pomfrey wanted, because with a satisfied nod she excused herself and rustled back into her office.

"The Bludger?" Dumbledore asked once the door had clicked shut behind her.

"House-elf magic," Severus said curtly. "Minerva knows now."

Dumbledore merely looked thoughtful. "And we don't yet know about the suit of armor?"

"You're welcome to look into it," Severus said, leaving I'm not budging unsaid (but audible all the same).

Logic dictated that Dumbledore was certainly the cleverer and more powerful of the two, that he was magically more capable of protecting the girl should a threat materialize in the hospital wing; but some sense more mutable than logic told him that Dumbledore didn't care as much as he did. Oh, Dumbledore cared, but the girl didn't mean the same thing to him. Protecting Lily's daughter was the only thing Severus had left. If he failed at that, then Lily, who had died from things he had done that could never, ever be redeemed, had died for nothing.

Dumbledore was watching him with that light blue, penetrating gaze, as if Severus was as translucent as water. Severus glared back, daring him to smile and say something cryptic and soft-hearted, wondering how he himself would react to it. But all Dumbledore said was, "Then I leave Harriet to your watch, Severus."

*

The night crept past. The hours were long on the cusp of winter, the windows black by half past four. Pomfrey sank the lights in the ward around eleven and retired to bed at precisely midnight. All the while, the girl continued to sleep, her breathing rhythmic and nearly inaudible even in the dead silence.

Severus did some marking for the appearance of the thing, but his mind wasn't on it, and he wound up grading on a sliding scale: top marks for the Slytherins, matching average marks for the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and slightly below average for the Gryffindors. They were first year essays, and it was always funny to see the Ravenclaws' initial reaction to mediocre grades. He went ahead and gave high marks to a couple of Hufflepuffs, knowing it would try the Ravenclaws high.

Sometimes he wondered what it would take to make Dumbledore step in and do something about his methods, but for eleven years Dumbledore had only seemed complacently amused. Well, he'd never done anything about Slughorn, either. Slughorn had been just as biased, in his more pleasant way. If you weren't special enough to be a collector's item, he had barely known you existed. Severus knew every single one of his students, Slytherin or not; he simply loathed the sight of more than three quarters of them.

But once Madam Pomfrey went to bed, he forced all distractions away. It was deadly dull, but he was used to dealing with physical and mental boredom. Well, he ought to be; he taught vapid little human pustules to wipe their noses ten months of a year.

God, he hated children.

Dumbledore loved them—said they were little mines of potential, the keys to the future. Severus saw the potential, but any promise they possessed was always overpowered by their utter determination to squander it. It had been just the same when he was a child. He, on the other hand, had been determined to make something of himself . . . and then had wound up here, at the end of a long chronicle of sins and failures.

Had Lily lived, he wouldn't be here right now, in the shadows of the hospital wing, guarding her daughter as she slept. He probably wouldn't have had anything to do with the girl at all: as little as he'd attempted the first year of her schooling. Had Lily and Potter lived, they'd surely have had a brood of messy-haired, green-eyed children, and Severus would have relocated to Latvia before the first of Potter's hellspawn had darkened the halls of Hogwarts.

"I want three children at least," Lily had told him when she was about fourteen. "That way, if two of them don't get along, there'll be a third."

"And it'll get left out anyway," he'd said.

She had stolen his cigarette and faked like she was going to smoke it, but then dangled it over the edge of the river, threatening to drop it. "Well, what do you think is the perfect number, then, Mister Clever Trousers?"

"None."

"And I wound up with thousands," he muttered to the silent shadows cobwebbing the infirmary. Lily would have laughed until she cried, had she lived to see him teaching.

He wished he had her photograph. It was a bit mad, talking to a photograph, but he did what he had to.

Since he was a child, he'd done what he had to.

He sifted through his memories, combing back through the years. He was certain it was only Occlumency, his ability to shut down his emotions at will, that allowed him to do this; to find within the acres of grief, bitterness, and broken chances the memories that had once been something else, and hold off, until the charm was cast, the tarnishing knowledge of what they became.

He took hold of the memory of Lily dangling his cigarette just out of his reach, her face sly and sparkling, and hung it between thick nets of Occlumency. He shut out all the connected memories, the knowledge that she was dead and she would never have any more children, would never even know the one she'd had, allowing himself to remember nothing but the laughter in her face, the mock scowl as he deliberately spoiled her game, the sunlight in her hair, nothing like wine or apples or any color he'd seen since; a color that belonged to those memories, and to them alone.

_Expecto Patronum_ , he thought.

The hospital wing filled with starlight as the doe coalesced in motes of brilliant silver and white. The clearer she became, the more he felt himself relax, as a sense of calm mixed, as always, with powerful sadness exhaled through him like waves up an ocean shore. He wondered how many other people could achieve hand-in-hand with grief what Dumbledore called the Patronus, the perfect manifestation of joy. Every memory he possessed of Lily was touched by the knowledge that she was gone, but her absence did not diminish her power that lingered in his heart. It would always be there, bound up in his sorrow, his guilt, his—

"Oh," said a soft, wondering voice.

He looked past the doe. In the circle of argent light it threw across the room, he could see the girl propped up on one elbow. Her eyes were wide, colorless and dark in the night, but she didn't seem to see him—she was staring, rapt, at the doe.

It had turned at the sound of her voice and now moved toward her, a trail of coruscating brightness lingering in its wake. The girl sat up, stretching out her hand, slow and dream-like. Severus kept absolutely still.

Then the Patronus faded, more slowly than it usually did, diminishing to an outline and then to a single mote of brightness where the heart would have been. The world seemed darker, colder, even though the Patronus gave off no warmth.

The girl lay back down, her face just visible in the soft light of the lamps that burned at the end of the ward. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where the doe had been. Severus watched the light shine in pinpricks in her eyes until she closed them some time later. Shortly after, her breathing slipped into evenness again, and she was asleep.

For the first time, he thought not only of what Lily had lost, but her daughter also, eleven years ago.

*

When Harriet woke up, she knew she'd been having a really beautiful dream. . . a dream about a doe that was made up of stars. . .

She felt very tired and groggy, so tired her eyelids didn't want to open and her brain just wanted to slump back into sleep. She could hear shuffling and voices whispering, and someone moving near her bed. . .

What were Hermione and the others doing? Why were they even awake? She was so tired, it had to be the dead middle of the night. . .

She forced an eye open a crack, and then pulled both of them open all the way. Snape was standing next to her bed, one hand on her hangings, looking at something to the side—

Except those weren't her hangings. They were pale curtains, with light glowing through the back. She wasn't in her dorm; she was in the infirmary.

That was when she remembered.

She lay still, listening to the whispering. She knew that if Snape saw she'd woken up, he'd order her to go back to sleep and she'd never find out what was going on. And after Dobby's warning, the blocked barrier at King's Cross, that evil, disembodied voice, the message on the walls, Mrs. Norris Petrified, Ginny acting weird, the murderous Bludger, and the falling suit of armor, Harriet needed to get to the bottom of it.

" . . . etrified?" whispered a woman's voice. Madam Pomfrey?

" . . . leeve so . . . " said a man's voice, quiet but deep. That was definitely Professor Dumbledore.

Harriet kept her eyes open just as slits. Snape hadn't moved from his spot next to Harriet's bed, just inside the curtain. She wanted to see what his expression was, but she didn't dare open her eyes enough to see.

" . . . sneaking up here . . . visit Miss Potter," said Probably Professor McGonagall. " . . . Albus hadn't . . . no telling what . . . "

Not Hermione, Harriet thought with a jolt of panic.

" . . . camera?" Madam Pomfrey whispered.

There was a sudden sound of something hissing, and even across the ward Harriet smelled something stinking.

"Gracious Rowena," said Madam Pomfrey clearly, but her voice dropped immediately, like she hadn't meant to say it that loud.

" . . . what . . . mean?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"It means," Professor Dumbledore murmured, his low voice carrying clearly this time, "that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again."

The words wrote themselves inside Harriet's mind in bright scarlet, just like the message on the wall outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She sat up quickly, trying to see around Snape, to see who was on the bed and what had happened to them before he—

Snape swept the curtain shut, blocking his own face with shadows. "Miss Potter—" he started in a low, dangerous voice.

"Who's over there?" Harriet said quickly, pushing back her blankets to climb down from the bed. "It's not Hermione, is it?"

"If you put one foot on that floor," Snape said, "I will forcibly restrain you."

Harriet paused with her toes a few centimeters from the ground, and then slowly retracted her foot. "Who's out there?" she repeated. "What's happened to them?"

The curtain rustled to the side and Madam Pomfrey appeared, wearing a wooly cardigan sloppily pulled on over her nightdress, her gray hair in a braid. "Miss Potter," she said severely, "go back to sleep."

Grown ups! Frustrated, Harriet said, "I can't until I know what's—"

"It is not Miss Granger," Snape said in his cold voice.

Relief made Harriet sag on the bed. "But who is it?"

"Never you mind," said Madam Pomfrey in a voice that did not sound entirely steady.

"I do mind!" Harriet said indignantly. "Somebody said they were coming to see me, whoever it is!"

Madam Pomfrey looked at Snape almost helplessly; he looked as if he'd rather be anywhere but here. Forcible restraint or not, Harriet was about to jump down from the bed and run past them if they wouldn't—

The curtain snicked aside, revealing Professor Dumbledore in a brilliant purple dressing gown. He looked rather tired and grave. Harriet was suddenly sorry for making a fuss, but still determined to get out there and look.

"Poppy . . . Severus . . . Harriet has a right to know," he said calmly.

"Headmaster," Snape started in a dark voice, while Madam Pofrey said, "I really don't think—"

Professor Dumbledore held out his hand to the side, as if gesturing Harriet along. "Come, Harriet, if you wish."

Feeling embarrassed at her own fuss and shy in front of several of her professors in a nightgown, Harriet climbed down from the bed and followed Dumbledore resolutely across the space between the beds to the one directly opposite hers. Professor McGonagall's mouth was very thin again, but Harriet hardly noticed. She was staring at the body on the bed, rigid as a corpse, with its hands locked in front of its face like it should be clutching something, and its face . . .

"Colin." She swallowed a heavy weight that settled in her stomach like a sickness.

"Surely that is enough now, Headmster," said Professor McGonagall sharply.

Professor Dumbledore laid his hand on Harriet's shoulder. She expected him to steer her away and back to her bed, but he said in a grave, gentle voice, "These are Harriet's friends, Professor McGonagall."

Professor McGonagall's silence was like a living presence.

"Who did this to him?" Harriet asked, staring at Colin's wide, terrified eyes and thinking of the voice that whispered death and blood into her head, imagining it was Hermione on the bed like that, frozen . . .

"I am afraid the question is not who," Professor Dumbledore murmured. "The question is how . . . "

Harriet looked at Professor McGonagall's face, at Madam Pomfrey's, at Snape's, and saw they didn't understand any more than she did.

And knowing that none of the adults in this room had the answers was the most frightening thing of all.

*

The next morning, Harriet awoke to fluttering daylight. It was snowing, and the flakes drifting past the infirmary windows made shivering shadows on her bed.

Snape was still there, looking bad-tempered, his hair even lanker than usual. Whenever Harriet glanced toward the high curtain completely surrounding Colin's bed, Snape looked like he was restraining himself from saying something pretty nasty, only Harriet couldn't imagine why he'd restrain it.

Madam Pomfrey was checking Harriet over with glittering spells when the infirmary door crashed open and Hermione and Ron came tearing in. Even though Ron was at least half a foot taller, Hermione was outstripping him. Snape barely got out of her way before she skidded around Harriet's bed and flung her arms around her.

"Harry!" she squeaked, sounding near tears. "Oh, Harry!"

Hermione's grip was almost throttling her, but Harriet squeezed back just as hard, thinking of Draco Malfoy's You'll be next, Mudbloods. Colin was Muggle-born, too . . .

"You all right, Harry?" Ron asked. He looked pale and tired but alert. "If Hermione doesn't strangle you, I mean."

Hermione let go, to give him a dirty look, but then she turned back to Harriet. "We heard about—"

But then she noticed Snape. Harriet didn't think he'd moved or made any noise, but Hermione turned to look at him, went bright red, and fell mute. Ron's expression clearly said What's HE doing here, then? but he kept his mouth shut. Snape just looked at them, as good as a sneer, and then glided over to Madam Pomfrey's office. He didn't leave the ward, but for the rest of the time he ignored them.

Harriet ate the porridge Madam Pomfrey brought her and then escaped with Hermione and Ron. She felt Snape's eyes boring into her as she left, and scratched the back of her neck.

"We heard about Colin," Hermione said in a low voice as they hurried along the corridors thrumming with students on a Sunday morning. "That was him behind the curtain, surely?"

"Yeah." Harriet noticed a portrait of some bearded men in ruffs watching them with clear curiosity and added, "I've got something to tell you. Somewhere we won't be overheard."

"Lucky we know a place that's so depressing nobody ever goes," said Ron.


	8. The Dueling Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Thank you, everyone! I've gotten some really beautiful reviews and they've made my heart smile. :) 
> 
> -Most of the dialogue in the Dueling Club scene is taken from the chapter in CoS with the same name.
> 
> -The transition between the last scene in Ch 7 and this first scene in Ch 8 might seem abrupt, but fear not, I haven't skipped a chapter on you! I just passed up most of Harry, Ron and Hermione's scheming about the Chamber and the Polyjuice, since we've all read it in canon. The same could be said of the Dueling Club scene, but... I just couldn't resist it, nor did I want to.

"A Dueling Club?" Minerva said with deep and weary misgiving. "Albus, you can't be serious."

It was one of Minerva's stock phrases that she always uttered regardless of the fact that she must have known it would never do any good. Even Severus occasionally found himself saying it. He wasn't sure whether it was a habit he'd picked up from her or the force of sheer, simple frustration, as when one asked the universe, "Why me?"

"Gilderoy thought it would be a good idea, in these dark times, to start one, and I thought him right on point," Dumbledore said, smiling in that daft way that made dafter people think he was just a daft old man. "The students should know how to defend themselves, don't you think?"

"The students should feel they know how to defend themselves, you mean," Minerva said tartly. "I highly doubt Slytherin's monster will observe the rules of engagement."

Severus agreed with her, but he didn't say so. He and Minerva never agreed with each other aloud. Of course, they'd made such a habit of keeping silent when the other said what they agreed with that their silence was now tantamount to agreement anyway. Perhaps he should say something snide . . . but that would mean approving of a scheme of Lockhart's, and Severus would award a million points to Gryffindor first.

"He'll need some help, of course," said Dumbledore, twinkling in a way that boded ill for someone's dignity.

Severus groaned internally. If dignity was at stake, it would always be his.

"Severus."

Bloody fucking—

Dumbledore gazed at him beatifically. "You wouldn't mind helping Gilderoy with a small demonstration, would you? There's only time for one meeting before the holidays, I think—"

Minerva was giving Severus a look that was half commiseration, half indecent amusement as his expense.

Severus opened his mouth to say, with utmost respect, Bugger Off You Barmy Old Codger, but his Inner Slytherin reminded him with a gentle cough that he was being handed an opportunity to openly curse Gildeory Lockhart in front of witnesses. Without repercussions. All in the name of an educational demonstration.

He barely managed not to smile.

"Of course," he said blandly. Minerva blinked. Dumbledore beamed.

"Excellent!" he said. "Most excellent. I am sure the students will enjoy themselves immensely, and that is what we all could use, I'm sure."

\---

A stage had been set up in the Great Hall in place of the student tables. It was a garish gold and ringed by a sea of excited, chattering hellspawn. Even before Severus saw it, he was already regretting that he'd consented to this farrago of nonsense. Only the prospect of injuring Lockhart in a few minutes was keeping him from doing it right now.

"Excellent!" Lockhart rubbed his hands together as he looked out at his shrill admirers. "Truly excellent turnout! Couldn't wait to see how an old pro does it, eh, Snape old man?"

Severus just stared at him, to no visible effect. Another thing that enraged him about Lockhart was how it was truly impossible to tell whether he changed the subject because he was intimidated or because he simply wasn't hearing any praise of himself.

"Well, let's get to it!" he said happily, and flitted out of the side door into the hall.

"Hello, hello!" Lockhart greeted everyone with an enthusiasm that made Severus want to wring his neck. "Can you all see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!"

The girl was there, with cronies Weasley and Granger, clumped close to the stage. Granger was staring raptly at Lockhart, but the girl looked resigned. Weasley muttered something in her ear that made her grin. It was probably one the lines of Let's hope they finish each other off.

" . . . me to introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," Lockhart was saying merrily.

. . . And Weasley could count on one of them being finished off, at any rate.

"He tells me he knows a teensy bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a small demonstration. But don't worry—you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him—never fear!"

Severus realized there was no curse he could cast on Lockhart in front of witnesses that would make this worth it. Anything to compensate for the sheer bloody frustration of enduring Lockhart's existence beyond this point would earn him a prison sentence.

Lockhart prattled at the children about the Disarming Charm. The spell was so simple and pragmatic that Severus figured Dumbledore must have skillfully inserted the suggestion into Lockhart's self-absorbed brain in such a way that he thought it was his own idea; left to his own devices, the evening probably would have been an enactment of his subjugation of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf.

Now Lockhart was bowing at him with flourishes that wouldn't have been overdone in 1640. Wishing he could just start hexing, Severus jerked his head at him in acknowledgment.

"Notice we're holding our wands in the accepted combat position," Lockhart told the students. Severus didn't bother to point out that it was better not to let your opponent get the drop on you by acting the part of the honorable moron; his Slytherins already knew it, and the others would figure it out after they lost a few duels. Well, perhaps not the Gryffindors.

"One!" Lockhart counted. "Two—three!"

"Expelliarmus," Severus barked before Lockhart had finished saying _three_. He put perhaps more force into the spell than was necessary: brilliant scarlet light rocketed across the stage, slammed into Lockhart's chest, and flung him bodily across fifteen feet of open space, into the wall behind him. He slid, limp, to the floor with a crash. Draco and his group cheered.

"W-well, there you have it," Lockhart wheezed as he tottered to his feet, his hair standing on end. "The, the Disarming! I've lost my wand—thank you, Miss Brown—

"A brilliant idea to show them that, Professor Snape," he said as he staggered back onto the stage, "although if you don't mind my saying, it was pretty obvious what you were about to do, and if I had wanted to stop you, it would have been only too easy . . . "

Severus was going to kill him—not here, but some day. Perhaps the intention had finally registered on Lockhart's wavelength, because he said, "How about some student demonstrations, then?"

So Severus was forced to leave the sanctity of the stage and wade into his hell-sent students. He headed straight for the girl and Miss Granger, who looked up, anxious and wary, to see him bearing down on them.

"You two," he said, pointing at them. If either of them managed the spell properly, which in Granger's case at least was likely, the other girl would only lose her wand. "You're a pair. Weasley, you can partner Mr Malfoy."

Draco strutted over, looking anticipatory; Weasley's freckled face darkened. Severus supposed both Narcissa and Lucius would have strong words with him if Weasley's unpredictable wand did something irreparable to their darling heir, but Lucius should have thought of that before he started scheming. Besides, it was equally likely that Weasley would be rendered worse than helpless by his own backfiring wand.

"I think it was Expelliarmus," Granger was saying to the girl, mimicking Severus's own movement with admirable exactness. He forbore to tell her so.

"Now," Lockhart was saying from the stage, "you'll be casting your spells to disarm only—only to disarm!"

Severus sincerely doubted this injunction would be observed. Weasley and Draco were gripping their wands in a way that promised the nastiest spell they could think of, and of all the confused babble around him, the only ones whom Severus could hear pronouncing the charm correctly were Granger and the girl.

"—three!" Lockhart counted.

A series of deafening explosions rattled the windowpanes and snuffed a third of the floating candles overhead; clouds of multicolored smoke erupted from various spots across the room; a flock of ravens rocketed out from a knot of Ravenclaw sixth years; and while Severus was blinking the afterimages of the light show out of his eyes, Weasley had thrown away his wand completely and was rolling around on the ground with Draco in a headlock. Something hit Severus on the arm, and turned out to be Miss Granger's wand.

"Stop! Stop!" Lockhart was crying above the chaos, flapping his hands.

For the love of— "Finite Incatatum!" Severus shouted, cancelling out all the spells at once.

Smoky haze hung in the air over a hall still babbling with noise, although it was no longer the cries of ineffectual spells and the squeals of their marks being hit. Weasley and Draco were still thrashing around on the floor.

Severus reached down and dragged them apart, or tried to, but they strained against his grip, clawing at each other. Then four small hands appeared out of nowhere and grabbed onto both Weasley's arms: the girl and Granger, hauling him back.

Severus let go of Draco, who dived for his wand lying on the flagstones, and sweeping it up, jabbed it at Weasley. "Serpensortia!" he shouted.

A streak of black shot toward Weasley, but it lost momentum halfway through its arc as it transformed into a giant king cobra as thick as Severus's arm. The snake dropped into heavy coils on the floor and for a moment seemed to lie dazed; then it unwound, raising its head, its hood unfolding.

The surrounding students screamed. Draco, his eyes glittering, blood running down his lip, raised his wand, but Severus grabbed his hand and wrenched it back. The cobra wasn't staring at anyone; in those few seconds, it seemed disorientated, thankfully. Severus moved to vanish it—

"Allow me!" Lockhart cried, and to Severus's horror, the idiot shot a bolt of bright yellow light at the fucking thing. The cobra was flung into the air and came back down, hard, apparently unharmed and now enraged. In that mood it rounded on the nearest target—which turned out to be Granger, and Severus had her wand—

And then Lily's daughter bloody shoved Granger aside, her expression fiercely determined, and opened her mouth as if to tell off a fucking cobra—

And hissed at it in a long, unbroken stream of snake-like sounds.

The snake stopped, as if confused. The girl pushed Granger fully behind her and hissed again, her eyes locked on the cobra as if she expected it to obey her. The sound of her voice wrapping around those syllables traveled down Severus's spine like flashes of cold electricity, rippling out into the hall and the students ringed around them, all of whom fell silent. They wouldn't have heard that sound before, not like Severus had, although they might guess what it was . . .

The cobra sank back, its hood folding into its neck, suddenly docile. The tips of Severus's fingers felt like ice.

"Evanesco," he said, and the snake dried up into nothing, like ash flaking away on the wind.

The girl relaxed, her expression both relieved and pleased. Then she noticed everyone staring at her as if she was now the most unnerving thing in the hall, and she blinked. Around their little circle, whispers rose into the air in angry, frightened mutters.

Weasley, blood running from his nose down his chin and onto his shirt, his expression grim and resolute, grabbed her by her sleeve and started pulling her through the crowd, which parted as though it didn't want to touch them. The girl looked baffled. Of course, raised by fucking Petunia, she probably had no idea . . .

"Miss Granger," he said coldly as she made to hurry past him. "Your wand."

"Oh—thank you, sir—" Looking shaken and bewildered, she grabbed it and ran after Weasley and the girl.

Draco stared after them, his mouth slightly open.

"Well . . . " came Lockhart's voice from the stage. "I . . . suppose that concludes our first meeting . . . "

\---

"Parseltongue," Dumbledore said slowly.

"Yes." Severus was thankful, at least, that Dumbledore didn't ask _Are you sure?_ Bloody biased Gryffindor he may be, but he did not waste time bleating senseless phrases. Well, of a sort. He did like to natter about love and wisdom, but during a crisis he stuck to the point.

This time he was saying almost nothing, and Severus found it almost disquieting. Dumbledore seemed unnerved by the report, more than even Severus was. And he had been reminded of nights in the Dark Lord's service, listening to those sibilant hisses as his pet snakes coiled around the Death Eaters' feet, smelling for scents on their bodies that counteracted their stories of where they had been, what they had been doing . . .

Dumbledore stared in the direction of the fire, but did not seem to be looking into it. He was rubbing the knuckles on his left hand with the fingers of his right, a gesture that Severus had connected to his thinking about something that troubled him.

"What do you think it means?" Severus asked bluntly.

Dumbledore didn't answer or even look at him right away. When he did, his eyes were. . . not troubled, but inscrutable.

"Parseltongue is a rare gift," he said eventually. "Said to be passed on by Slytherin himself."

"He was the most famous, but I really doubt he was the only wizard who has ever had the ability." It was hard to know; any wizards or witches preoccupied with their public image would have kept their Parseltongue a secret, and most historical mentions of self-proclaimed Parselmouths reported them as frauds.

"James Potter wasn't a Parselmouth," Dumbledore said, his eyes drifting toward the fire again.

Severus was starting to feel irritated. Well, it was never very far beneath the surface. "Perhaps it's recessive."

"Recessive?" Dumbledore said, raising his eyebrows, and Severus felt the momentary disconnect he always did when he knew something that Dumbledore didn't.

"Muggle genetics." He drummed the fingers of his free hand on the arm of his chair. "What I mean is that the ability might lay dormant in the blood for generations before revealing itself. Just because Potter wasn't a Parselmouth doesn't mean it never ran in his family."

"It has never run in any of the Potters, as far as I'm aware," Dumbledore said. "And she cannot have inherited it from Lily."

"Well, how could she be a damned Parselmouth if it isn't in her blood? Abilities like that don't just appear."

"No," Dumbledore said quietly. "They do not."

He was clearly keeping something back, perhaps more than one thing. Wheels within bloody fucking wheels, all right.

"I would prefer knowing what you are thinking, Headmaster," Severus said coldly.

"You would in general, I believe," Dumbledore agreed, though with another of those inscrutable looks, as if trying to read Severus's fine print.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Severus snapped.

Dumbledore shook his head, but he was now smiling faintly, as if thinking of a good story he'd heard a short time ago. "I know you're worried, my boy. . ."

Severus sat down his tea cup sharply so he wouldn't break it, because that film of beatitude was spreading over Dumbledore's face, the one that signaled the approach of another nauseating story about the sodding wisdom of love.

"And I admire that in you," Dumbledore said sincerely. "That after all this time—"

"Can you save this?" Severus asked. "I've just had to deal with Lockhart and a morass of mutton-headed students authorized to hex each other to their foul little hearts' content, and I've a pile of end-of-term work waiting to nauseate me for the holidays."

For a moment Severus wondered if he'd succeeded in annoying Dumbledore. But then the old man smiled, and Severus sighed inside.

"Not that anyone would ever believe me," Dumbledore said cheerfully.

"Good thing." Severus sneered. "Since you're so certain the Dark Lord will be returning—a Death Eater who's got a handle on the power of love isn't a Death Eater at all."

"No," Dumbledore said. "He's not, is he?"


	9. This, Our Christmas Day

"Hairy Potter, the Heir of Slytherin," Pansy said. "What rubbish . . . "

Pansy was jealous of Potter because she was famous and Draco would talk about her sometimes, when Pansy only wanted Draco to talk about herself. She bitched forever about how ugly Potter was, with her nightmarish spectacles and her even more nightmarish hair. But sometimes at night, when she thought the other girls were asleep or too busy in their bedtime routines, she would stare and stare at herself in the mirror, touching her own face, as if wondering what Draco saw in Potter that he didn't see in her.

"Well, the talking to snakes is impressive," said Tracey said coolly. Tracey did everything coolly. She also had a flat, unimpressed stare for everybody. No one had ever seen her open her eyes all the way, but sometimes she raised her left eyebrow very slightly. She did not care two straws about Potter. She said Potter was just a dumb girl jock.

Pansy glared over her own shoulder at Tracey, through the mirror. "She was making that up. She's a disgusting little show-off faker."

Tracey moved her eyebrow. "Then how did she get that cobra to back off of Granger?"

"Potter can't be a Parseltongue, Trace," Pansy said, as if this should be obvious to anyone with half a brain. "Obviously. Only Slytherins can be Parseltongues, and she's just a daft, stupid, fatheaded Gryffindor jock."

"I suppose if you say it, it must be true," said Tracey like she didn't care.

"Everyone knows it's true," Pansy snapped.

"Draco doesn't think it's Potter either," said Daphne from her own dresser. She always slipped into Pansy and Tracey's fights like that, right before it got too ugly. She also shuddered when she saw Potter. Her hand would always fly to her long yellow hair, smoothing it down even though it was always perfect.

"Thank you, Daffy, I know what Draco thinks better than you do," Pansy told Daphne. She couldn't bear even for another Slytherin girl to have a piece of Draco's attention. "He tells me everything." She picked up her brush and started her ritual of pulling it through her long dark hair, one hundred times on each side. "He'd like to know who it is, the Heir, so he could help them—and so would I. A school rid of Mudbloods and their ugly, stupid faces would be a paradise, not like this sordid place at all. It's positively crawling with Mudbloods."

"Surely not Slytherin," said Tracey coolly.

Pansy's mouth hardened. Of course, it was always sort of hard. "Well, of course not Slytherin. That should be obvious."

Everyone wanted to know who the Heir of Slytherin was. Draco's father had warned him the Heir was coming to Hogwarts but wouldn't tell Draco who it was. The older Slytherins didn't talk to lowly second-year girls, but even the seventh year prefects knew that if Draco didn't know, nobody would.

Millicent didn't think it was Potter, either, but nobody asked her opinion. They never did. Pansy would just sneer and snap anyway. She was their leader by right. Tracey was only a half-blood, and it was a witch's half, at that; everyone knew that was worse. Daphne's family was pure-blood but so poor they'd been punting on tick for two generations now, as Millicent's Da said; no clue how they'd marry off those four daughters. Mr Greengrass couldn't let any wager pass, not even if it was backing a kappa in a race against a grindylow. At least the Greengrass girls were all beautiful.

Millicent's branch of the Bulstrode family was made up of nobodies, as Pansy was always keen to remind her. Mum had just hung her apron on the door and left one day, and her father worked for no pay in a job nobody respected. He was just a door-to-door salesman, selling stockings he'd never be able to afford, even if he'd wanted to buy any for his daughter. But he never would. And silk stockings would look a joke on Millicent, everyone'd say. Pansy would be first to say it.

A couple of days earlier, Pansy had held up her copy of Holidays with Hags and said, "Doesn't this look like you, Millie," laughing at the square-jawed woman on the cover, like she was telling a joke.

"Oh, Pans," Tracey had said coolly, "did you hear what Claudia Dearborn said about you? She said you looked like her grandmother's pug bitch. Her words, not mine."

"Oh, no," Daphne had said, "I think I'm getting a pimple. . . Trace, look . . ."

But Millicent did think she looked like the hag on the cover. That's what made the joke so mean.

At least she would be away from Pansy for the holidays. She was going to visit her grandmother in Dublin. It smelled like gingerbread there, and she liked reading all the static Christmas cards lined up on the mantle and watching the programs on the telly. She didn't care that it was a Muggle flat. All her grandmother's Muggle friends pretended that she was pretty and told her grandmother how lucky she was to have such a sweet granddaughter. And there was a girl named Olive who lived in the flat below. She knew Gran, so she was always stopping by to chat. Millicent didn't think Olive would ever call her a friend, but to Millicent it was almost like having one, talking like you could like each other if you knew each other better.

"I was so sick with disappointment that Mudblood Granger didn't get it in the neck from that cobra," said Pansy—almost word-for-word what Draco had said after the Dueling Club earlier. "I can't believe Professor Snape was so mean to poor Draco about it."

"Yes," said Tracey, not looking up from her book. "He really overreacted. He must've forgot that Slytherin's monster could kill Granger any day now."

"Draco was only helping Slytherin's monster, Trace. Professor Snape ought to be doing the same!"

"You should really tell him that."

"It's a shame that Lockhart is so wet," Daphne said, smearing a goopy green cream across her cheekbones. She had turned thirteen only last week but she already looked like the Muggle film stars that played on Gran's telly in black and white. "He really is frightfully handsome."

"I think Professor Snape is handsomer than that Lockhart ponce," Millicent said.

Daphne accidentally put her elbow in her jar of green goop. Tracey actually looked up from her book. Even Pansy turned fully around on her stool so she could stare, forgetting to keep brushing her hair.

"You think what?" she said, her mouth hanging open. Millicent wasn't sure whether Pansy was more shocked by what she'd said, or that she had a thought of her own, or that it was a thought that Pansy Herself hadn't approved.

"I think Professor Snape's much better-looking than Lockhart," Millicent repeated.

"No, you don't," Tracey said. "You can't possibly."

"Yes, I do," Millicent said stubbornly. "Lockhart's got his head on backwards, he talks out the back of his fat neck. He couldn't find his arse with both hands. Or without telling you how he helped a whole village in Lapland how to find their arses. He's too sheep-brained to be good-looking. He's a twat."

"You must be joking," Daphne said faintly. Pansy's mouth was still hanging open.

"All right," Tracey said. "I'll give you that Lockhart has cabbage for brains. But Professor Snape is . . . look, I like him, he looks after all of us. But he looks like Dracula."

"What's a Dracula?" asked Daphne.

"A vampire," said Tracey.

"He looks interesting, all right," Millicent said.

"So you fancy Professor Snape," said Pansy. A familiar light curved over her face, the light of Millie is so big and stupid, isn't it funny. "This is enlightening, Millie."

"Didn't say I fancy him," Millicent said truthfully. "Said he's better-looking than that Lockhart twat. Not the same thing."

"Oh no," Pansy said with false enthusiasm. "No, you don't need to hide it from us, Millie. You can count on our support, always. Do you have the names of your babies all picked out?"

"Please don't let any of them be 'Pansy,'" said Tracey. "I hate that name. Present company excluded, of course."

Pansy's eyes stared hot hatred at her. Daphne said, "Lockhart was wearing a gorgeous shade of turquoise, wasn't he? I loved the gold trim . . . it set off his hair . . . his eyes . . . you know, I think he has those kind of eyes that change from blue to green depending on what he's wearing . . . "

It was no wonder, Millicent thought, that she couldn't really be friends with her roommates the way Potter and Granger were friends. It was never a good idea for her to talk around Pansy. And honestly, if they couldn't see how bacon-brained Lockhart was, especially compared to Professor Snape, she didn't think much of their standards. It was like Tracey said: Professor Snape looked out for them. If Lockhart had ever looked at anybody but himself, then she was a pixie. Lockhart paid attention to people who were famous like Potter or who asked for his autograph and told him how amazing he was, but nobody else. Professor Snape knew all the Slytherins' holiday plans. It was the way people treated you that counted, not the way they looked.

Someone had told her that, so long ago she didn't remember when. She'd held onto that. She wanted to believe it was true. She thought it was. She felt nothing when she saw Lockhart's beaming smile, except for wanting to punch him in the teeth. But when she had signed the paper to go home on the train and Professor Snape had said, "To your grandmother's?" that had felt nice. And the way her gran's friends wrote their Christmas cards to her, too. And Olive asking her what her favorite subject was.

It must be the nicest feeling in the world, Millicent thought, to have a best friend who would jump in front of deadly snakes for you. She'd like to have a friend like that.

\--

The days marched on toward Christmas, through constant sleet and snow. Harriet couldn't wait for the holidays. She, Hermione and Ron had signed on to stay over, and Harriet was looking forward to a school empty of so many people pointing at her and whispering not-so-quietly, drawing away from her in corridors and treating her like the carrier of a terrible plague.

In this case, the plague of Slytherin.

"It'll get better," Hermione assured her, with a dirty look for Lavender and Parvati, who had, with a great show of nonchalance, hung special charms all around their beds to keep away Slytherin's monster," Just in case, of course," they'd assured Harriet.

"Is Slytherin's monster afraid of onions, then?" Harriet had snapped, and refused to speak to them for several hours. Since her ignoring them only made them looked relieved, though, she hadn't got much satisfaction from it.

"Yeah, it'll get better," said Ron, glaring at a pack of Hufflepuff first years who were passing in a wide-eyed clump. "When all these stupid gits go home for hols. What are you pointing at?" he asked one girl rudely. She squeaked and collided with her friend in a hurry to get away from him.

But then everyone's trunks were packed, the carriages rattled round to take them to Hogsmeade station, and Harriet, Ron and Hermione were left virtually alone in the school, with only a few straggling students and the teachers for company. They spent a lot of time in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom overseeing the Polyjuice, and even though Myrtle wailed almost constantly, Harriet found herself becoming more cheerful. Soon they'd have the truth out of Malfoy about the Chamber of Secrets. Soon the danger would be over . . .

After Percy had caught them coming out of Myrtle's bathroom a few weeks past, they'd taken turns checking the coast was clear before they all left. On Christmas Day, it paid off. If they'd all come trooping out that time, they might have lost all opportunity to question Malfoy. She and Ron might even have got expelled.

At the time, Harriet walked boldly out the door, because it was silly for a girl to look guilty coming out of a girl's lavatory. She looked casually left, then right, as if considering which way to go. And then she heard the voice.

Not the disembodied voice, but the other one: the voice that struck cold fear into the heart of every Hogwarts' student.

"And just what, Miss Potter," said Snape above her head, "do you think you're doing?"

Harriet was glad she was facing away from him because it gave her time to paste an expression onto her face that she hoped was innocent enough before she turned around. But Snape didn't look convinced. If anything, he seemed to think she'd just confirmed all his worst suspicions.

"Oh, hello, Professor," she said, like it was nothing remarkable, them meeting here. "I was just . . . " She waved at the peeling door of Myrtle's bathroom. "You know."

Snape looked at the door mockingly, as if it had just put forth as feeble a story as Harriet's. "Really," he said with heavy sarcasm. "And I suppose this particular lavatory's being in this particular spot had no bearing on your decision?"

Right—this was where the first message had been, Mrs Norris and the spiders. Snape would remember.

"Well, when you've got to go . . . " Harriet said. It was really embarrassing, talking about this with one of your professors, especially Snape, but the darkest alternative was him going in there and finding the Polyjuice. While she wasn't sure if conning a note out of Lockhart to make a potion that was listed only in a book from the Restricted Section was something that was normally totally against the rules, she and Ron already had black marks on their record that would make it look pretty awful. Even like an expelling offense, maybe. And if Snape wouldn't connect Polyjuice to the boomslang skin they'd stolen (and the firework Harriet had thrown), then he'd been replaced by an impostor who would start handing out kittens for presents at Christmas dinner. Only that sneer was too mean and sarcastic to be anything but authentic Snape.

"Do you know what I think, Miss Potter?" Snape asked in such a way that made Harriet absolutely sure she didn't want to know what he was thinking. "I think this looks like amateur sleuthing and borderline rule-breaking. You remember, I dare to hope, what the Headmaster promised would happen should you break any more rules?"

"How is it rule-breaking?" Harriet blurted, because even for Snape this seemed a bit much. Well, without any evidence.

Snape's cold, suspicious eyes narrowed. "Do you want me to keep looking until I find out?"

Harriet didn't, but she was at a loss for a way to respond that wouldn't incriminate herself. Heart beating hard, she cast about for some solution, any . . .

Then her eyes fell on Myrtle's bathroom door. Her heart beat faster. It would be even more dangerous . . . it could be a disaster . . . a huge gamble that could backfire like Ron's wand . . .

She seized her courage in both hands and strode over to the bathroom door, pushing it open. "See?" she said. "Just a loo."

Snape looked at her, his eyes still narrowed, and then shoved the door all the way back and swept inside. Harriet's heart just about stopped when he went over and started banging open the cubicle doors, and she tried her hardest not to glance at the cubicle where the Polyjuice cauldron was . . .

Then Snape pushed it open anyway and glared inside. Harriet closed her eyes in horror. This was it. She was going to be expelled, and stuck with the Dursleys forever . . .

Her eyes flew open when Myrtle shrieked. Snape was glaring inside the next cubicle. He'd left the one with the Polyjuice potion alone.

"You're not a girl!" Myrtle screeched from within the stall.

"Oh, well spotted," Snape said acidly, banging the door shut. He swept over to Harriet with a glare that said he hadn't found anything on her yet, but he knew there was something, and when he did . . .

She stared up at him dumbly, wanting to clutch at her throat the way ladies did in old black and white movies when they'd had a nasty shock.

"Students shouldn't wander the corridors alone," he snapped. "With me."

Mystified, Harriet followed him. She didn't dare look behind her. Snape glared her along the empty corridors to Gryffindor tower, then glared her into the portrait hole. Even after the Fat Lady had swung shut, Harriet could feel him glaring at her through the layers of paint and canvas.

She didn't dare go back outside again. She collapsed into an armchair where she could see the entrance, and about fifteen minutes later a blushing Hermione and a scowling Ron clambered in.

"How—" Harriet said.

"Your cloak," Hermione whispered, looking shaken. "We climbed up on the toilet and threw it over us and the cauldron—"

"Brilliant," Harriet said, impressed and weak with relief. "I'm so so sorry—I thought he'd give it up if I acted like I wasn't hiding anything, that's why I showed him in there—"

"It's not your fault he's a bleeding suspicious creep," Ron said with feeling. "He was waiting outside the Fat Lady for us! Can you believe it?"

"Of Snape, yeah," Harriet said, shuddering at the narrow escape.

"If he's keeping watch on us," Hermione said, chewing her lip, "it'll be harder to find out what Malfoy knows . . . maybe we oughtn't do it tonight . . . maybe we should wait until Snape's lost interest . . . "

"Which could happen, you know, never," Ron said. "Snape could make a grudge die of old age, I'd bet. We've got to find out what Malfoy's up to, Hermione—we can't let that slimy old git stop us."

"I guess one of us'll just have to keep Snape distracted," Harriet said slowly. "Think about it," she said when they stared at her in alarm. "Crabbe and Goyle'll be the easiest to get hairs from, but that leaves one of us needing to impersonate some other Slytherin anyway, and that could get too complicated. Especially if Snape's looming like a . . . a what was that thing that had a thousand eyes?"

"Argus Panoptes," Hermione said promptly. "Only it was a hundred, not a thousand."

"Right." Harriet nodded. "That thing."

"I suppose . . . " Hermione said reluctantly.

Harriet steeled her courage. "I'll do it. Distract Snape, I mean. He's got it the worst for me, if he's minding me he might not care where you two are."

"Blimey, Harry," Ron said, whistling low. "You know, I think I'd rather face Slytherin's monster."

\--

Severus didn't bother informing Dumbledore that the girl was up to something. Dumbledore would only smile and twinkle, and Severus was in no bloody mood for smiling or twinkling.

Normally he enjoyed the Christmas holidays, or at least what passed for enjoyment with him. Anyone else would have said he was as dour and crotchety as ever (the other teachers frequently did, although with more subtlety), but he felt more relaxed with most of the students cleared off. He didn't have to attend meals with the other professors unless he was just dying to, which he surely never would be; he didn't have classes or grading to suffer; in short, he had the days mostly to himself. It was as close to content as he ever nearly got.

Usually.

The tension in the air this year was as thick as the cold, however much they all tried to downplay it for the students' sake. The Dueling Club had been an attempt at allaying the children's fear, but it had only bisected the problem. Now, in addition to worrying Slytherin's monster, everyone thought they knew the identity of Slytherin's heir. Adrenaline shot through the gossip like impurities through crystal, fear mixed with excitement.

Severus was also displeased to find that the Malfoys wouldn't be back from Brussels in time for Christmas. They had been visiting Lucius's mother there for several weeks, a prospect so grim and unnerving that Narcissa had spared her son in the only way she could, by leaving him at Hogwarts for the break. Severus had hoped for the regular invitation to the manor so he could induce a tipsy Lucius to brag about his successes, such as they were (or perhaps complain that they hadn't been greater); but Lucius had to be such a disobliging wretch as to answer his mother's commands to visit Belgium for the holiday. Well, at least Severus knew Lucius was suffering.

And as ever, there was the girl to worry him.

Even if she hadn't been wearing that laughably pseudo-innocent expression, Severus wouldn't have bought for one second the story that she'd been loitering around that bathroom for no more reason than the obvious. She radiated disobedience. Maybe it was the hair.

No; it had been the look on her face after Dumbledore had shown her the Petrified Creevey boy. It had said, _Slytherin's monster, you're on my list._

If she went after any legendary monsters, now or later, he was going to wring her glory-seeking Gryffindor neck.

She looked quite innocent right now, eating Christmas pudding. She'd got on some woolly, scarlet jumper with an intarsia Gryffindor lion woven on the front; the sleeves were too long, so she'd rolled them back from her (much too) bony wrists. All the Weasley children were wearing something similarly hideous.

He could see the drama of adolescence already settling in across the table, missing only Crabbe and Goyle. Draco was sulking about something; the Weasley female looked ill and was only picking at her food; her eldest brother was making sheep's eyes at one of the Ravenclaw girls. Granger, Weasley and the girl were sitting clumped together in their usual design, engrossed in private whispering. Severus wondered how long it would take before that friendship succumbed to a teenage love triangle.

Then the three of them glanced up the table, right at himself.

I knew it, he thought, though he was unsure whether he felt more satisfied or disquieted. He'd never met three children who were more adept at scheming themselves into life-or-death situations or more ungrateful at being preemptively extracted from them. If one of the little pustules hadn't been Lily's daughter—if he hadn't had debts as deep as Hell to pay—he'd have bloody left them to it.

What disobedience could he pin on them on Christmas Day? He could fabricate an excuse in his sleep, but today was the one time when Dumbledore might interfere . . .

"Christmas cracker, Severus?" said the meddling old pseudo-do-gooder in question, proffering a cylinder of iridescent crimson and emerald paper.

"Yes, that looks like one," Severus said.

Minerva, who was sitting across from him at the single long table set up for everyone, rolled her eyes. She'd probably had quite a bit of the spiced eggnog by now.

Dumbledore merely twinkled at him. "I thought so! Now, remind me what I'm supposed to do with it?"

"Offer that end to Minerva and have her pull on it."

"Such a stick in the mud." Sprout whacked him on the arm, probably harder than she'd intended. Her cheeks were almost as red as the tinsel she'd stuck to the brim of her hat, which was almost falling off her ear. "I'll pull it with you, Albus."

"Thank you, Pomona," Dumbledore said meekly, but his eyes were laughing at Severus.

Sprout reached across Severus to take hold of the cracker. It split open with an ear-ringing bang, and he had to close his eyes against the cloud of red and green smoke that erupted from it. He felt something living land in his lap in a coil—a bright green garden snake—at the same time somebody dumped their drink down his arm.

"Oh!" said a high, girlish voice. "I'm so sorry!"

The girl stood next to his chair, clutching an empty goblet, her face as red as her jumper and equally guilty. If it hadn't been for her expression, Severus would have assumed she'd come to ask something of Dumbledore and been startled by the exploding cracker, but her face said she'd upended her drink on purpose. He couldn't see why she should have. Well, perhaps for vindictive pleasure, considering how he'd been hectoring her all term, but she didn't look pleased that she'd succeeded; on the contrary, she looked like she'd rather be falling under a bus than standing next to him.

"Aha, raining in here, is it?" Sprout said, and dissolved into semi-drunken chortles.

Wordless, Severus took out his wand. The girl's wide eyes fixed on it, but she didn't back off, even when he pointed it at her—or appeared to. His intention was to dry off his arm, but he wanted to see what she'd do if she thought he was about to curse her.

She clutched her goblet but stayed her ground.

Still saying nothing, he waved his wand down his sleeve to dry it, watching his silence have the desired effect of making her look even more nervous.

"There," Dumbledore said cheerily. "No harm done. My, what spectacular prizes came out of this cracker. Belgian chocolate, Severus? Harriet?"

"Oh—thanks," the girl said blankly, and took one from the bright pink box Dumbledore was holding out.

Belgian chocolates and snakes. Severus flicked through the rest of the prizes that were lying scattered across the table . . . one of which was an ornament in the shape of a fawn. He drew his hand back slowly.

"Oh," the girl said, her voice now soft and her fingertips coated in chocolate. "That's like my dream."

"This, do you mean?" Dumbledore asked, holding up the fawn. It was blown glass, glazed white.

"That night I fell off the stairs." She'd noticed her fingers were chocolatey and was licking it back off. "I had a dream about a deer made up of stars. It was really lovely."

Dumbledore glanced at Severus, who busied himself with his goblet, monetarily wishing that he ever permitted himself to drink something stronger than water.

"Then perhaps you should have this," Dumbledore said to the girl with a smile in his voice; from the corner of his eye, Severus saw him hold out the fawn to her. "It seems to have been meant for you."

"Oh," she said for the fourth time, now sounding surprised. "Thank you, sir."

It was then that Severus, scanning up the table to avoid meeting Dumbledore's eyes, noticed that Granger and Weasley were gone. Indeed, all of the other children were. Only the girl was left, and she didn't seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere. She was now sitting contentedly next to Dumbledore, in a chair he'd drawn for her, going over the flavors in the box of chocolates with him. ("Hazelnut, I think I had the cherry crème, what's Moroccan?")

The absence of her two inseparable sidekicks was significant, Severus was sure of it; but as long as she was in plain sight, not getting herself killed, he did not care so much about the rest.

His peace of mind lasted until Dumbledore started twitting her about the deer in her dream.

"Was it doing anything in particular?" he asked her, patting his mustache clean with his napkin.

The girl frowned it over. "Not really. It was just there. I was . . . I could tell I was in the hospital, but it was like I was just dreaming about being there, with the deer. Then it sort of . . . melted away. It was really—I was sort of sad it was gone, but at the same time there was a nice feeling . . . " She trailed off, looking embarrassed, and took another chocolate with a lot of self-conscious rustling.

Severus's nail jarred as he picked at one of the emeralds set into his goblet.

"As a matter of fact," Dumbledore confided, "I've seen something similar myself."

Severus almost ripped his nail off, scraping at the goblet. The old man wasn't seriously going to—

"Have you, sir?" the girl said. It was ridiculous how wide her eyes could go.

"Only a handful of times," Dumbledore said. "But each one was an honor."

Severus would have left the table if it weren't for needing to keep a hard eye on the brat. He didn't know what Dumbledore was playing at, but he didn't need to listen to it.

"Is it like a ghost or something? I could see through it—only it was brighter . . . "

"It is something like a ghost, you could say. It is a piece of very powerful magic, some of the most powerful in the world, and rarely glimpsed in that particular form. You were very fortunate to see it."

"Why did I?" The curiosity was plain in her voice, but Severus wasn't looking at her or at the Headmaster; he was staring across the hall at the enormous Christmas trees glittering to either side of the doors, wanting this damned mortifying conversation to be over.

"That, I cannot tell you, my dear, for I don't know. But were I to guess, I would say it was because that very powerful force of which I spoke just now was protecting you."

The girl was silent. Severus prayed that she would now go away and cause mischief. Then he would have an excuse to leave—and to be cruel and vindictive, to rid both her and Dumbledore of the notion that he was doing any of this from any motive more shining than soul-wracking guilt.

"Are you enjoying your Christmas, my dear?" Dumbledore said to her now.

"Oh, yes, sir."

"That would appear to be a Weasley jumper you are wearing. They're quite famous, did you know?"

"Mrs Weasley knitted me one last year, too. They're ever so warm."

Severus found himself wondering if Petunia had denied her warm clothes in addition to everything else she'd withheld.

"Molly Weasley does have quite the talent," Dumbledore told her. "I have tried knitting my Christmas gifts on and off again throughout the years—socks, mostly, for no one can never have too many socks—but I have never been able to turn the heel when I should. I always wind up giving them scarves out of necessity. Severus has several of them, don't you, Severus?"

Severus thanked him with a cold stare. Dumbledore was twinkling again, and the girl looked like she was trying not to laugh, lest it should get her detention. It probably would.

"Mine do have heels," Severus said. "But you forgot my legs aren't six feet long."

Dumbledore laughed.

"But, my word, how I've been monopolizing your time, my dear," he said suddenly, as if he'd just noticed how much time had passed. Severus knew his surprise was faked; Dumbledore could keep time in his head down to the half minute. "I'm surprised your friends haven't come to rout me. But perhaps they were at the door and heard me talking of my knitting, and wisely stayed away."

"Nah," the girl said. When she grinned, she looked like Lily or Potter or both or neither; it was impossible to say. "I think Fred and George were planning something for Percy—Ron and Hermione probably got roped into it. But I should probably go. Thanks for the chocolates, sir, and the ornament—"

"Not at all, my dear. I thank you for the pleasure of your company. Are you going, too, Severus?" he asked, with equally false surprise, as Severus stood from his chair.

"Yes," he replied. "Now that Miss Potter is escaping your knitting stories, it would fall to me to listen to them. I'm getting out while the getting is good."

Dumbledore looked extremely amused. The girl . . . did not looked alarmed or displeased, as he'd been sure she would. In fact, she looked satisfied, even relieved, about the fact that he was clearly intending to follow her out. What was she up to?

Once they were out of the hall, she surprised him further by asking, "Does Professor Dumbledore really knit six-foot long socks?"

"Yes," Severus said shortly. "Which was an improvement over the twelve-foot ones."

She started climbing the Grand Staircase in silence, not saying anything as Severus followed her up, nor looking remotely surprised that he stayed with her. So she had no plans to misbehave for the present . . . but they'd been whispering together, she and the other two . . .

Ah. One possibility crystallized out of the ether of his suspicions: Granger and Weasley were up to something, and the girl was the diversion. But he had no idea what Granger and Weasley could be doing that was harmless enough for the girl to leave them to it with no apparent anxiety, but adequately dangerous that they didn't want him finding out about it. They clearly weren't worried about the other teachers or the girl would have lingered longer in the Great Hall.

It was something to do with the boomslang skin that had gone missing, he'd bet. That would explain the firecracker, too. But why they would be brewing advanced potions, Severus had no idea. Neither the girl nor Weasley was interested in Potions, and he was fairly sure that Granger only tried so hard because she was a desperate overachiever.

"I'm probably not going to get attacked by Slytherin's monster," the girl said out of nowhere.

Severus just stared down considerable nose at her. This usually had the desired effect of unnerving his victims and making them babble on to what they really wanted to say. But the girl stared back at him—quite boldly, all things considered—and said, "I'm half-blood, I mean. Slytherin's monster is supposed to rid the school of Muggle-borns, isn't it? Hermione's in more danger than I am."

A look of anxiety flitted across her face at that, but then it was subsumed by determination once again, just like the night in the hospital wing. So that's what it was. She was fretting for her friend's sake. It surprised him. He wouldn't have thought she realized that something so abstract as "a danger to Muggle-borns" signaled "a danger to Hermione Granger."

"I'm glad to have the matter explained to me," Severus said, with enough sarcasm to make her blush. "Tell me then, Miss Potter, as I still seem to be in the dark—what caused the Bludger to attack you, and the barrier at King's Cross to seal itself against you? And—yes, I believe there was the matter of a strange house-elf warning you, specifically you, against a great danger at Hogwarts? Despite this insoluble protection of your bloodline."

The girl flushed. "I didn't say there wasn't other stuff, I just said Slytherin's monster wouldn't hurt me."

"Yes," Severus said coldly. "Because legendary monsters are really so discerning about blood purity."

"Well, that's the whole point, isn't it?" she asked, in a tone that said That is the whole point, duh.

"It is a legend, Miss Potter. In legends, myths and stories, the truth is neatly packaged. In real life, however, madmen are always willing to accept what they call collateral damage."

She looked confused. The desire to continue, to make her understand that nothing was protected from deranged evil, warred with the knowledge that she was probably too young to understand.

"But everyone's saying I'm the heir of Slytherin anyway." Was that a tinge of bitterness in her voice?

"Have you set a legendary monster on Mr Creevey and painted threatening messages on the walls in rooster blood, then?"

"No, of course I—wait, it was rooster blood?"

It wasn't until she repeated it that Severus realized what he had just said. Of course . . . Hagrid had been losing those birds to human sadism . . . but there was something else, something about roosters, that was still niggling at him . . .

"It was," he said absently, trying to dig up the connection.

"Well, of course I haven't been doing that stuff. But I can talk to snakes, and that's what Slytherin was famous for, wasn't it?"

"Yes?" he said, but his mind was elsewhere. His thoughts were unfolding, exposing the core; and when they did, when he saw what he had been failing to see, he felt like the greatest fucking fatwit walking. Dead roosters—Slytherin—Parseltongue—Petrified bodies—Dumbledore had probably figured it out as soon as Severus told him about the Parseltongue, at the very least. He might even have known all along.

Slytherin's monster was a fucking Basilisk. That's why the girl had heard it when no one else did; to anyone else, the hissing would have registered only as meaningless noise, not as words—

A small, cold hand grabbed his. "Professor," said her high, frightened voice.

Halfway up the shadowed corridor, a body was lying on the floor, and a ghostly, opalescent shape was suspended above it in midair. In the first moment of dread, Severus thought it was the spirit of whoever was lying on the floor; but then he realized it was the Gryffindor ghost, his head sagging off his neck, his face blank and motionless, the way people looked when they were dead and gone.

The girl struggled in Severus's grip, which was when he realized he'd pushed her behind him.

"Stay where you are," he snarled. "Did you hear that voice again? The one you heard in detention with me?"

"N-no," she said shakily. "Who is it on the floor? Is it Her—"

"It's too big to be Miss Granger," he said, and felt her sag with relief. "Tell me if you can hear the voice now, Miss Potter."

She stopped speaking or moving, apparently listening, and then said in a confused voice, "No, but why—?"

"If I am to take your word for it, Miss Potter, you had best be very sure."

"I'm sure, I can't hear anything. Why would I—"

Ignoring her questions, he dragged her after him over to the body on the floor. The hair lying across the face was long and curly, and for a moment he feared he'd told her false—but in the torchlight the curls were the wrong shade, too pale; and Miss Granger had been wearing corduroy trousers, not a long blue gown.

He shifted the hair off the student's face and felt relief trickle down through his limbs. She was only Petrified.

And thank Christ, by the way, that he hadn't dragged the girl over to see a dead body.

"Who's she?" the girl asked in a hushed, subdued voice.

"Penelope Clearwater," he said. "A Ravenclaw." He reached into his pocket for the moonstone all the teachers carried for emergencies, in case they needed to call each other, and summoned both Dumbledore and Flitwick.

"Was she . . . was she Muggle-born?"

"As far as I am aware." He knew the histories of all his Slytherins, but on the other students he was less informed. He knew of no wizarding family by name of Clearwater, though.

"What happened to Nick?" she asked. The ghost's opalescent light reflected off her spectacles. He was rotating slowly in place, but other than that he did not move.

Severus felt a chill that had nothing to do with being in close proximity to a ghost. If a Basilisk could kill what was already dead . . .

"I mean," she said, "he looks dead . . . I mean, of course he's dead, 'cause he's a ghost, but he looks—"

"I know what you meant, Miss Potter."

Her face was very pale. "What could kill you twice?"

Footsteps pattered against stone down the corridor behind them: Dumbledore and Flitwick. Their expressions, which had been confused and alarmed, changed when they saw what they had been summoned to.

"No," Flitwick whispered. Severus thought he hadn't meant to.

"She's only Petrified," Severus said shortly. He was watching Dumbledore, whose face was grim. Indeed, grimness radiated out of him like an aura, tangible in the pearly light cast off from the Gryffindor ghost.

"You found her like this?" he asked Severus, who nodded curtly. Then, with no softening of expression, Dumbledore's eyes traveled to the girl.

"I think Harriet ought to be returned to her dormitory," Dumbledore said a few moments later, his voice resuming its kindness. "Severus, if you will—?"

Severus nodded and swept the girl on her way. Madam Pomfrey passed them at the next corner, hurrying toward the scene he had just left, her face frustrated and upset. Minerva and Sprout were with her. They didn't say anything to him since the girl was there, but their expressions flickered as he and the child passed them by.

The girl was silent the rest of the way to the tower. Severus was debating the wisdom of telling her to leave it to trained, adult wizards. He suspected that it might not be wisdom at all. Both Lily and Potter had been the type of people to feel they knew better than those around them, and Severus had never met a piece of advice he'd had the patience to take. He felt quite sure that telling the girl to keep her nose out of it would only galvanize her.

He thought of the look on her face and the tenor of her voice the two times that she had said, It's not Hermione, is it. He could practically feel the danger; as if they stood at a crossroads and he alone saw the double path, and his only hope of steering her onto the safer road—down which she wouldn't go looking for a great bloody Basilisk—was so inchoate, it slipped through his fingers even as he tried to grasp at it.

"They all think I'm the heir of Slytherin, don't they," she said abruptly.

This was so unexpected that Severus almost said, What are you on about?

"Isn't that what you were telling me not ten minutes ago, Miss Potter?" he asked instead.

She darted a fleeting look up at him, but then stared fixedly away, and he understood.

"The other professors? Miss Potter, don't be absurd."

"I saw the way they looked at me just now," she said with a flare of hot defiance.

Severus opened his mouth to tell her in detail how ridiculous this was . . . and then remembered Dumbledore's troubled silence after the debacle of the Dueling Club. Good God, he didn't really think—?

"Even were they so fatheaded," he said, "you have an alibi, do you not? You have been in the Great Hall, and now with me. You couldn't possibly have done it."

The girl looked up at him again, her eyebrows furrowed, and then to his astonishment her expression cleared. He'd probably never had a non-Slytherin student look so relieved by something he had said. Certainly not a Gryffindor.

"You'll tell them I didn't?" she asked anxiously, and he was reminded of how young she was. Or rather, he was reminded of what being young meant.

"If you insist," he said.

She nodded, quick and eager. He wondered whether she was worried because she was a child and didn't know that he couldn't possibly withhold an alibi, or because she wouldn't put it past him to be so vindictive. Well, he couldn't really have faulted her for the latter.

The Fat Lady had been drinking with a trio of fifteenth century Flemish nuns and refused to believe the password was Rumplestiltskin the way the girl insisted it was. She looked very offended, in a drunken way, at Severus's telling her to stop swilling and open the damn portrait, but she finally let the girl into the tower.

Severus left to hunt up Dumbledore and find out what he was thinking.

As much as anyone could, with Dumbledore.


	10. King of Serpents

He went to Dumbledore's office instead of trying to root him out in the corridors. The study smelled of the usual cinnamon and seasonal pine. Dumbledore had arranged a giant Christmas tree draped with gold and silver tinsel and strung with multicolored fairy lights that faded and brightened like the stars in the sky. Although the office was warm, almost stifling, gusts of snow from the storm outside rattled and banged the black windows. Severus had noticed the weather worsening during dinner, the dark grey mass of the enchanted ceiling thickening and churning as they all worked their way through goose and stuffing, cider and mulled mead and minced pies.

A mound of presents was piled beneath Dumbledore's tree, so many different styles of wrapping and shapes to the packages that, even ignorant of how much the Headmaster was beloved, Severus would have known they were genuine and not merely decorative. He never bothered to put up a tree in his own quarters. There wouldn't have been much under it—Dumbledore's present; Narcissa's; the one from the staff Secret Santa (he rolled his eyes). His House usually gave him something communal because Slytherins recognized the importance of doing the needful. His mother never sent him anything, not even a card, but he didn't expect it of her. He had quit sending her presents over ten years ago, after she'd sent a curt note telling him not to waste money.

Dumbledore had tacked an obnoxiously bright stocking to his mantle. It was lurid orange and pink with Albus stitched across the top in a childish hand. The 'S' was backwards. Severus had told a house-elf to fill it with coal in the night, an honest impulse that he knew Dumbledore would think was funny.

He had just sat down in a chair next to the tree and started prodding the packages, seeing if he could guess what was what, when the door opened and Dumbledore stepped in. He didn't see Severus right away; instead, he drifted over to his phoenix and stroked its mottled head. It had burned a week or so ago and was now a downy chick again, canary yellow with a scarlet head and beady black eyes.

Severus wondered how it felt to be as old as Dumbledore looked right now.

"This looks like toffee from Hagrid," he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing Dumbledore give a quiet start at the sound of his voice. "I pray it doesn't pull out any of your teeth, old as they are."

Dumbledore smiled slightly. "I usually soften it over the fire. Ever since '77, when I forgot and cracked a tooth." But then the smile dissipated and he just watched Severus, his palm resting on his phoenix's bright head. So Severus went on nosing through Dumbledore's presents.

"Elphias Doge." He rattled the box. "Sounds like a set of false teeth, appropriately enough."

Dumbledore made a vague noise, sounding as if his mind was elsewhere.

Severus picked up a lumpy, lopsided present from Arabella Figg and turned it over in his hands as if trying to gauge its weight. In the same tone of voice that he'd commented on the first two presents, he said, "You've been thinking the girl is the Heir of Slytherin, weren't you?"

Dumbledore didn't answer right away, which told Severus all he need to know.

"Probably a hand-knitted cat pillow," he said, tossing the present back into the pile. "Why in God's name would you think she was sicking a giant Basilisk on Muggle-borns?"

"So you've deduced that it's a Basilisk, too," Dumbledore said quietly. He had a peculiar expression on his face as he looked across the study at Severus, like he was deep in an emotion that had nothing to do with what they were talking about.

"Roosters," Severus said, curt and quick, like he was reading off a list. "That voice she heard—it was the Basilisk's voice, that's why she heard it and I didn't, and we were in the dungeons at the time, which was Slytherin's domain. Salazar was a Parselmouth, which doesn't only mean you understand snakes, it means you can control them."

"Yes," Dumbledore said, more quietly still.

"You seriously thought she hurt that Creevey boy?" Severus really couldn't believe it. That wasn't Dumbledore's style. It certainly wasn't Severus's to have more faith in any person than Dumbledore did.

"Even if she had some track record of violent or sadistic behavior," he continued when Dumbledore didn't say anything, "which she doesn't, she was unconscious at the time of the attack, just as she was with me for this one. And her best friend is Muggle-born—"

"So was yours," Dumbledore said, even more quietly than before.

Severus felt himself go white. Dumbledore just watched him, sober and grave.

Severus felt his heart beat, hard, into the silence of their voices. The heat from the fire was suddenly suffocating, and yet Severus felt like ice through and through.

Then the phoenix chirruped, a sound like tiny silver bells, and Dumbledore closed his eyes.

"Forgive me, Severus," he said heavily. "I know . . . " But he trailed off, as though he was too weary to be wise.

"Fortunately," Severus said, barely moving his lips, "Miss Potter is better at making abstractions." He forced himself to keep speaking. "She has already understood that danger to Muggle-borns means danger to my Muggle-born friend."

"Has she?" Dumbledore asked, looking at him without any trace of mockery or sarcasm. When Severus jerked his head, Dumbledore rubbed a hand across his chin.

"I admit that any notion of Harriet as the culprit is not simply a matter of twisting the facts, but of outright ignoring them," Dumbledore said slowly. "Yet I have not been able to rid myself of the suspicion. . . "

"Perhaps I am not making myself plain," Severus said, still feeling cold everywhere that warm blood should have been running. "I know the signs of a child bent on domination of her peers. Miss Potter exhibits none of them."

"Tom Riddle was quite adept at hiding them," Dumbledore said, almost gently. "I taught him, you will remember."

"But you saw it in him, even at the time. When he had charmed everyone else into knots, you thought there was something to be wary of, didn't you? Other than the fact that she is the only known—known—Parselmouth in the school, have you any reason to suspect her? And anyway, we know it has something to do with Lucius Malfoy."

"Yes . . . " Finally, Dumbledore moved to sit down. "I had not forgotten Lucius. Or Dobby, come to that."

"If James Potter was related to Salazar Slytherin, I'll hug Longbottom," Severus said.

Dumbledore half smiled, but it faded almost as soon as it had come. "Lucius Malfoy's apparent involvement is a significant part of the matter."

Severus noticed that Dumbledore didn't say what part, or why it was significant. "But you're still not convinced it isn't her? Why not?"

"It would not be very wonderful to me," Dumbledore said, carefully now, almost tentatively, as though he was leery of saying this, "if Harriet were to . . . demonstrate some of the same . . . weaknesses as Tom Riddle. Both are orphans who suffered great neglect as a child. Both, from an early age, have shown talents far beyond their peers'. And both . . . both possess the rare gift of Parseltongue."

"She is not the Dark Lord, Dumbledore." Severus didn't even need to think this over. He didn't know why he believed it, or why he was so insistent, but he did and he was. Maybe he didn't want Lily to have died to protect her child, only to have it grow up and turn into another Tom Riddle. Maybe because he knew nastiness and malevolence far better than Dumbledore did, whatever he said or believed. Dumbledore might have brushed against darkness long ago, but he had never followed it breathlessly, never sought it and gloried in it, until the darkness within himself shattered all the brightness of his hopes. "She's something else entirely."

Dumbledore was watching him with a peculiar expression on his face. It was as though he was trying very hard not to beam like Christmas morning and throw his arms around Severus and start prating about love and joy and—dear God, Severus was getting nauseous just thinking about it.

"She's an impertinent brat whose peerless talent is risking her neck for no good reason." He wondered if he should sneer. The expected touch, or overdoing it? "She and Weasley and Granger are up to something—don't you twinkle at me," he snapped. "They robbed me of boomslang skin so they could brew invisible Potions in that miserable out-of-order girl's bathroom on the second floor, God only knows what they—

"What?" he demanded, because a very strange expression had just flitted across Dumbledore's face, an expression almost like gobsmacked astonishment.

Dumbledore blinked. Then he said, "You have not deduced, then, who the Heir of Slytherin must be?"

Severus was thrown off-kilter. What did that have to do with—

. . . Wait. Was Dumbledore offering him information about the Heir of Bloody Slytherin to distract him from whatever had astounded him? Oh, yes he bloody was, or Severus was the reincarnation of Helga Hufflepuff. "Never bloody mind that, thank you, Headmaster. I want to know what it was that shocked you just now when I said—"

"The Heir of Slytherin is Tom Riddle, Junior."

That time, Severus thought he actually felt the room tilt. Then his dread surged like the tide before a storm, and the weight of the thought It's too soon it wasn't supposed to be this soon was crushing.

"I have no reason to suspect Tom's direct involvement," Dumbledore said calmly, as if he weren't shaking Severus's tenuous peace by its foundations. "But we know that Tom has always been adept at influencing others. We were just remembering it. His powers of manipulation and personal enchantment were as great as his magical skills—though he would surely not wish to admit he was so talented at something so mundane."

This time it was understanding that broke over Severus, a softer wave but no less icy. "You think the Dark Lord is manipulating or controlling one of the children in the school."

Dumbledore inclined his head.

"You think it's _her_?"

"I think the connection would certainly be difficult for Tom to resist, do you not? The temptation to take by guile what he has not been able to by force—to destroy the avatar of our peace and hope, by forcing her to take the lives of Muggleborn students—do you not think this sounds like Tom?"

"No . . . " Severus said slowly. "You were right that the Dark Lord does not stoop to the mundane any longer. Magic was—is—all that he considers worthy. That . . . the other . . . that sounds like Lucius. Jesus Christ, that's Lucius all over."

He might have stared at Dumbledore in horror. Not because Lucius would be capable of that, for he knew that Lucius was, and anyway, it was a waste of time to sit aghast at the depths of cruelty in the human heart. But he was disturbed by what it signified. He had always been certain, as certain as it was prudent to be, that the Dark Lord had no contact with Lucius, or vice versa; but if Lucius wasn't merely acting on some sadistic lark—if he were somehow channeling the Dark Lord's essence into one of their students, Severus's certainty would have been in error, and he could not afford to be in error.

"So you agree," said Dumbledore, "that—we'll say Lucius, or perhaps Tom—is using one of the students, possibly unwillingly, to control the Basilisk and attack Muggleborns?"

"Yes. I do." Severus scrubbed his hand across his eyes. "I'll have his guts out through his nostrils."

"You know," Dumbledore said pensively, "that really does warm my heart, Severus. Who would have thought? It delights me, to see you caring for the children."

"I hate children," Severus snarled. "But I hope I'm not so mad as to fail to hate more the people who turn children into murderers for their own ends."

"Oh, Severus," Dumbledore said, giving him a fond and knowing look that made Severus wish he'd told the house-elves to put twice as much coal in his stocking. "I think I just proved, at least twice during this conversation, that your heart is in the right place."

"I don't have a heart," Severus said. "I had it removed and replaced with a steel trap years ago."

\--

"I was just so sure it was Malfoy," Ron said for the millionth time.

"Oh, Ron, do let it go," Hermione sighed.

"I can't believe it," Ron said as if he hadn't heard her. "All that work, and we didn't find out a bloody thing we didn't know already. Well, there's that secret panel in the Malfoys' drawing-room—I'll write Dad and tell him—but we already knew the Chamber had been opened before, from what Harry overheard Professor Dumbledore saying—"

"We didn't know that someone died last time," Harriet said quietly. A vision of Penelope Clearwater lying on the floor with her curly hair spread over her face made her feel so cold, it was like being stabbed in the ear with an icicle.

"And we know that someone got expelled for opening the Chamber," Hermione added. "I bet it was in the paper . . . "

"Oh, well, that's great news," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "We can just travel back in time fifty years and swipe somebody's Prophet and get this whole thing wrapped up."

"Or," Hermione snapped, "we could just go to the library—"

"What, has it got a time vortex, then?"

"Honestly, Ron!" Hermione banged her fist on her knee. For good measure, Harriet smacked Ron lightly on the arm. "Thank you, Harriet." Fixing Ron with a beady, McGonagall-like gaze, she said forcefully, "There are old Daily Prophets, hundreds of them, going back decades. Whoever was expelled and whoever was," she swallowed, "killed, it would have made headlines. We can start about forty-five years ago—'fifty years' could be just a general—"

She broke off, looking up apprehensively; Harriet and Ron followed suit, but it was only Fred and George. They'd come over to the couches, and now sat down to either side of Ron and Hermione, who book-ended Harriet.

"Rotten way to end Christmas, isn't it?" said Fred.

They all nodded and then fell silent, staring at the fire. It was cheery and bright and warm, unlike them. Harriet felt cold inside. Dumbledore's expression kept haunting her . . . and Nick's slack face . . . Penelope Clearwater's wide, glassy eyes . . .

"Where are Percy and Ginny?" Hermione asked the twins quietly.

"Percy went to see if he could help with that Clearwater girl," George said, while Fred rolled his eyes. It made him look very much like Ron.

"Pompous prat," he said, without enthusiasm. "But it's Ginny we wanted to ask you girls about."

"We think she's up in her dorm, but obviously we can't get up the girls' tower," George added.

"Why not?" Ron said.

"The Founders arranged it that way," Hermione said immediately. "The stairs disappear if one of you tries."

"But you and Harry've been in my dorm loads of times," Ron said.

"Ah, dear, sweet boy," said Fred, putting his hand flat on Ron's head. "But he'll soon learn, won't he, George?"

"That he will, Fred," George said solemnly, ruffling Ron's hair into his eyes as soon as Fred removed his hand. They snickered at the scowl on Ron's face as he shoved his hair back.

"We'll go check on her," Harriet told the twins.

She and Hermione let themselves into the girls' stairwell. It was icy and dark inside; the torches in their brackets on the walls burned like sinister eyes. The diamond-paned windows rattled in the moaning wind, and some snow flecked the floor around them, blown in through the cracks in the masonry.

Their dorm was all the way at the top of the staircase, with the first year girls' one level below. They knocked on the door and listened, but nobody answered.

Harriet pointed at her wand at the glinting brass lock and said, "Alohomora."

Hermione pushed the door open. Empty of all her dorm-mates and their things, Ginny's room looked almost unlived-in. Trunks were gone and dressers bare, there was no light but the fire, and it was cold and silent . . . except for a hitched, whimpering noise that made Harriet's stomach clench.

She and Hermione traded a silent look and then made their way slowly, softly, to the one bed that was occupied. A lump sat upright underneath the covers, rocking back and forth, over and over, whimpering.

Harriet reached out and gently tugged the blankets off. She saw Ginny's red hair, vivid even in the patchy darkness.

Then Ginny rounded on them, her teeth bared in rage and lips pulled back in a snarl, her eyes wild and almost inhuman looking, with a glint Harriet could have sworn was red as blood.

Hermione gasped and grabbed Harriet's arm, but Harriet didn't back away. Her heart beating hard and fast, she stayed where she was, staring into Ginny's strange eyes.

"Ginny?" she said quietly, like she was talking to a frightened animal, because she wasn't sure that she wasn't. "It's Harriet and Hermione."

At first, nothing changed. And then her expression sort of melted, like the lines on her face were running like paint . . . no, they were tears . . . Ginny was staring at them and crying out of wide, terrified eyes, shaking all over like Dobby getting ready to run at Harriet's wardrobe and bash his head on it.

"It's okay," Harriet said, although she had no idea; even though it didn't feel okay at all. Her arm was going numb from where Hermione was gripping it. "Ginny, it's okay."

Ginny let out a sob, and then another, and then she was sobbing so hard her breaths sounded like frogs croaking. Hermione stepped forward and wrapped the blankets around her again, and Harriet lay Ginny's head in her lap. They stayed like that, Harriet and Hermione holding Ginny and looking at each other, wondering why Ginny should cry like her heart was breaking.

\--

Ginny cried herself to sleep. Harriet and Hermione brought her up to their dorm and let her have Parvati's bed. All they told Ron, Fred and George was that Ginny was feeling a bit of a flu or cold or something and just wanted to sleep, but Harriet wasn't sure the boys had been convinced. They'd all noticed how Ginny had been unwell all term.

"I think we should write Mr. and Mrs. Weasley," Hermione whispered as the light from the fire died slowly in the dark. She and Harriet lay tucked up in her bed, Ginny asleep across the aisle. Her face looked distraught and unhappy even as she slept. "Maybe Ginny . . . maybe she should take some time off from Hogwarts for a bit."

"I think it's got something to do with the Chamber of Secrets," Harriet said quietly. "I think the monster, it's hurting her."

"So getting away could only help her," Hermione insisted.

Harriet hadn't told her friends yet what the teachers suspected. She had thought, in fact, about not telling them at all. But in the darkness of her dorm, in this safe, familiar place that smelled of home, like Hogwarts' soap, Parvati's amber perfume and Lavender's rosemary shampoo, and Hermione's books, she felt the urge pressing at her throat. She wanted Hermione to tell her how silly it all was, the way Snape had said _Don't be absurd._

So she told Hermione that the teachers thought it was her, the Heir of Slytherin. Pinpricks of light from the fire swam in Hermione's wide, dark eyes. She said nothing from start to finish.

"They can't," she said at last in a hushed voice. "Of course it isn't you. Oh, they can't!"

"But the voice," Harriet whispered, anguished. "How come I can hear that killing voice if nobody else can, if I'm not the Heir of Slytherin?"

"Well, I . . . " Hermione froze. Then she grabbed Harriet by the shoulder, startling her. "Harriet! Oh, I—I think I've just understood something!" She sat up suddenly, pushing off the blankets, breaking a wave icy air over the bed. "I've got to go to the library!"

"Hsst!" Harriet gestured at Ginny, but she was so deeply asleep that she didn't even twitch. "You can't go to the library, it's the middle of the night!"

"We'll wear your dad's Cloak," Hermione said, breathless and quick. "We've got to, Harry, I'll never be able to sleep until I know—"

"Know what?" Harriet asked, as Hermione scrabbled around pulling on her slippers and a dressing gown.

"Slytherin's monster! Harriet, what if it's a giant snake? What if you were hearing Parseltongue? Oh, where's your Cloak? I'll go by myself—in fact, maybe I had better—"

"And get Petrified by a great dirty snake?" Harriet said in a hot whisper. "I don't think so. Hang on, let me find my slippers . . . "

As quietly as they could, they pulled the Cloak out of Harriet's trunk and sneaked out of the dorm. The Fat Lady was passed out with that load of nuns she'd been drinking with earlier, and they were all snoring hugely, their wimples fluttering over their faces.

Through the Cloak, the darkness looked silvery. The corridors were so cold that their breath misted in front of them in ghostly clouds, and the storm pounded and shrieked at the windows. They walked carefully, quietly, even though their slippers didn't make any noise above the wind and rattling glass. It was surely the creepiest walk Harriet had ever taken.

When something moved in the corridor ahead, they both froze like they'd been Petrified and clutched at each other. For a few paralytic moments, they stood like stone statues, hardly daring to breathe . . . and then Professor Sprout came into view, holding her illuminated wand in one hand. She swept its silver-blue light along the walls, to the grumbling of the portraits, and pulled aside a tapestry concealing a staircase to look up there, too. Was she patrolling? Looking for the monster? For more Petrified students?

She moved past them, her wand's light shining on the wall behind Harriet and Hermione's invisible bodies.

"Teachers!" Hermione uttered in a terrified whisper once Sprout had gone.

"We could just wait for morning," Harriet said. "That'd be the sensible thing."

She and Hermione looked at each other.

"I mean, I guess," Harriet said. "I'm not sure I'd know sensible if I met it, really."

"We'll be in such trouble if we're caught," Hermione breathed, the words warm and damp on Harriet's face. "You in particular. I don't know . . . "

"I'm going to the library," Harriet said. "I'm going to find out if Slytherin's monster is a great dirty snake, because then I can tell it to bugger off back to its rotten Chamber of bloody Secrets. But I'll take you back to the tower if you'd like—"

"Oh, shut up," Hermione said, squeezing her hand. They set off again, gripping each other by the hand now, on the watch for monsters as well as teachers.

"But if we see Snape," Harriet whispered, "we're going around."

\--

Harriet had been in the library once before at night, and she liked it just as little this time around. Books at night were creepy.

They kept the Cloak on as they thumbed through the card catalog, Hermione looking up magical snakes, and as they crept into the Magical Creatures section. Hermione levitated an ancient-looking, smelly book off a top shelf and smuggled it beneath the Cloak, where they spread it out on the floor and read it by the light of their wands.

"This is it!" she whispered triumphantly. "'Of all the fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it' . . . it all fits, Harry!"

"Okay," Harriet said, "so I'm the only one who can hear its voice—except the Heir of Slytherin—because I can talk to snakes—like the Heir of Slytherin . . . but how could I hear a giant monster snake and not see it?"

"Salazar Slytherin could have built tunnels for it to get around," Hermione said, frowning in the white-blue wand-light. "A normal-sized snake could probably use the plumbing, but a Basilisk is supposed to be huge."

She pointed to a picture that the writer had helpfully penned in. The Basilisk was a snake with the head of an eel and the eyes of a crocodile. Harriet couldn't see how the artist could possibly know what it looked like since the Basilisk's stare killed you immediately.

"But no one's been killed," she said, "only Petrified . . . "

She and Hermione stared at each other, and then they both said, "The water on the floor."

"Colin had his camera with him," Harriet recalled, remembering the acrid smell. "It was burnt to a crisp inside. He must've looked at the Basilisk through the lens—"

"And Penelope Clearwater must have seen it through Nearly Headless Nick—"

"He looked like he'd been killed twice . . . He must've seen its stare head on . . . "

Hermione clutched the book to her chest. "We've got to tell the teachers," she said breathlessly.

"We can't right now," Harriet said. "They'll know we've been out of bed, and I bet you anything they won't give us awards for it."

"No," Hermione said, worrying her lip. "No, you're right . . . "

"We'll take the book with us and tell them in the morning. The Basilisk's not going anywhere, after all," she said grimly.

\--

Harriet woke up just before dawn to the sound of something scratching. At first, as she lay blinking at the chink of firelight visible through a gap in her drapes, she thought it was a mouse. It was a familiar sound, at any rate. Then she realized it was the sound of a quill on parchment.

"Hermione?" she said, sitting up and pushing her bed hangings aside.

But it wasn't Hermione; it was Ginny, sitting in front of the fire wrapped in blankets, scribbling in a leather book like a diary.

"Harry?" Hermione said sleepily from the bed next to Harriet's. "What are you writing?"

"It's nothing," Ginny said in a funny voice. She stood up, blankets and all, and climbed back into Parvati's bed, jerking the curtains shut behind her.

Hermione and Harriet looked at each other. Then by unspoken agreement they climbed out of bed and dressed shivering in the darkness, pulling on several layers of their warmest clothes. The wind was still hammering at the dorm-room windows. Hermione grabbed the book on the Basilisk, and they let themselves out of the dorm.

"D'you think it's weird how she won't tell us what's wrong?" Harriet whispered as they groped their way down the black, icy stairwell.

"That's what troubles me the most, actually," Hermione said. "I can understand her not telling her brothers, Fred and George tease her so horribly, but we're her friends . . . "

"Maybe she's told the friends in her year something," Harriet said as they reached the common room. A roaring fire was lit in the big hearth, but the flames kept guttering from the gusts of wind coming down the chimney.

Hermione checked her watch. "It's still really early . . . not even dawn yet. I doubt any of the boys are awake—"

She broke off as the portrait hole creaked open. It was Percy. His usually neat hair looked flat and uncombed, and his robes were rumpled, like he'd slept badly in them.

He stopped when he saw them. For a few moments, all was silent staring.

Percy cleared his throat. "You two are up early."

And you're out late, Harriet thought; but of all Ron's brothers that she had met, Percy was the one she was least familiar with, so she just shrugged.

"Yes," Hermione said, after an awkward lag of time had crept past.

Percy's face twitched in what might have been an attempt at a smile, but could just have easily been a grimace. Then he said, "Well . . . "

"Yes," Hermione said again.

"I'll . . . see you two later," Percy said, and escaped into the boys' staircase.

"That was weird," Harriet said. "Where do you suppose he's been?"

"Helping the teachers?" Hermione said, though she sounded like she was suggesting it because she didn't have anything better to offer.

"But he wouldn't need to act all awkward about that . . . "

"No . . . that's what's strange."

"Chalk it up to just one more mystery this year," Harriet said. "What are we at now? Fifty seven?"

"Well, we've been able to explain one, at least," Hermione said, hefting the library book. "Let's find a teacher. Oh!" She said, so suddenly Harriet jumped.

Hermione rooted around inside her jeans' pocket and pulled out a round, brassy compact mirror. "I found this in Lavender's dresser—I thought we could use it to check around corners—for the Basilisk, you know—so that way, if we do see it—"

"—we won't look it in the eye," Harriet finished. "Brilliant."

It _was_ brilliant. But what it meant made her feel as if the icy wind from outside had swept down her throat, through her heart, all the way to her soul.

\--

The storm had hurled so much snow at the castle in the night that if it hadn't been for magic, they'd all have been barricaded inside. Drifts stood ten feet high against the great oak doors fronting the Entrance Hall, and the windows were so crusted with frost that you couldn't see out of them. It was as if the world beyond the walls of the castle had been erased in the night.

Severus hadn't slept. He'd patrolled, suffered an intenser-than-usual attack of insomnia, and gone out patrolling again; he was starving, but his dyspepsia was acting up, so he wouldn't be able to stomach more than weak tea with a bit of dry toast, if he was lucky; and now, when it was so cold even he had to put on extra layers, he had blundered into that fucking ape's arse, Lockhart.

"Shame I wasn't there." Lockhart shook his head with regret. He looked pristine and well-rested, not a disgustingly golden hair out of place, not a wrinkle in his foul robes of a shade of pink that was practically an assault. Severus hadn't seen him out in the corridors last night, not once. "I know the exact curse that could have saved that girl. If only I had been on hand, this whole affair would have been in the bag."

They were alone in the corridor outside the staff room, and Severus knew that nobody was inside. His hand stole toward his wand, almost without his meaning it to—just not entirely. Just one curse . . . Lockhart would never see it coming . . .

"Professor?" said a young girl's voice, very familiar.

Looking down, Severus found himself confronted by the wide, earnest stares of Hermione Granger and Lily's daughter. They were both bulkier than usual in several layers of knobbly sweaters, and Granger was carrying a book that was almost as big as she was.

Lockhart beamed. "If it isn't my best students!" (Granger went pink and looked extremely flattered; Lily's daughter looked annoyed.) "Already hitting the books, eh? That's the ticket! Take it from me, if you want to be where I am—"

"Right," said the girl firmly. "Thank you, sir. We just wanted to ask Professor Snape something. About potions," she added. "Potions homework. That he gave us."

Severus did not react. Lockhart appeared almost taken aback, but he recovered his aplomb quicker than you could say "self-aggrandizing arsehole."

"Right ho, right ho—carry on, carry on," he said merrily. "I think I'll just see to a spot of breakfast. Good morning to you!"

And he flitted off. Severus regretted that he hadn't been able to curse him, but at least he'd buggered off now. Severus could always curse him later, anyway.

"I didn't give you any Potions homework," he said to the girl, who looked embarrassed.

"I just wanted him to go away, sir."

"We, we wanted to tell—someone—something we've found out," Granger said in a high, apprehensive voice, speaking quickly. "The monster, it's a Basilisk, sir, we figured it out last night—"

She had pulled the book open as she spoke and now pushed it into Severus's hands.

"—it was the Basilisk's voice Harriet heard in detention that night—"

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said, glancing down at the spotted, ancient parchment with its faded drawing of a serpent with enormous, slitted eyes, "we already knew that."

"oh," she said in a tiny, mortified voice.

"But then why didn't anyone say anything?" the girl asked indignantly. "Sir," she added when he gave her a cold stare, but her tone was almost aggressive.

Severus had absolutely no intention of telling them that Dumbledore had kept it a secret and Severus had only figured it out yesterday. He hoped to God it had been before a pair of twelve-year-old girls.

"Miss Granger?" he said coldly. "Can you answer Miss Potter's question?"

"Oh . . . " He could see her thinking it over, even though the question obviously bewildered her. But a teacher had asked her for an answer, and she was still smarting from the earlier disappointment, so she was thinking fast. "Not wanting to induce panic, sir?"

"I would've liked to know," the girl said hotly. "I thought I was going mad, hearing that horrible voice out of nowhere, being the only one who could, if I'd known it was a great dirty snake—"

"Am I to take it you heard it more than once, Miss Potter?" Severus asked in a voice that made her indignation flicker into wary guilt.

"Once was enough," she muttered.

She was clearly lying, but she was also staring back at him defiantly.

"That is not a direct answer, Miss Potter."

"That's how we found Mrs Norris," Granger said quickly.

The girl's mouth dropped open. "Hermione!"

He was glad he was holding the book; it gave him something to grip so he wouldn't throttle her. "And you didn't see fit, Miss Potter, to tell anyone?"

"You said you all knew," the girl said, and he couldn't be sure whether she was just being childish or if she honestly meant it. Granger looked like she dearly wanted to leave; she had an embarrassed, awkward expression on her face, like she was witnessing someone doing something lewd.

"That isn't the point," Severus sought refuge in saying, shoving the book back at Granger. "The point is that you withheld information from the Headmaster, and after he asked you a direct question. Thirty points from Gryffindor, and be glad it isn't fifty."

He knew he was being nasty, and he wasn't surprised when she went bright red, probably with fury. Granger looked mortified.

"That's—" the girl started; but Granger, apparently feeling that enough damage had been done, grabbed her by the arm.

"Thank you, Professor, we're so sorry, Professor," she gabbled, and dragged the girl away.

"I trust you'll be more honest in future," Severus called after them, knowing, even as he did so, that he was only inducing her not to be.

He heard her bleat a reply, but Granger hustled her around the corner and the exact words were lost.

When he was sure they were gone, he gave into his self-disgust and rubbed his face, only because kicking the wall would only have resulted in a sprained toe. "Nicely done," he said out loud, with the acrimony he usually reserved for Longbottom. "Next time they'll go to Lockhart."

Then he realized that he had let the girl walk off with a Muggle-born, and that whatever he'd told her yesterday, Slytherin's monster—or at least its heir—had proved capable of discerning blood purity and acting accordingly. Cursing himself for a bloody fucking fool, he took off after them. But when he rounded the corner, they were already gone.


	11. Heir of Slytherin

"That—" Harriet uttered. "That—"

"Shh!" Hermione whipped her head left, then right, staring fearfully up and down the hall to make sure they were alone. But the corridor was empty even of the ghosts' silvery glow.

"I can't believe him!" Harriet said. "That was _so_ unfair! And why did you have to tell him?"

"Oh Harriet, he knew you were lying," Hermione said, almost tearfully. "But _thirty_ points . . . !"

"At least we've lost more before," Harriet said bitterly.

"Let's just go back to the tower." Hermione patted her pockets for the hand mirror. "Ron will want to know about the Basilisk—"

_I smell blood . . ._

At first Harriet thought it was the wind or the storm, beating snow at the walls and windows, hissing down the corridors. But the wind really didn't have a voice, at least not one she could understand the way she could understand a giant monster snake.

She grabbed Hermione's arm so hard that Hermione yelped.

"Harry, what—"

Harriet clapped a hand over her mouth. "Shh!" she choked.

_Find the Mudbloods . . . let me kill this time . . . let me rip, let me tear . . ._

Hermione's rigid face said she understood. She was clutching Lavender's mirror in a shaking hand, her fingers dug into Harriet's jumper.

"I can't tell where it is." Anguished, Harriet stared up and down the empty corridor, imagining the shadows thickening into nightmares with huge, glowing eyes that could kill—

"We've got to shut our eyes," Hermione whispered back, trembling all over. "If we don't look in its eyes—"

_Where are they? I smell blood . . . blood . . ._

The words threw themselves back over each other, echoing and blotting each other out, filling the hall with noise so that she couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from. It was somehow even more frightening now that Harriet knew what it was, knew what they were waiting for, because she still didn't know what they should do. How were they supposed to fight a freaking—

Her own words from last night streaked back into her head: "I hope it is a great dirty snake, because then I can tell it to bugger off to its Chamber of bloody Secrets."

She worked her throat, an idea forming . . . Form faster, form faster! she thought fiercely.

"Go away!" she tried. Hermione stared at her. "Was that in Parseltongue?"

"No, English," Hermione whispered frantically.

And then Harriet saw, rippling on the walls, a shadow like something rushing up on them from the adjoining corridor; and that time, she heard her voice come out in a menacing hiss—

" _Go away!_ "

The shadow shrank—but it wasn't turning away from them, it was rushing around the corner, and Harriet slammed her eyes shut, Hermione whimpering against her. " _Go AWAY—_ "

"Miss Potter—what are you doing?"

Harriet's eyes flew open, and she and Hermione stared up at Snape, who was bearing down on them with a hard, angry face.

"You're not the Basilisk," she said stupidly.

Snape's breathing was harsh, like he'd been running. "You heard it?" he asked in a voice so sharp Harriet flinched.

"Yes," Hermione said in a faint voice, clinging so close to Harriet that her heart was beating against Harriet's arm. "Harry, what—what was it saying?"

"It could smell us but it didn't know where we were," Harriet said. "It wanted to kill us—like usual."

Snape's gaunt face looked almost bloodless. The light from a torch on the wall cut shadows into his skin and glittered in his eyes.

"Come with me," he said, his voice tight and low. "And stay behind."

Harriet had been pretty steamed at him earlier, but now she followed him gladly, clutching Hermione's hand as they trailed him through the corridors like pieces of his shadow. The windows were still black, and the portraits' many, whispering voices sounded like the wind.

"Maybe the portraits have seen something?" Hermione said tremulously.

"So far," said Snape without turning, "every attack has been perpetrated in parts of the castle that are bare of portraits." There was a hint of _Obviously we thought of this already in his voice,_ but he didn't say anything else, which Harriet supposed counted as restraint. With him.

Snape stopped in front of an extremely ugly stone gargoyle with a beak for a mouth and two lopsided, bulbous eyes. "Sherbet lemon," Snape told it in a threatening voice, barely opening his lips, like he didn't want to say it.

The gargoyle rolled its eyes toward Harriet and Hermione, but with the sound of rock scraping on rock, it clambered aside; the floor shuddered as the wall behind split in two, like a sliding door made of stone.

Snape impatiently gestured Harriet and Hermione through the gap in the wall. They edged onto a spiral staircase that twisted up and up overhead. As soon as Snape stepped onto the stair behind them, the whole staircase began to move. Like an escalator, it wound them up and around, around and up, until Harriet was dizzy.

At the top was a half-circle landing and a set of double doors carved with a woodland scene: a forest with regular deer and birds, but also centaurs and unicorns, goblins, house-elves and dwarves, two wizards and two witches, all with long, flowing hair and robes. Harriet wondered if they were supposed to be the four Founders.

Before she could figure out which might be Slytherin, Snape rapped on the door. He waited only a moment before opening it, shepherding the girls inside. Neither of them dared speak to each other, but Harriet would bet Hermione had already guessed long ago that this must be Dumbledore's office.

It was too grand to be a regular professor's. Enormous and circular, it was fitted with huge bookcases and dozens of portraits, who all appeared to be napping, and decorated in a style of exuberant mismatch. The carpets were crimson and gold; armchairs sat in midnight blue and bronze velvet; tapestries in silver and green and yellow and black hung from the walls. A fire crackled in a hearth big enough that Harriet could have stood in it, and its mantle was carved with vines and flowers. A cabinet filled with crystal bottles glittered in the light like the hundred twinkling eyes of Argus Panoptes' much kinder twin, and shelves all around the room were crammed with unfamiliar instruments that puffed, whirred, and clicked. It reminded Harriet of the Burrow more than a bit.

For the first time since she saw Mrs Norris hanging Petrified by her tail from a lamp bracket, Harriet felt . . . safe.

"Is that a phoenix?" Hermione whispered, nudging Harriet, who looked where she was trying to point without Snape seeing. On a perch behind Dumbledore's enormous desk sat a lanky bird with canary yellow- and- blinding scarlet feathers. It had the beginnings of splendid plumes on its head.

Snape was putting something in his pocket, a kind of white stone that fitted in the palm of his hand. Harriet had seen him holding it when Penelope Clearwater was attacked last night.

It felt longer ago than that.

"You two," said Snape in a tone of voice that made them jump. But he just pointed at the chairs in front of the fire. "Sit down."

"We didn't touch anything," Harriet said automatically.

"Did I say you had, Miss Potter?"

Harriet refrained from saying that nobody, least of all his students, would put it past him. She and Hermione sat near the fire, feeling a bit warmer but not all the way through. It was like the heat touched her skin but everything beneath it was ice. She kept hearing the echo of that hissing voice, the voice of a monster, of a murderer . . . How near them had it been? How close had they been to . . .

The office door opened and Professor Dumbledore came in, looking mildly surprised. At the sight of him, the phoenix trilled. When it did, something warm and golden, like warm honey, trickled into Harriet's heart.

"Miss Potter says she heard the Basilisk," Snape said by way of hello, pointing at the girls. "In the third-floor corridor's west wing, just now."

Professor Dumbledore turned to look at them. For a split second his face was alarmed, but then it sobered.

"That must have been a dreadful shock," he said, grave and serious, "especially so early in the morning. Were you on your way to breakfast?"

"We were going back to Gryffindor tower, sir," Hermione said in a small voice.

"They had been to see me," Snape said, as if the meeting hadn't been a total disaster. "And to the library before that, apparently, to fine-tune their Nancy Drew skills."

Hermione looked at him curiously; so did Professor Dumbledore. Harriet didn't see why.

"Hermione figured out it—the monster, I mean—was a Basilisk," she told Professor Dumbledore. "We went to the library to check, and then to let someone know, but Professor Snape said you already knew. We're sorry, sir."

"There is no need to apologize, my dear," Professor Dumbledore said, and Harriet had to fight the urge to make a face at Snape. "On the contrary, it demonstrates an impressive mastery of logic. I think thirty-five points to Gryffindor are in order—what do you say, Severus?"

It was really, really hard not to make a face then. Snape gave them an unfriendly scowl, as if he knew exactly what Harriet, at least, was thinking. If Hermione felt vindicated, it didn't show; she just turned bright red with pleasure and embarrassment.

"Was the Basilisk preparing for an attack, Harriet?" Professor Dumbledore asked, now grave again.

"I think it was looking for Hermione and me," she said. "I mean, it mentioned Mudbloods—"

Snape's expression darkened, but Professor Dumbledore lifted a finger and Snape just looked away. Harriet was indignant. Obviously she was just quoting.

"It was trying to smell out where we were," she went on, "but for some reason it couldn't. I mean, I guess it couldn't—it said . . . " She ransacked her memory. " _Find the Mudbloods . . . let me kill this time_. . . "

"Harry!" Hermione whispered urgently, her face rigid. "You're speaking . . . " But she apparently didn't even want to say the word.

"Oh." Harriet looked at Snape's and Professor Dumbledore's faces. They both looked—odd. Not scared or anything, only . . . She didn't know what. It was some complicated, grown-up emotion. She resisted a frantic impulse to say that she didn't mean to speak it, she didn't even want to know that stupid, creepy language. "Sorry," she muttered, staring at her knees.

"There is no need to be, my dear," Professor Dumbledore said. "Parseltongue is not, in itself, evil, or even Dark. It merely carries those associations, due to the wizards who have mastered it."

"Miss Potter," Snape said suddenly, "what were you saying when I found you and Miss Granger? You were hissing," he said when she stared at him.

"Oh . . . " Harriet felt her face heat. It seemed stupid, now. "Nothing . . . "

"Miss Potter, what did I tell you about telling the truth?" Snape asked in a dangerous voice, but Professor Dumbledore just looked at him and Snape glanced away.

"If you must know," Harriet said in a tone that made Hermione groan quietly, "sir, I was telling it to go away. Well, it worked on that snake at the Dueling Club," she said defensively when both professors stared at her. "I didn't know what else to do."

Professor Dumbledore blinked, but said with conviction, "The situation must have been a frightening one. You acted very bravely, the both of you." He stood from his chair; Harriet and Hermione hastily did the same. "When I received Professor Snape's summons, I quickly issued orders to the Heads of House to see that their students remained in their dormitories. For now, I must have you two obey the same injunction. You may use my fire to return to the Tower."

He crossed to the mantle and lifted down a Chinese porcelain urn. "You'll all be served meals in house. I know it's not anything like a delightful way to spend the holiday, but we must keep you all safe."

He smiled down at them, and his phoenix trilled again, dripping those honey-warm drops through Harriet's heart.

"You first, my dear," he said, removing the lid from the urn and holding it down to her. Harriet thought of Mrs Weasley doing the same at the Burrow. Thinking of the Burrow made her realize she didn't want to leave Professor Dumbledore's cozy study. It was just like the Weasleys' house, warm and safe and inviting. For some reason the Gryffindor common room wasn't like that anymore.

"Is it just like Floo?" she asked, taking a handful of ash that smelled like incense.

"Ah, so you've traveled by Floo before, then?" Professor Dumbledore said, smiling. "Yes, it's exactly so. Have you, Miss Granger? No? Observe Harriet, then."

"Gryffindor Tower," Harriet said, slinging the ash into the grate. The fire flared a brilliant green, and she shut her eyes and stepped into it, feeling neither cold nor warmth, just a gentle tickling sensation—and then a powerful suction, like she was being sucked down a drain. Her stomach roiled, her head whirled, and with a sudden rush of icy air she was tumbling painfully onto the carpet in the Gryffindor common room.

"Blimey!" said Ron's voice. "Where'd you come from, Harry?"

"My thought's the fireplace," said Fred or George as Harriet coughed and wiped at her sooty glasses. "My first clue being, she came out of the—"

"Mind the fire, Hermione's coming—"

But Harriet wasn't fast enough: Hermione came hurtling out of the flames, collided with Ron, and knocked the both of them down on Harriet herself.

"Ouch!"

"Wh," Hermione hacked. "Wh-what was that?"

"Floo," George said, hauling her up while Fred levered Ron to his feet so Harriet could breathe. "A bit of a shock the first time, eh?"

"I hope it was the last time!" Hermione's hair was even bushier than usual, sticking out like a briar patch, and there was ash all over her indignant face. "And I thought brooms were bad!"

"Sacrilege!" Fred clutched dramatically at his chest.

"It's a good thing I didn't have breakfast yet." Hermione took out her wand and started brushing the ash off her jumper, then doing the same for Harriet.

"There's food there." Ron pointed at a table piled with plates, cups, and covered platters. "McGonagall was here to tell us we've got to stay put, and to magic the table up. What happened? Where did you two go?"

"And what did you do to get everyone in school confined to their common rooms?" Fred asked.

"Not that we're complaining, mind you," George said. "A bit dull for us, but it must've been a choice piece of mischief, whatever it was."

"Didn't know you girls had it in you," said Fred.

"We almost got eaten by Slytherin's monster, that's what," Harriet said, lifting a cover off one of the trays. It contained toast. She doled some out onto her plate and then Hermione's, who served her some fried tomatoes.

"Is that a joke?" Ron asked sharply.

"No," Hermione said, uncapping the marmalade. "Last night I figured out the monster was a Basilisk—because Harriet could hear it, you see, when no one else could—"

"Parseltongue," Harriet explained, because of Ron's slack expression. "A Basilisk's a giant, man-eating snake."

Fred and George were staring at each other, apparently communicating through some kind of silent twin language.

"Wh," Ron said, his mouth hanging open.

"So Harriet and I went to the library," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Thank you, Harriet—no, one egg is fine—"

"Of course you went to the library," Ron said faintly.

"And then you tackled a giant, thousand-year-old snake?" George said. "Just trying to put events in order, see."

"Then," Hermione said, a bit haughtily, "we went to find a teacher."

"Only we found Snape," Harriet said. "You can probably fill in the rest yourself."

"Doesn't take any effort at all, actually," said Fred. "Go on, girls."

They told them all the rest. When they had finished, all three boys were silent.

Harriet chewed on her toast and looked around the circular space. Neither Ginny nor Percy was there. As for Ginny, Harriet wasn't surprised. It would have been stranger if she had been there. Was she upstairs crying? Writing feverishly in that little black book?

An idea popped into Harriet's head. Slowly, she lowered her crust, staring at the wall.

"You know," Fred said quietly, nudging her back to the present, "if the Heir of Slytherin is a student . . ."

"That means it's got to be someone who stayed behind for Christmas," George finished.

"There's not that many of us it could be," Ron said, his expression dark and troubled, looking not unlike Snape's. "There's Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle . . . all of us, that Clearwater girl . . . "

"Almost everyone went home," Hermione said. "Afraid, because of . . . "

She trailed off into silence. Even though it was now day, the snow tufting against the windows made the light dark and dim. Shadows swam around the edges of the common room, melted across the floor, ebbed over their faces.

"Well," said George eventually. "We might all be home, soon enough."

"What d'you mean?" Ron asked.

"If they can't catch the person who did this, little brother," George said.

"It'll mean Hogwarts is shut," said Fred.

\--

Harriet had told the Weasleys she was just going up to check on Ginny, which wasn't the whole truth. In fact, if Ginny was awake, it was going to put a crimp in Harriet's plan.

But when Harriet pushed open her dormitory door, the room was empty. Just a bunch of long shadows that used to be furniture, in the light.

She went over to Ginny/Parvati's bed anyway, but the covers had been kicked to the foot of the bed; it was obvious no one was there. She checked the other beds just to be sure, but no; she appeared to be alone.

Ears straining for the sounds of an approach, she went back to Ginny's bed and started rummaging for the little black book.

She found it stuffed in a slit in the mattress. Had Ginny cut open Parvati's bed? That seemed so unlike her . . .

Maybe Parvati had done it, to hide her own things . . . but that didn't seem like Parvati's style either. If Parvati was going to hide something, she'd do it in such an obvious way that one of the other girls would find it and have to ask her about it, and then she'd pretend not to want to tell them before spilling the whole story with more information than anyone would really want to know.

 _Stop thinking about Parvati,_ Harriet scolded herself. _You're finding out what's wrong with Ginny._

She knew this wasn't really on, snooping in Ginny's private things, but she didn't know what else to do . . . and when she remembered Ginny's face yesterday—her bared teeth, the red light in her eyes—Harriet knew something was really wrong. It was worth doing something a bit immoral if it saved Ginny.

So she took a deep breath and opened the book . . .

And found nothing inside. Nothing at all.

Confused, she flipped through the pages, but there wasn't even a single mark. The pages had dates printed on them, spaces for appointments to be filled in, but no writing from a person. Maybe this wasn't what Ginny had been scribbling in . . .

But why hide an empty diary in a hole in a mattress?

 _Blimey, maybe it's_ magic, Harriet thought sarcastically. If only she knew how to read invisible writing in addition to talking to bloody snakes.

There were two other things that were weird about that diary: one was the calendar, which was for the year 1941. The second was that on the back, it had a name printed in cheap, flaking letters, some of which had flaked off so much only the marks where they had been were left. They had once read T. M. Riddle. Maybe Ginny had got the diary second-hand in Diagon Alley.

Frowning, Harriet turned the unhelpful diary over in her hands. She knew she should put it back before Ginny came in, but she couldn't quite let go of it. What if she took it to Hermione and asked how you read books that had been charmed private? Hermione probably wouldn't like it . . . but if she could—

"You're just as enterprising as I'd hoped, Harriet."

Harriet didn't jump up from the bed or drop the diary, but her heart slammed against the front of her ribs. She stared at Ginny, who had come silently into the room and moved to stand at the foot of Parvati's bed without making a sound. The firelight shone behind her, turning her long red hair to blood and bronze.

Harriet opened her mouth to apologize, to say she'd just been worried . . . but then her eyesight adjusted enough for her to see Ginny's shadowed face.

"Ginny?" Harriet said slowly.

"Harr-ee?" Ginny replied, mimicking Harriet's drawn-out voice.

Harriet looked at Ginny's peculiar smile and felt a kind of certainty settle in her stomach, like sand at the bottom of a pond.

"Or maybe not," she said quietly. "Who are you?"

Ginny laughed. It made all the hairs on Harriet's arms and the back of her neck prickle.

"Oh, very good," she said, not sounding like Ginny at all. It was Ginny's voice, it was coming out of Ginny's mouth, but it sounded like a grown-up talking; a cruel one, laughing at a joke that Harriet didn't understand but that she hated all the same. "Very, very good. I was beginning to worry you didn't have the brains. Well, you can see why I was worried, didn't you?" The not-Ginny shook her head, like she was rather disappointed.

Harriet did throw the diary on the floor, then, and jump to her feet. "Whoever the hell you are, you get out of Ginny right now or I'll—"

"You'll what?" asked the not-Ginny in a tone of voice that shot lead through Harriet's veins; but she was so angry she felt it boiling away.

"I'll make you sorry," Harriet snarled.

The not-Ginny paused, and then she laughed harder than ever, so hard she doubled over, bracing herself against the bed post.

"That's the best you've got?" she asked. "You absurd, foolish, stupid girl—but I can see you don't understand yet." She straightened up, smiling that disturbing smile again.

"Understand what?" Harriet spat. She really wished she knew more curses—but that would only have been hurting Ginny. Unless this was someone Polyjuiced to look like Ginny? And the real Ginny was . . .

But Ginny had looked like this yesterday, and then she had looked like herself. This was Ginny, not like Ron Polyjuiced into Crabbe.

_Keep her talking, whoever she is, find out what's going on._

"Everything," Not-Ginny said. She laid her finger against her lips, and when she turned just right, Harriet saw the firelight glint in Ginny's brown eyes like blood on the water.

"But I can't show you in here," Not-Ginny said. "We've got to go to the Chamber of Secrets. Don't you want to see the Chamber of Secrets, Harriet Potter? I want you to see the Chamber, dear Harriet."

Harriet stared at Not-Ginny as the final puzzle piece clicked into place. "You're the heir of Slytherin."

Not-Ginny sighed. "Thick as a brick after all. Well, come along anyway, Harriet Potter. Stupid little Ginny tells me you have a Cloak of Invisibility. Normally children's trinkets wouldn't interest me, but we might as well avoid having to explain ourselves to these criminally stupid teachers, hmm?"

When she smiled, it seemed to split her face in two.


	12. Chamber of Secrets

Not-Ginny didn't seem to want to touch Harriet. She hissed if Harriet brushed too close to her, like she thought Harriet had some deadly, flesh-eating disease. Harriet would have pushed it, but she didn't want to hurt Ginny.

"If you scream for one of the idiot professors," Not-Ginny said calmly, "or think to tip them off in any way, I will make things very hard for poor Ginny."

Her eyes glistened. Harriet said coldly, "Lead on, then."

Not-Ginny's smile flickered onto her face and stayed there, like a shadow on the wall.

Beneath the silvery drape of the Cloak, invisible to everyone else, they sneaked through the common room. Harriet prayed Professor McGonagall might have sealed the portrait with magic, but if she had, Not-Ginny was able to counter it: she pushed open the portrait and they climbed out, unseen and unheard by the quietly talking Weasley brothers and Hermione.

Harriet followed Not-Ginny down the corridors, through the dark, silent castle. She had never heard the castle so quiet, never felt it so cold.

On the grand staircase, they heard voices. Not-Ginny moved nonchalantly to the head of the stairs and looked down, Harriet doing the same. At the bottom stood a clump of professors—Snape, Sprout, Flitwick, Lockhart. Harriet tried to look as if this fact were completely uninteresting. She could feel Not-Ginny turning to look at her, and faked a bored yawn.

" . . . moment has come at last," Snape was saying. Harriet could hear the malicious sneer in his voice.

"S-sorry?" Lockhart stammered in reply.

"Just this morning you were telling me, were you not, Lockhart, that the affair had been deplorably bungled?" Snape said.

"Yes, Gilderoy," said Professor Sprout. "I distinctly remember you saying you knew exactly where the Chamber of Secrets was—don't you, Filius?"

"Yes, yes, certainly, I do."

"W-well—I—" Lockhart sputtered.

"I certainly remember you saying that if you had been on hand when Miss Clearwater was attacked, the whole thing would have been in the bag," Snape said.

"D-did I? I don't recall . . . "

"Well, I think that settles it!" Professor Sprout clapped her hands together. "We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy. We'll step right aside and let you at it. You'll have that free rein you've always wanted."

Lockhart gazed desperately at the three of them, but they stared resolutely back. Professors Sprout and Flitwick smiled fake smiles of encouragement, and Snape (whom Harriet could see only in profile) looked nothing so much like a bird of prey observing a small rabbit from on high.

Lockhart didn't look so handsome anymore. He looked suddenly smaller and frightened.

"Shall we follow you now, Gilderoy," Professor Flitwick said after a long silence, one colder than the snow piling against the window panes, "or do you need time to—?"

"Yes." Lockhart's voice came out like a death rattle. "Yes—time, that is—a little time and I'll—I'll be ready."

"We'll come find you in half an hour," Professor Sprout said cheerfully. "Then you can show us how it's done, old boy."

"R-right." Lockhart didn't manage to smile. When he left, it was practically at a run.

"That's taken care of him," Snape said in a voice of disgust so cold, it could have been the signal for a second blizzard.

"Wretched little oik," said Professor Sprout, but she sounded rather depressed.

Professor Flitwick sighed and said, "Let us carry on, then."

They split up, Snape sweeping down the stairs to the dungeon, Sprout heading off along the ground-floor corridor, Fliwtick making his way up toward the girls. Not-Ginny and Harriet backed against the wall, but Flitwick passed them by without noticing a thing.

"Good girl," Not-Ginny said softly to Harriet once all the teachers had gone.

Harriet wanted to punch her in the back of the head. If she hadn't been in Ginny's body—

They reached the bottom of the stairs, but instead of continuing down to the dungeons after Snape, Not-Ginny chose the way Professor Sprout had gone. Harriet would have bet anything that Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets was concealed somewhere in the dungeons, but they were walking away from the dungeon entrance along the ground floor. Well, obviously, it'll be a secret entrance, she thought.

Not-Ginny suddenly stopped and held up her hand. Then Harriet heard it—footsteps, pattering toward them at a run—

Not-Ginny pulled out Ginny's wand.

"What are you doing?" Harriet hissed.

"Just having a little fun," Not-Ginny said. "Don't be so boring, dear Harriet."

She raised her arm, pointing the wand at the junction of the corridor. The person was almost there. "Avada—"

Harriet had no idea what that spell would do, but she wasn't going to find out. She shoved Not-Ginny hard from behind. She stumbled, breaking off the spell, as Lockhart came dashing around the corner. He looked frantic, his hat missing, and was clutching a carpetbag to his chest; without noticing them, he pelted out of sight.

Not-Ginny rounded on Harriet, her teeth bared, her eyes bright scarlet, her face contorted in rage. "Silencio," she spat. Harriet, who had been expecting worse than that—a Silencing Spell?—blinked, but then Not-Ginny's face rippled with cruel satisfaction.

"Crucio," she whispered, almost lovingly.

Harriet's skin caught on fire—no, it was her blood—no, her muscles her bones—everything it was burning it was needles burning needles sliding under her skin stabbing into her brain her eyes her mouth she opened her mouth to scream but she couldn't hear anything—

She could hear laughter.

The pain ebbed away, like water flowing back down the seashore. Harriet realized she was sobbing, but no sound was coming out because Not-Ginny had Silenced her. She'd fallen flat on the floor without realizing, still underneath the drape of her Cloak, and Not-Ginny was standing over her and laughing like this was the most fun she'd had in years.

"Was he worth it, then?" she asked. "That stupid, brainless excuse for a wizard? Was he worth the pains?"

Breathing hard, feeling like she'd been slammed by dozens of Bludgers, Harriet managed to raise her arm and give a two-fingered salute.

Not-Ginny's face hardened. Before Harriet could do anything—though what it could have been, she didn't know, not even much later, when it was all over—the pain returned like a fire trap opened over a charcoal pit, scorching her—

"Enough," Not-Ginny said, shutting the pain off again. "If I do much more, you won't be good for anything. Get up, you stupid brat." She kicked at Harriet's ankle, hard.

Harriet's legs didn't really want to support her, but she made them. She wasn't going to crawl after this sick freak, she wasn't going to let her know how much it hurt. She was actually grateful for that Silencing Spell because then Not-Ginny couldn't have heard her say please or stop it or cry for her mum. She didn't know if she had, but it had hurt so much she could have believed it.

"That was your first time under the Cruciatus Curse, wasn't it?" Not-Ginny asked mockingly as Harriet lurched after her, breathing hard. "Most who endure it once learned to behave themselves with me, but you really do seem to be thicker than most, even than the other Gryffindors I've killed. Ah, here we are."

They were at the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Not-Ginny pushed it open and gestured Harriet lazily inside. The words Gryffindors I've killed ached inside Harriet's head, because she knew that Not-Ginny wasn't like Lockhart, wasn't just making it up.

Myrtle was floating above the sinks, picking at a spot on her chin. When Harriet pulled off her Cloak, Myrtle sat up straight.

"What are you doing in here now?" Myrtle asked them.

"It's a pity only my pet can kill ghosts," said Not-Ginny, moving toward the sink. Myrtle flitted higher into the air, looking alarmed, like she knew there was something up with Ginny that she didn't want to mess with. "And even then it doesn't last.

"Come, Harriet." She crooked a finger at Harriet, splitting her face in a smile again. "Watch and learn."

She bent until her eyes were level with the tap, pulled her lips back from her teeth, and hissed, "Open."

That time, Harriet heard that it was Parseltongue, even as she understood the words. The sound made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and the skin under her fingernails prickle. That's what everyone else always heard? No wonder they looked at her like that . . .

The bathroom, the whole room, shuddered from floor to ceiling, bits of old tile and dust shaking loose; Myrtle squealed and dived down into a toilet with a splash. The floor ground away from the wall, the row of sinks sank into the gap in the floor, and the mirrors pulled up—exposing a dark, cavernous opening that stank like old, rotting water and ancient slime.

Not-Ginny turned that smile on her, like she was waiting for some words of praise. Harriet worked her jaw.

"Oh, that's right," Not-Ginny said, although Harriet bet she'd remembered all along about the Silencing Spell.

"This surely wasn't a girl's loo when Slytherin built it," Harriet said. Her voice sounded hoarse, like—well, like she'd been screaming.

"Of course not, idiot," said Not-Ginny.

"Not very theatrical, a girl's loo," said Harriet.

Not-Ginny looked disgusted. She swung her wand up and hit Harriet square in the chest with a bolt of mercury-colored light; it felt like being smashed in the windpipe with a hammer, and it flung Harriet straight into the dark, slimy opening. She slammed into the floor of the chute and plummeted down head-first, her cheek scraping on the slippery stone, unable to right herself, so winded she couldn't suck in breath. She'd lost her glasses and she couldn't see, only flashes of light flickering in the blackness.

She crashed into a pile of old bones, choking and wheezing, trying to breathe. Don't cry, don't crydon'tcry—

There was a slick hssssssht and a crunch; Not-Ginny had landed. "Rather a good ride, don't you think?" she asked, giving Harriet a kick in the ribs. "What's the matter, dear Harriet? Didn't have a good time?"

Harriet couldn't speak, only wheeze and cough.

"Well, get up off the floor," said Not-Ginny. "And stop being so pathetic. I'm starting to regret bringing you along."

"Really?" Harriet managed. "I'm—loving it."

Not-Ginny dealt her a casual slap that knocked her back into the bones. "Get up," she said casually.

Harriet couldn't see very well; her glasses were who-knew-where now. All she could make out was a lot of blurry darkness. She tried to follow Ginny and "Ow!" cracked her head on something sharp and rocky.

"Stalactites," said Not-Ginny, unconcerned. "Do watch your head."

Harriet wound up pushing her hands in front of her face to feel out the stalactites, but this left her slipping and stumbling on the uneven ground. Not-Ginny mocked and hectored her the whole way. Every part of her was throbbing, fiery with pain.

"What's that light?" she croaked after what seemed like ages, squinting ahead, where a kind of greenish gloom had bled into the blackness.

Not-Ginny didn't reply, but the speed of her footsteps picked up. Consoling herself with visions of what she would do to the crazy bitch once she got her out of Ginny, Harriet picked her way along behind, until she at last waded out of the black tunnel and into the eerie green light.

It was like being at the bottom of a really deep lake among the black grass, staring up through the algae at the sun. It smelled even less nice, though. When Harriet got close and squinted, she saw the door, set with a raised relief of writhing snakes, their eyes emeralds the size of her fist.

Not-Ginny ran her hand over the door like she was touching something precious. "Open," she hissed.

"Your passwords aren't too creative," Harriet said, knowing it was stupid, but hating the Not-Ginny so much she didn't care.

The snakes writhed on the door, pulling their heads back, their emerald eyes glinting, and the latch clunked open. Not-Ginny sighed.

"I'm going to kill you, dear Harriet," Not-Ginny said as she climbed up through the now open door. "Did I mention that? I always intended to, you understand, but now I know I shall really enjoy it."

"Funny thing," Harriet grit out. "I've been thinking the exact same thing."

Not-Ginny smiled. It was a bit different from the others, like it was a bit of an effort, maybe because what she really wanted to do was bleed Harriet's brain out her ears.

"I know how to value bravery," she said. "But you . . . you're just a stupid, pathetic, immeasurable fool."

"And you're just a—" Harriet was going to say murdering psycho, but the sight of the room beyond the door stopped her.

It was grander than a room; chamber really wasn't a bad word for it. Black, motionless water lay like long mirrors to either side of a glistening walkway that stretched past stone pillars entwined with snakes, their hollow eye sockets pitted with shadows. The ceiling disappeared into the blackness overhead, and that odd, algaed light emanated from nowhere Harriet could see, as if the air itself were that color. Ginny's hair looked like oxidized copper.

She was picking up her pace, striding toward the end of the path. Harriet followed, wiping at the slime on her face, only smearing at it more with her slimy palms. At the end of the path she could see . . . feet? An enormous set of feet . . .

Her eyes followed the feet to the sweeping robes, over the long, thin beard, up to the towering face carved in stone. It must be Slytherin. He didn't look like Harriet had been expecting, although she hadn't realized until then, looking at Salazar's ancient face, that she'd been picturing him as Snape, only with a beard.

Not-Ginny dropped to her knees in front of the statue, and was bowing her head, like she was praying.

"Oh, please," Harriet croaked scathingly.

But something was happening . . .

Ginny's hair rippled, like she was facing into a light wind. She hunched her shoulders down. Harriet thought she might be shaking.

Then Ginny's head snapped back, back so far that Harriet could see her inverted face. Her eyes rolled back in her head, only the whites showing. Her mouth opened, wider and wider as Harriet watched, like she was trying to scream louder and louder but had no voice.

She was clutching something to her chest.

The black diary.

For a moment, Harriet was too bewildered and stunned and frightened to move. But then, as if hearing a command that she didn't, her body darted forward, toward Ginny. She would grab that book, throw it in the water and drown it—

A burst of wind erupted from nowhere, catching her in the chest, shoving her back. She staggered as the wind unfurled. It blackened like a cloud of chimney smoke, charcoal lashed with color, red and pale pink and yellow swirling like paint in dirty water; rising in a twisting tunnel all the way up to the ceiling, whistling and keening. A terrible roar, like the scream of something so that the power of its voice split her eardrums apart, knocked her painfully to the floor.

When she raised her head, the black mass was shrinking . . . it was the height of a giraffe now . . . and now a man . . . it was turning vaguely person-shaped . . . there was the head, the arms and legs . . . Harriet plunged her shaking hand into her pocket and pulled out her wand, and stuffed it up her sleeve so she could hold it without looking like she was.

Like a camera suddenly brought into focus, with a final jerk the bubbling cloud solidified into a young man. He had wavy dark hair, and his Hogwarts robes had a Slytherin crest on them. He stood as perfect and immaculate as if he was meeting the Minister for Magic.

Behind him, on the floor, Ginny lay motionless, her hair spread across her face like Penelope Clearwater's, the diary beside her.

Harriet pushed herself upright. The Heir of Slytherin, whoever the bloody hell he really was, was stroking his hands across his arms and face like they were some interesting Christmas gift he hadn't been expecting. Then he looked down at Harriet and smiled.

She had been expecting it to be like that smile on Not-Ginny's face, mad and evil, making your blood crawl. But it was a handsome, pleased smile, almost charming.

It was even worse than the other one.

"So, Harriet Potter," he said softly. "We meet at last."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Anyone else hear echoes of Lone Starr and/or Lord Shen in that last line? ;D
> 
> -Really, though, the plot formed like this when I was re-reading CoS and Riddle tells Harry how he made Ginny paint the message of her own death on the wall and then go down to the Chamber, and Ginny "cried and struggled and became very boring." It was one of the few things Riddle/Voldemort ever said that honestly chilled me.


	13. Sword of Gryffindor

Harriet was stupefied. Then she found her voice.

"Shouldn't you be stroking a white cat as you say that?" she croaked.

The young man sighed. When he held out his hand, Ginny's wand slipped from beneath her body and floated over to him.

"I can tell you think you're very clever." He caught the wand out of the air, as naturally breathing. "At first, I thought you must have some intelligence, if only a little, but after having to deal with you for half an hour . . . It's truly a mystery to me how you managed to defeat the greatest wizard who ever lived."

"The what wizard?" Harriet felt her anger returning, bubbling beneath her skin. "If you mean Voldemort—"

"You dare speak his name?" the boy said in a soft voice. He was playing with Ginny's wand, pressing the tip against each of his fingertips. "Stupid Ginny Weasley said you did . . . more of your foolishness, I see. . ."

"Maybe you didn't hear," Harriet said, shaking with anger and pain, "living in a diary or wherever you were, but Voldemort's pathetic, he's nothing at all—I saw him last year, and he's nothing but a wreck, he can't even hold his head up because he hasn't got one—"

The boy's face contorted; Harriet shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

The boy's wand shot out of his hand and soared over Harriet's head. He blinked, and then unexpectedly he began to laugh. It was high and cold and made Harriet feel like she'd slipped off the edge of the walkway into the icy black water.

"Very good, Harriet," he said, so mockingly she wanted to throw her wand away and punch him in the face. "But . . . dear me, now what are you going to do? How many spells do you know, to finish your enemies?"

"Who the hell are you?" Harriet grit out, not wanting to admit he was right. She knew stupid kids' curses, to make you dance or laugh yourself sick, but she didn't know anything to hurt somebody the way she wanted to hurt this boy for what he'd done, to Ginny and to Colin and Penelope Clearwater and that girl who'd died all those years ago whose name she didn't even know.

"You really haven't figured it out, have you?" He looked totally unconcerned to have no wand, or to be on the wrong end of Harriet's.

"You say I'm stupid," she said, "but you're not too bright yourself. I asked, didn't I?"

He didn't like being called stupid. He reminded her a bit of Draco Malfoy—malicious, cold-hearted, suave until something didn't go his way.

Her eyes flicked toward Ginny and the diary—

The diary from 1941.

Fifty years ago, the Chamber of Secrets was opened . . .

"You're T. M. Riddle, aren't you?" she said slowly. "You opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago."

"Obviously," he said, sounding both bored and faintly disgusted with her. "I am the one, the only, Heir of Slytherin. The blood of Salazar himself runs in my veins." He ran his fingers along his lapel, like it was one of his precious veins with the precious blood of loony fucking Salazar inside; and that time, when he smiled, it was just like he'd made Ginny smile in the shadowy dormitory. "I have always been able to feel his greatness within me."

"Greatness that made you go live in a diary?" She said it to annoy him, but he only laughed again, a mocking, disdainful laugh.

"Oh, yes. That's no ordinary diary, Harriet." He tapped his foot on the stone floor next to it. "It's a mark of my genius—not the first, but one of the most inspired. For a long time it was rather dull, I admit . . . decades spent waiting, biding my time . . . Imagine my surprise when, just a few months ago, someone started communicating with me." He said communicating like he meant something else.

"Ginny," Harriet said. Her face was so white and still . . .

"Yes," Riddle said. A sneer curled his lip, a hundred times uglier than any sneer of Snape's, even though this face was so handsome. "Stupid Ginny Weasley. No, I shouldn't mock her—she's the reason I stand before you, Harriet. She's the reason those Mudbloods are lying still as stone. She's the reason you've all been so terrified, so out of your wits, waiting for a monster you couldn't name . . . These last months have been so delightful, and all because stupid, whiny, trusting Ginny Weasley wrote in a diary she found . . . "

Harriet was shaking with anger, and Riddle could tell; it seemed to delight him. He laughed again, and she hated him like she had never hated anyone.

"The more she wrote to me, of her fears, her desires, her jealousies—she's very jealous of you, Harriet, did you know? Famous Harriet Potter, whom everyone talks about, who can buy as many new robes and spell-books and ice creams as she wishes, whom her brothers praise when they only tease their stupid little sister terribly—oh, she hates you, sometimes."

Harriet refused to believe him. Even if he was telling the truth, she had no business hearing what Ginny had written in a private diary. Ignoring the fact that she had been planning to read that diary herself, she let Riddle talk on. He seemed to like to hear himself talk. She would have used his monologue to form a plan, but all those thoughts slid through her grasp like they were coated in slime. What if hurting Riddle could still hurt Ginny?

Hurt Ginny . . . hurt . . . she wracked her brain, trying to figure out what it was about that thought that was piping up and saying, Yes, that, that. How the hell would hurting Ginny hurt—

_Not-Ginny hadn't wanted to touch me. Like it would hurt her._

Could that have been because of Riddle, possessing her? If Harriet tried to touch him, would it hurt him?

"The more she wrote to me, the stronger I grew," Riddle was saying, now starting to pace up and down, along Ginny's motionless body. "I decided to return to that noble work I'd had to abandon fifty years ago. They were going to close down Hogwarts after that Mudblood died, and I couldn't let that happen. You understand, I'm sure. Stupid Ginny told me you have the most appalling Muggle relatives.

"Shall I tell you a secret, Harriet Potter?" Something glinted to life in his eyes and stayed there, something both bright and dark at the same time: a shade of red. "I had filthy Muggle relatives, too. Worthless wastes of flesh. I killed them, of course. It was immensely satisfying. You might think on it."

"I'm nothing like you," Harriet said, her voice shaking.

"No?" Riddle said, unconcerned. "We are both half-blood. Of course, my blood is by far more powerful . . . but you, too, have the rare gift of Parseltongue, so who is to say whether or not there isn't a drop of greatness in you? And then . . . " He took a step toward her, gazing down at her as if she were an absorbing problem. "There is the fact that Lord Voldemort was interested in you . . . and, they say, defeated by you . . . How could this have come about unless you could work magic to rival the power of that great wizard?"

"Oh," Harriet said, her nails digging into her palm as she gripped her wand. "Is that what you want to know? Well, I can answer that one—it was my mother. My common, Muggle-born mother," she spat, watching Riddle's face go curiously rigid, like a grimace frozen midway. "When that loser Voldemort came to kill me, she wouldn't let him, she died so he wouldn't, and he couldn't touch me. There's your answer—it was a Mudblood who defeated Voldemort, who turned him into a wreck—"

She choked off because something was blocking her windpipe, not Riddle's touch but his magic. She saw his face contorted, his eyes bright scarlet—she couldn't breathe—

An explosion of golden-orange light boomed between them; the pressure on her throat vanished. Coughing, hacking, Harriet pressed a hand to her throat and sagged forward, trying not to fall flat on her face or drop her wand. It was still sparking in her hand.

"Well," Riddle said, a bit breathlessly. "So that was it . . . "

Looking up warily, Harriet saw him brushing his hair down, his expression resuming its smoothness.

"A lucky chance, that was all," he said in a voice as smooth as his face. "It was only a lucky chance that saved you from me . . . Sacrifice . . . that is a powerful magic, yes . . . impossible to guard against . . . but not to overcome."

"From you?" Harriet croaked. "What do you mean, saved me from you?"

Riddle smiled at her, a cruel slit on his handsome face. "Silly, stupid Harriet," he said. "I am Lord Voldemort. He is me, the man I became. Eleven years ago, you faced me at the height of my powers."

Harriet stared up at him. She remembered the face in the back of Quirrell's head, that sickening sight that had hung in her nightmares for weeks, that she still glimpsed there sometimes—she saw that face, and this boy's face, and felt a disorienting familiarity and discordance. They weren't the same, there was nothing about them that was the same . . . that face had been inhuman, flat and smashed, white like maggots, with bloody eyes . . . this face was handsome and mobile . . . and yet there was something else, something curious and sadistic . . . and that was the exact same.

From somewhere inside her, a fierce thought rose up: And he hurts when I touch him, just like with Quirrell.

"Let us see what you make of me," Riddle said softly, staring at her with a kind of hunger that made her feel sick, like her clothes were peeling away, like her skin was coming off. "Now that your mewling Mudblood mother isn't here to save your neck."

He turned and tilted his head back, as if looking up at the statue.

_Get close to him—_

Harriet tried to stand. Her left knee and right ankle screamed with pain, and she wobbled, staggering, falling back down. He was too far away. She needed to get him back over here, she needed to distract him.

"Oh yeah," she said loudly, hating the way her voice shook, like her hands, her arms, her whole body was already shaking. "You're a r-real great wizard. You killed a girl with that Basilisk fifty years ago, and now you're going to kill two more. R-really impressive. It's no wonder you're afraid of Dumbledore—"

Riddle turned back toward her, his face more than ever like that thing on the back of Quirrell's head.

"Lord Voldemort fears nothing," Riddle hissed at her in English, or maybe Parseltongue, maybe both, the syllables blurring together, pressed between his bared teeth.

"Yeah, he does," Harriet challenged, speaking wildly, "he's scared of Dumbledore, always has been, because Dumbledore's the greater wizard and he knows it—"

She was saying it to try to anger him into losing his cool, and had the sickening satisfaction of seeing his face contort. She tried not to look at Ginny in case he did something, because he was nearer to her; wondering if she'd even be able to lift Ginny and run from the Basilisk at the same time with an injured knee. They hadn't learned how to make things float yet, certainly not something as heavy as a person.

Then she heard the cry of a bird . . . its symphony of a voice. . .

In a blur of scarlet and gold, a magnificent bird, like Dumbledore's phoenix all grown up, came soaring through the greenish air with trails of glittering gold streaming behind him. For a wild, hopeful second, Harriet thought it must be coming ahead of Professor Dumbledore—but the bird fluttered its wings and alighted on her shoulder, dropping in her lap . . .

. . . the Sorting Hat?

Riddle thought this was the best joke yet. He laughed and laughed until the only sound in Harriet's head was his laughter, ringing off the slimy walls, the snake-wrapped pillars, Slytherin's statue, and she gripped the Sorting Hat in her slimy hands, wanting to strangle him with it, wanting to cry.

"That's what Dumbledore sends his great defender!" Riddle said delightedly, amusement gross in his face. "A chicken and an old hat! Oh, that's priceless. Don't you see, Harriet Potter? Placing your faith in that old man is like putting water in a sieve and expecting it to be there when you need it later. Well."

He smiled down at her and Ginny. "Good-bye, Harriet. It's not been entertaining, but it has been enlightening."

He turned away again, walking off, and this time Harriet had nothing.

"Speak to me, Salazar," Riddle hissed, his voice as bloodless as the Basilisk's, crawling under Harriet's skin, burrowing beneath her fingernails, winding into her brain like worms. "Give to me, greatest of the Hogwarts four."

The whole chamber rumbled like thunder. From behind Slytherin's statue, something was moving . . . a portion of the stone was drawing back into blackness . . . Harriet flung herself forward and grabbed Ginny's hands. Her skin was cold as marble and she didn't move.

The whole floor shook as the Basilisk moved.

Well, Dumbledore had given her one thing that could help: a blindfold. She crammed the Hat onto her head, wrapped her arms around Ginny's middle, and dragged. Her knees spiked with pain, her shoes slid on the slick floor, and Ginny was so heavy, weighing like she was dead . . .

Fawkes fluttered off her shoulder, brushing her face with wings as soft as clouds. Where are you going?! she wanted to scream. Not that he'd been any bloody use—

The whole chamber shuddered, water rippling and surging over Harriet's socks as the Basilisk slithered toward them, the sound of its scales on the floor hissing as fast as a bullet train.

"I've got you, Ginny," she gritted, her feet sliding, her heart beating a rhythm of panic in her chest. "I've got you—"

Then the phoenix screamed one shrill, glorious note, and something fell through the top of the Hat, hard, and bashed Harriet on the head.

\--

Lockhart's office had been hastily ransacked, a wardrobe flung open, some books tumbled off a shelf, pictures knocked off every imaginable surface, their frames shattered by trampling feet. A haze of smoke thickened the air; the fire was belching and guttering.

"Done a bunk, he has," said Sprout, one third satisfied, one disbelieving, one disgusted.

"It seems as if it didn't take much," said Minerva with a Gryffindor's patent repugnance for cowardice.

Severus knelt next to the fireplace and extinguished the flames. Inside lay a heap of ash . . . and paper.

"He was burning something," he said. "Handwritten notes, it looks like."

"Well, we'll leave it for later." Minerva's voice was firm, but her hands were gripping each other so tightly, the pressure bled her skin white. "We haven't time to fool with this—this fool. I know we've searched the castle from Sibyl's tower to Severus's dungeon, but we haven't searched well enough."

"As before," Flitwick said, "I suggest we concentrate on those parts of the castle that are empty of portraits. The Heir of Slytherin has clearly surmised that he must confine his attacks to areas where he won't be detected except by chance."

_Cunning, like a Slytherin,_ Severus could feel them all thinking.

"It's too bad it's a buggering secret chamber," Sprout said without humor.

"It's too dreadful to imagine He Who Must Not Be Named using one of our students in this way," Flitwick said.

"They could be doing it willingly," Severus pointed out coldly. Flitwick looked wounded; but then, he was softhearted.

"Or by Imperius," Minerva said sharply. "That was one of You Know Who's specialties, making marionettes out of people."

I think I know more about the Dark Lord's specialties than you, Severus thought, but he managed to bite his tongue on the words.

"See here, we're not going to find the bally Chamber by fighting," Sprout said simply. "If we could, I'd let you both at it, but we've got to be practical and keep our—what the devil?"

This last was said to the Fat Friar, who had come rushing in through the wall in a streak of opalescent silver.

"Professors," he said, slightly out of breath even though he didn't breathe or feel fatigue, "a group of students are out of their House and won't return at our bidding—"

"If it's those wretched bloody Gryffindors," Severus started in a flash of fury.

"Severus Snape!" Minerva retorted.

"In fact," said the Friar apologetically, "they are Gryffindors . . . I'm terribly sorry . . . "

\--

Harriet might have blacked out, but it must only have been a couple of seconds, because when she jerked awake she was still alive, the hat was still covering her face, and the whole world was shaking around her. She clearly wasn't dead, which must mean hardly any time had passed at all.

Her hears filled with the sound of something massive slithering, and Riddle's voice shouting out its Parseltongue. Something screamed, so high and piercing and gut-wrenching that all the hairs on Harriet's body stood up and her fingertips tingled, her heart quailed.

"No!" Riddle screamed, too, the phoenix echoing them, so the whole chamber reverberated with their cries.

She couldn't turn and look or she'd die. She pushed herself up—and the hat fell off her head. _No!_ Arms shaking and heavy, she snatched it back up, keeping one hand gripping Ginny's wrist—

And a sword clattered out, magnificent and golden, glittering with rubies in the greenish gloom of the Chamber.

If Harriet thought anything at all, which she wasn't sure she did, it happened at light speed. She grabbed the sword and flung herself over Ginny, rolling and scrambling across the slick black floor, ignoring the pain in her knees, her shoulders, her head, her whole body, to where the diary had last lain. She couldn't see well at all, and the book was the same color as the stones in the floor, but it had been over here, next to the water.

"What are—NO!" Riddle shrieked, from much closer than Harriet would have thought, or wanted him to be. A moment later, he'd grabbed her by the hair.

A searing, blinding pain spiked through her head, whiting out the world. Riddle's scream curdled her blood. She swung the sword around, spinning after it, but he'd already let go, and she felt the sword's tip nick something as he lurched away.

" _KILL HER_!" he shrieked at the Basilisk, and in the whirl of fear and panic and adrenaline, Harriet looked toward it.

But it was blinded. Its enormous eyes had been punctured, gouged, turned to a bloody mess in its face. Even though it was a giant monster snake, it was in agony, Harriet could tell, disoriented and confused—and enraged. It reared, turned its ruined head toward her, and surged.

Scrambling, she threw herself after the diary again. She had to destroy it—if she could stab it, maybe—

Her hand hit the diary. The Basilisk's weight and power shaking the floor rattled all the teeth in her head. She looked up, into its mouth that was opening, stinking, festering, foul, rowed with teeth that she could see glistening, even without her glasses, even in the gloom—

As it came down, she grabbed the sword with both hands and thrust up, as hard as she could.

\--

The look on Minerva's face would have been something to savor, had Severus not been in such a state of rage.

"Where are they?" Sprout asked, already half out the door.

"The last I left them—with the Grey Lady following—they were headed toward the vault of staircases—"

Minerva, Sprout and Flitwick dashed toward the Grand Staircase, which would lead directly to the vault; but Severus took the opposite route, heading to approach it from the side. He gained the upper corridor just in time to see Miss Granger, and Miss Granger alone, throwing herself at the peeling door of that out-of-order bathroom he'd caught Lily's daughter emerging from only yesterday; God, it was only yesterday.

"Miss Granger!" he shouted at her, but the door was already banging shut. Cursing, he hurtled through the door—

A large hole stood in the wall, leading into a festering pipe. Puddled on the floor at its base was a mound of silvery-looking cloth. There was no sign of Miss Granger, no noise but the drip of water somewhere in that desolate space.

"A fucking girl's loo?" he snarled, hoisting himself into the pipe, where the dank of centuries filled his nose and mouth and throat.

The bathroom Albus changed the subject rather than speak about? whispered his Inner Slytherin.

The shock of that thought hit him in the chest—and then it seamlessly turned into the sensation of falling down, down, down, as if through time. He gripped his wand, ready for the spell to arrest his momentum, and cast it just in time to prevent himself crashing into a pile of rotting old bones.

Miss Granger gasped and scrabbled away from him, but he moved as quick as a mongoose to grab her by the arm.

"What," he hissed, "do you think you are doing, you abysmally foolish girl?"

"H-Harry and Ginny are down here!" she said tremulously, but she didn't cower or cringe. She did wince, though, when his hand tightened cruelly on her arm. He forced himself to let go of her, to preserve his calm, or at least not to raze the tunnel down around their heads. No, if he were going to lose the last fingernail grip on his control, it would be because of Lily's fucking bloody fool of a daughter.

"I will find them," he snarled at Granger. "You, Miss Granger, will wait here."

"B-but—"

" _You will wait here_ or I swear by every god known to man, I will see you expelled."

He could see dread warring with every Gryffindor impulse of her heart, fighting for plain dominance on her face. Hermione Granger, model student, who in four terms had only lost points twice, who was desperate for approval from authority to the point of alienating her peers, would surely die rather than be expelled—

"I'm n-not staying here," she managed. "S-sir."

GRYFFINDORS, he almost screamed.

Miss Potter can only benefit from having a friend of such tenacious spirit, Dumbledore had said.

"Very well, then," he snarled, rejecting the thought of Stunning her and leaving her there. "Get yourself killed. I'm not writing to your mother to tell her."

That made her flinch, but then she just raised her chin and said, "I know."

He pushed her behind him and then ignored her, ducking low stalactites and stumbling on particularly slick rocks. Granger scrambled along behind him, saying nothing, breathing audibly.

\--

Shaking, Harriet pulled herself free of the dead Basilisk's mouth. Its fangs tore at her clothes. She felt funny . . . odd . . . distant from herself . . . hurting everywhere, but that was nothing new . . .

Except in her elbow, where pain raged like a lightning storm.

Trying not to retch, she groped for the tip of the fang and pulled it free. She didn't manage not to scream as the flesh in her arm pulled with it, and she fell down, sobbing, gritting her teeth, the bloody fang clattering next to her.

"You. . ."

Riddle's shoe tapped into her line of sight. Despising him, she raised her head enough to see his face hovering far above her, contorted with triumph and with hatred.

"That creature was over a thousand years old," he said, disgusted. "I do truly despise Gryffindors."

"Piss . . . off," Harriet croaked. Every part of her felt like it was being Crucioed. Her elbow hurt worst of all, the wall of pain spreading out from there, growing as it blazed up her arm.

"No matter," Riddle said softly. "His sacrifice, at least, has ensured your death. The Basilisk's poison will kill you shortly . . . and then I'll be on my way."

As Harriet lay panting, all her nerves on fire, her skin feeling so icy cold it burned, a dim thought pushed to the front of her mind:

_The DIARY._

She rolled painfully onto her back, gritting her teeth, hoping Riddle would think she was doing it to die; turned her head away from him to look for the diary, praying he'd just think she didn't want to look at him. Her hand groped for the Basilisk fang, her eyes searched for the little black book. . .

And there it was.

"Going to try and stab me again, Harriet?" Riddle asked above her. "Really, with you dying, I think I ought to be able to dodge."

"Yeah?" Harriet ground out, wheezing. "Dodge—this."

And with the last of her strength she rolled the rest of the way and plunged the fang into the diary. Ink gushed out, drenching her hand and wrist, and Riddle screamed, long and high, longer and higher, and she sagged onto her back to watch him die, the man who'd killed her Mum and Dad and Ginny and herself. He was dissolving, like a photograph thrown into the fire, warping and coming apart in sticky black spots, like film melting. . . It was the last thing she was going to see, and it probably should have felt better, but it didn't.

He was gone.

She closed her eyes. Something brushed feather soft against her forehead, and chirruped, and honey-golden drops melted into her heart.

"Sorry it didn't work out, Fawkes," she mumbled, or tried to. She didn't know if she succeeded.

Then, she slipped away, Fawkes's song running like golden water through the dark.

\--

Ahead, a greenish light melted out of the blackness. The source shone out of an open door embellished with a raised relief of emerald-eyed serpents.

The stone corridor was completely silent.

Severus pulled himself up into the elevated doorway and descended into an eerie chamber of glimmering black water and stone, lit by a greenish light that reminded him of his own dungeons. Ahead, a burst of color, of red and gold—

Dumbledore's phoenix, and the tangle of Ginevra Weasley's hair, spread out on the black floor. The phoenix was perched on the chest of Lily's daughter, who lay completely motionless.

"Oh," Granger gasped, like she really couldn't say any more. It was more than Severus himself could do. "Oh—"

The phoenix spread its wings and flitted off the girl's body.

Somehow Severus found he'd moved over to the girl, around the massive form of the snake that had sagged, dead, onto its side. He didn't remember kneeling over her, but there he was, looking down on her. She was filthy, covered in ink and slime and blood. Her face was turned toward them, missing its glasses, looking still and peaceful.

Granger was sobbing, brushing at the girl's hair, pushing it away from her face, crying _Harriet, Harry, please._

He felt something flutter against his fingertips. At some point, he had picked up the girl's hand and wrapped his hand around her wrist.

He was feeling her pulse.

"Miss Granger, shut up," he said—or he tried to. His voice seemed to have gone.

There was a pulse in her throat, too. It was getting stronger as he felt it.

A groan came from nearby, and a cough: the Weasley girl was moving.

"Oh!" Granger gasped again. She scrambled over to the She-Weasley. "Ginny!"

"H-Hermione?" the Weasley girl said in a quavering voice. "Where—how—oh!"

Severus ignored their bleating. He turned Lily's daughter's face toward him, checking her for head injuries. She didn't seem to have any, although there were blood-flecked scrapes on every visible part of her skin, and the left knee of her jeans was torn and stained. Her pulse, though, was gaining strength under his hand. It would probably be a good idea, he thought, to speak her name, to wake her, but his voice seemed to have gone to that place where all his emotions had fled, not simply into Occlumency but somewhere else altogether, somewhere outside of him, leaving him an empty shell with no power but automation.

But then she stirred and opened her eyes.

She stared at him, in that unconcerned, unfocused way of the recently unconscious. Then she blinked, recognition and confusion coming together.

"Professor?" she croaked. Off to the side, he heard Granger and the she-Weasley bleat in tandem.

At the sight of those eyes, Severus came entirely back to himself—all his terror, his rage, his frustration, his guilt, his relief, all bound together and returning as powerful as the tide. They crashed through him, so strong he felt his own foundations reverberate. He should shake her until her teeth rattled loose, scream at her until his throat ran dry, lock her up someplace where she couldn't be heroic ever again and nothing dangerous could touch her, because the suicidal little fool had proved she couldn't be trusted—

"It was Voldemort," she said in an exhausted, breathless voice, pushing herself up so she could point at something near his knee, but he didn't look, he didn't give a goddamn fuck. "Only he was calling himself Tom Riddle, it wasn't Ginny, sir, I swear—"

"It w-was his diary!" She-Weasley sobbed.

"He was living in the diary, I stabbed it with the Basilisk fang, And it exploded ink and he disappeared, Tom Riddle, I mean—"

"Shut up," Severus said, his first words since he'd told Granger to stay behind him. "Just fucking shut up before I kill all three of you."

They did, the Weasley girl even stopping her crying, each of them staring at him with varying levels of shock and wariness. He forced himself to stand and pace away from them before he did something irreparable. Everything inside him felt raw with fury, with, with—

A cool breeze passed over him and something sharp pierced his shoulder as a weight landed there—

Dumbledore's phoenix. It regarded him with bright black eyes and trilled.

"The same goes for you," he said, but he could feel the murderous rage ebbing. Still, it had a long way to go. "Goddamn you."

The phoenix chirruped and nuzzled him.

When he finally stalked back to the children, he found the girl holding a garish, glittering sword inlaid with rubies, and wondered if it was in self-defense. Clumped together, the three girls peered up at him warily. Lily's daughter almost relaxed when she saw the bird sitting on his shoulder.

"Can you walk?" he snarled at them.

They all nodded, not seeming to dare speak yet. Good.

"Then get up and follow me."

They did, clutching each other's hands.

And he knew he was going to have a long—a very long—talk with Albus fucking Dumbledore and Lucius motherfucking Malfoy.


	14. A Thousand Years Ago or More

Harriet was exhausted and aching. Hermione had to steer her, not just because she'd lost her glasses and could barely see, but because her left ankle throbbed with every step. She held onto Hermione with one hand and the sword with the other, using it like a walking stick.

The portraits sent the word ahead of them, whispering like the wind.

Snape slammed open the door to the Headmaster's office, really slammed it, so hard one of its hinges fell off. Harriet heard Mrs. Weasley's voice, raw and so grief-stricken it couldn't even be happy: "Ginny!"

The blur of Ginny's copper hair flashed across the room, her voice sobbing along with her mother's. Someone was wheezing, "Rowena, Helga and Godric—what's wrong with Miss Potter?" That was Professor McGonagall.

"I lost my glasses," Harriet said, putting out her hand so as not to knock into the furniture.

"A great deal more than that seems to have happened! Severus, what—?"

"Where the sodding fuck is Pomfrey?" Snape snarled.

"Severus Snape!"

"I'm right behind you," said Madam Pomfrey's indignant voice, "there's no need for that kind of language in front of the children! Yes, Professor, I see her—Miss Potter, what have you been doing?"

"It's all my fa-a-ult," Ginny sobbed.

"See Ginny first," Harriet protested, "she's been ill all term—"

"Ginny, what _happened_?" cried Mrs. Weasley.

"It, it was this," Hermione said in a high-pitched voice, and several people started babbling at once.

Someone grabbed Harriet by the elbow—Snape—and pushed her into a chair.

"Will you do your job?" he snarled at Madam Pomfrey, who huffed and started passing her wand over Harriet. The colors of the spells flashed over her, the prickle of the diagnostic magic.

"What happened to your glasses, Miss Potter?" she asked as she worked.

"I lost them falling down the pipe into the Chamber of Secrets," Harriet said.

"What happened to her arm?" Snape demanded.

Pomfrey took Harriet's elbow gently and peeled back her bloody, punctured sleeve. "There's blood, but I don't see a wound."

"The Basilisk fang stuck me there," Harriet said. "But Fawkes—"

Something exploded in the room, something made of glass. Several people shrieked.

"What in Godric's name!" yelped Professor McGonagall.

"Severus," Dumbledore said over the cacophony, "a word, if you please?"

"Oh, no you don't—" Snape snarled; but a second later, he was gone, and Harriet was left at her chair with just Madam Pomfrey.

Pomfrey muttered, "I worry about that man's—" But then she abruptly stopped and went back to work, as if she hadn't meant to say it.

She repaired Harriet's ankle, knitted her cuts, soothed her bruises, and then switched Harriet for Ginny and herself for Professor McGonagall, who transfigured Harriet a pair of glasses. When Harriet slipped them on, she saw that both Professor Dumbledore and Snape were absent.

 _No wonder it's so quiet now,_ she thought.

Hermione was holding the golden sword, reading it. Harriet marveled at this level of devotion to words, that Hermione looked for something to read even on the hilt of a sword.

"Harriet—look." She beckoned Harriet closer and held up the sword hilt. "Can you read through those glasses? Look at this."

Harriet peered at the sword's dirty blade. Underneath the hilt, someone had etched in angular Anglo-Saxon letters. . .

"Does that say Godric Gryffindor?" she asked slowly.

"That is Gryffindor's sword."

Professor Dumbledore's voice made them jump. He'd returned silently, minus Snape, and was smiling broadly beneath the acres of his beard. Professor McGonagall walked over to stand next to them, looking down at the sword with raised eyebrows.

"Well, the hat was Gryffindor's, you see." Professor Dumbledore waved at the patched and filthy hat that sat upright on his desk, looking like it was watching them all. "Gryffindor charmed his sword to appear to any Gryffindor who had true need of it."

Professor McGonagall's hand brushed Harriet's shoulder, squeezing gently, and then pulled away.

 _The Sword of Gryffindor_ , Harriet thought as Hermione laid it delicately on the desk. Harriet didn't have the heart to mention that even throwing it off the Astronomy Tower probably wouldn't so much as ding it, since it had gone through the roof of a Basilisk's mouth and come out only a little dirty.

Gryffindor's sword had come to her when she was fighting Slytherin's monster, whom she'd been able to understand when no one else in the castle could. The Sorting Hat, who'd given her Gryffindor's Sword, had wanted to put her in Slytherin before any other House.

What did all of that mean?

"There will be no punishment," Professor Dumbledore said, turning to the Weasleys with a smile. "Older and wiser wizards than Ginevra have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort."

Mrs. Weasley shivered at the name; Ginny's eyes leaked tears. Mr. Weasley, looking tired and older than Harriet had seen him last summer, put his arm around his daughter's shoulder.

At that moment, Harriet envied Ginny more than anyone else in the world.

* * *

When Dumbledore opened the door to his sitting-room, into which he'd hustled and locked him, Severus turned on him with a snarl of rage.

"You knew where the entrance was all along, didn't you? _Didn't you_? Just like you knew it was a fucking Basilisk—"

"Severus," Dumbledore said.

"When I mentioned a girl's bathroom, you deflected me!" He was shouting, but he couldn't bring his voice down; he didn't want to, he didn't give a fuck if anyone was in the room beyond. "And a girl's bathroom is exactly where the bloody fucking entrance was, you knew all along! How could you have—Jesus fucking Christ—I thought you cared what happened to that girl, to—"

"Severus," Dumbledore said, "I came in here because I thought you might be interested to know that Harriet has just left to give Tom Riddle's diary back to Lucius Malfoy."

Severus stared at him. Dumbledore stared back.

Severus shoved him out of the way and took off running.

_Leaving—he'll be heading for the exit—he'd take the main route, it's the easiest—_

The inside of his mind was like a shattered mirror, shards of piercing brightness refracting light and darkness. _Find Lucius—find the girl—find them find them—_

"You shall not hurt Harriet Potter!" cried a shrill, reedy voice, unseen but close at hand. The air in the icy corridor imploded with the force of magic released; he heard it impact a body, and then the crash of the body falling into something hard—several times.

Rounding the corner, he found Lucius's house-elf standing in front of the girl with his finger outstretched, gazing fiercely down at the bottom of the stairs. The girl looked stunned but proud and joyous.

Alive.

"You shall go now," the elf said fiercely to the thing at the bottom of the stairs—Lucius. "You shall leave and not hurt Harriet Potter!"

She glanced up at Severus as he bore down on her, her eyes widening behind a pair of unfamiliar spectacles.

"We were just—" she blurted.

He gripped her arm so hard that she winced. He felt dizzy, not from the running but from the panic. He couldn't seem to stop panting.

"Harriet Potter!" the elf squealed.

"Shut up—" (She made a tiny noise in the back of her throat, a noise that sounded like pain. He needed to let go of her arm but he couldn't.) "You will get back to your Tower. NOW."

She nodded jerkily. He pushed her away from him; she stumbled and rubbed at her arm. He watched until she rounded the corner, throwing a frowning look over her shoulder as she disappeared.

When he turned toward the elf, it gave him a potent, reproachful look before cracking away, vanishing from the hall.

At the foot of the stairs, Lucius had picked himself up, knocking at his cloak, flinging back his mussed hair from his face.

"That miserable half-blood brat," he snarled. "She's just cost me my servant! The cretinous little—what are you doing?" he asked blankly, staring at the tip of Severus's wand.

"I'm showing you the price of ambition," Severus whispered.

* * *

It was almost strange how quickly life returned to normal, or at least as normal as it ever got at Hogwarts.

For abandoning his job, Gildeory Lockhart was sacked. A scathing article appeared in the Daily Prophet a couple of weeks later (Investigative Reporter, Rita Skeeter, reporting), claiming that all of Lockhart's books were forgeries, with scads of notes, looking partially burnt, in his handwriting printed alongside. There was even some hinting that Lockhart would be brought up on charges. Hermione looked mortified and Snape very smug. The other professors got funny expressions on their faces whenever they heard anyone talking about it, like they were trying not to smile. (Most of the female population at Hogwarts ranged from heartbroken to indignant.)

Professor Dumbledore took over the abandoned DADA classes. Some days he led the students around the school, teaching them about its defenses. When he weather warmed, he brought them outside, sat them in the grass and told them stories about the Founders. He spun for Harriet's class legends about the Sword of Gryffindor, which they all crowded round in awe, and guided them through learning the Disarming Spell. Harriet got top marks.

Colin, Mrs Norris and Penelope Clearwater remained Petrified until May, since the Mandrakes had to grow up enough for harvesting; but Madam Pomfrey assured everyone that being Petrified was just like sleeping for a long time. Harriet hoped they didn't have nightmares of giant eyes. It would be terrible not to be able to wake up from frightening dreams. At least she could wake up from hers.

On Valentine's Day, Harriet received so many cards and so much chocolate that the huge pile buried her at the Gryffindor table up to her waist. Pansy Parkinson sent her a bouquet of posies that would have squirted Stinksap on her, but it got squashed by a ten-pound chocolate cake decorated with iced sugar socks, sent up from the kitchens by Dobby.

Professor Dumbledore told no one that Ginny Weasley had been possessed by the spirit of Tom Riddle, or that Lucius Malfoy was the reason it had happened; instead, he blamed the whole thing solely on Voldemort. After spending a month with her parents in Romania visiting her brother Charlie, Ginny returned to school looking much better; but she was horribly tense around Harriet. Remembering Riddle's taunting, Harriet figured it was from fear of what Riddle might have told her. She tried to get Ginny alone to tell her not to worry, but whenever Ginny saw her coming she would go bright red and escape into a passel of students who were crowding near to hear, for the eighty millionth time, the story of Slytherin's Basilisk and the Sword of Gryffindor.

Hermione suggested writing her a letter, so Harriet did. At least, she tried. After writing Ginny she sort of dried up, chewing on her quill and then pausing to spit out feathers.

"Just write what you feel," Hermione said.

So Harriet finally wrote:

_Ginny that Riddle was the greatest git who ever lived. Well we can tell, cause he turned into Voldemort. I don't let it worry me, anything he said, and anything he told you is total rubbish to. I'm still your friend if you want to be._

It wasn't super eloquent, but Harriet knew that she wasn't, either. She sneaked glances at Ginny the next morning at breakfast, watching her unwrap the letter, clearly confused, and then go as red as her hair as she read it.

That afternoon, Ginny walked resolutely up to Harriet after Charms, threw her arms around her neck, and burst into tears. Hermione and Ron helped Harriet pull her away from the rest of the curious class, because Ginny was sobbing _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_ over and over.

"It was horrible," she told Harriet. Her eyelashes were stuck together from her tears and she looked miserable. "The first time he started writing back, I thought it was so lucky, that someone had left a magic diary in one of my second-hand spellbooks and forgot about it . . . he was so—so understanding. Everything I told him, even things I was afraid or ashamed of, he made me feel brave and clever for thinking . . . " More tears leaked out of her eyes.

"Professor Dumbledore said Riddle could always charm the people he needed to," Harriet said quietly, holding onto Ginny's hand.

Ginny wiped her nose with her sleeve, and Harriet made a mental note to start carrying handkerchiefs. "Then I started having these black-outs . . . hours would disappear . . . I'd remember opening the diary and starting to write to Tom, and then just a blankness . . . there'd be red stuff on my hands and feathers on my robes, and I'd be with people I didn't remember meeting up . . . I wanted to tell you and Hermione what was going on, but Tom made me knock over that suit of armor on you and after you nearly died he said that if I didn't do what he wanted, if I told you, told anyone, he'd make me kill you next time . . . "

It was a long, sad talk, but things became better after that. Ginny and Harriet returned to being friends. Fred and George weren't teasing Ginny so much anymore, although Ginny voiced doubts to Harriet and Hermione that it would last for very long.

And last, but not least, Snape was back to ignoring Harriet. He swept past her cauldron in class without pausing, handed back her homework without speaking to her, never forced her to stay behind the others, and had entirely stopped shadowing her through the school. It was just like first year when, of all his students, Harriet alone had seemed perfectly invisible.

"I suppose he was trying to protect you," Hermione said when Harriet noted this discrepancy. "He did only start following you after Hallowe'en, when Mrs Norris was attacked . . . "

"Huh," Harriet said, even though, as she reviewed Snape's behavior (unpleasant as it was, the impression lingered) she could see that Hermione was right. "He's got a funny way of showing he cares."

"I suppose it's about that debt you told me about, the one to your father," Hermione said, turning a page in a book Professor Dumbledore had recommended to them during last class, _Tales of Beadle the Bard._ Harriet liked the one about the Three Brothers because there was an Invisibility Cloak in it. And sometimes she dreamed about holding the Resurrection Stone, and that her Mum would come back to her and tell her how proud she was, how much she missed her, how much she loved her, how she was sorry she'd ever had to go away.

"Snape took care of that last year, though," Harriet said to Hermione.

"Apparently Professor Snape doesn't think so."

"'Cause he didn't stop Quirrell or Riddle from hurting me, not directly . . . " Harriet mused. "I guess he's waiting until he saves me from a runaway train or something."

It was a little mystery of its own, but happily it was the only one left. And as the days grew longer and golden and the mandrakes ripened, Harriet soon forgot about that one, last mystery entirely.

* * *

Severus watched the light turn to fire in the egg-sized ruby on the hilt of Gryffindor's sword.

"Unbelievably ostentatious," he said, knowing that Dumbledore had just come into the study.

It wasn't a suitable opening for the first words he had spoken directly to Dumbledore since he'd screamed his voice out after the Chamber of Secrets had closed, but they were the only words he had.

The Chamber had closed four months ago. Another spring was gilding the castle now. Severus had not forgiven Dumbledore for withholding about the Basilisk and the Chamber and he never would. He wondered if this was how Lily had felt after he'd called her that loathsome word. He had gone over and over it in his mind, and yet he was quite certain: Dumbledore had known the location of the Chamber's entrance all along, and he had not only concealed it, he had done his best to prevent anyone else from discovering it. It was beyond anything Severus would have thought of him. No matter how long he wrestled with it, he couldn't quite believe the danger Dumbledore's actions had posed to all the students, whom surely the Headmaster cared for. Surely. 

The answer must lie with the girl. Had Dumbledore thought he was protecting her? He had suspected her of being the Heir, or of at least being controlled by the Dark Lord. Yet he had not stepped in to help, except, it appeared, by telling his phoenix to go to her aid. Why?

It was a question Severus's own mind could not answer. The events of last year disgusted him.

_You disgust me_

But he was wearied of having no one to talk to. He and Minerva were too quarrelsome, especially with the Potter girl on the Quidditch team. She didn't believe Dumbledore had known all along about the Chamber. Her perception of the Headmaster's wheels within wheels didn't encompass that. 

"Well, it is the Sword of Godric Gryffindor," Dumbledore replied easily. Even though Severus wasn't facing him, the twinkle in his voice was audible. It was as if Severus hadn't been snubbing him since the New Year and only turned up now, with no warning. 

"It's all been very fitting," Severus said. The first spring sunlight of the year shone through the crystal bottles in Dumbledore's cabinet, refracting on the many rubies in the sword's golden hilt, so that it seemed full of bright little eyes, all watching him. "The legendary Sword of Gryffindor to triumph over Slytherin's monster."

"Yes . . . " Dumbledore said pensively. "And yet, I wonder . . . "

Severus waited. He sensed Dumbledore's quiet determination to stay quiet until Severus stopped pretending to ignore him. Normally he would have pushed it, just to be contrary, but he found he didn't have the energy today, not even to be so emphatically himself. This year had exhausted him with caring, even the warped form of it that was all he was capable of. 

When he turned around, he found Dumbledore sitting next to the window, looking on the grounds below. Late snow lay scattered across the green, and the sunlight gleamed white-gold where it touched the glass.

"Well, Headmaster?" Severus said coldly. "What have you been wondering?"

"It's been such a delight to teach the children again, you know," Dumbledore said, apropos of nothing. "I wish you'd permit yourself to enjoy it more, Severus."

"I'd have to like people to enjoy it."

"Then I might wish you'd let yourself like people more." But Dumbledore was smiling. "I've been teaching them about the castle, you see, about the Founders . . . and all of that, as well as what happened in the Chamber, has got me thinking . . . "

He trailed off again, his eyes drifting back to the window. 

"It was the Sorting Hat itself who told me," Dumbledore said, still watching something out the window. "It was, oh, many years ago. It's not a story it circulates often, it said, because few wish to hear it . . . but it truly seems that all those lifetimes ago, when Slytherin left the school, he left the other three brokenhearted. He and Gryffindor were once the best of friends, after all. The Founders were never quite the same when they weren't Four."

Severus had heard this story before. He had gone often to the nave in the Slytherin common room, where Salazar was said to have prayed, and curled up in the cold hard little space, where the light shone green in the lake water through the shape of a Christian cross, thinking of Lily and wondering why, after a thousand years, it was still impossible for magic and Muggle, Slytherin and Gryffindor, to be one. He had sometimes comforted himself with the knowledge that no one had achieved it, so the failure was not entirely his own; and sometimes despised himself because he ought to have done it, he ought to have been great enough to overcome it. He had meant to be great enough. Greater than Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor both.

The dreams of youth always died when the kingdom of childhood fell apart.

"If that's the case," Severus said, "then Slytherin probably regretted leaving."

Dumbledore smiled at him, as if Severus had said something delightful, not depressing. "Yes. That is exactly what I've been thinking."

The gentle, comforting sounds of Dumbledore's office settled around them in the absence of their voices. Severus watched Dumbledore gaze out the window, that argent light glazing his half-moon spectacles, and wondered how many of the rumors of his youth were true.

"That doesn't, however, account for the Basilisk," Severus said eventually.

"Maybe not," Dumbledore murmured. "But do we really know for certain that Slytherin wished for it to kill all Muggle-born students? We only know that Tom Riddle did. It was subject to his whims in the end, just like poor Ginny Weasley. It's not particularly to Slytherin's discredit that he nursed a monstrous pet . . . After all, our own, dear, gentle Hagrid has been known to raise dragons, man-eating spiders, and three-headed dogs." He laughed. "To name a few."

" . . . Wait," Severus said flatly. "Are you—Albus Dumbledore, the greatest modern patron of Gryffindor—trying to say you don't think Salazar Slytherin was _such a bad bloke after all?_ "

Dumbledore shrugged, still smiling. "I am saying . . . that the truth is much less tidy than legends would have us believe . . . less tidy, and harder to live with . . . but more precious, for all that. Wouldn't you prefer a truth where Slytherin was not a monster?"

"You don't prefer one truth over the other," Severus said, his heart twisting up inside him, that thing he didn't have anymore. It wasn't supposed to hurt when it was gone. "You have to take what you get. Things are either true or they aren't."

"Are they?" The sunlight turned the blue of Dumbledore's eyes as clear as water. "I'm not so sure. But after a thousand years, I think we can all find our truths just the way we like them. In the end, it is what's here," he touched his long fingers to his chest, "that matters."

"Of course," Severus said. The sneer came so easily, he wasn't sure whether it was from long practice, habit, or sincerity. "The language of the heart. I don't speak that, or Parseltongue."

But Dumbledore just smiled at him, his eyes bright and clear.


	15. Grievances Not Forgot

 

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

-Khalil Gibran

_PART TWO: The Prisoner of Azkaban_

At Christmas, Harriet had got a (small, beaten up) package from Aunt Petunia. It had held nothing but a note that said nobody would be coming to collect her at King's Cross; if she couldn't magic herself home, she could take the train down.

Harriet had assumed Aunt Petunia meant the Muggle trains. She had never ridden them before, but if she could fight Quirrell-demort and Tom Riddle and Slytherin's monster, she could figure out how to get a train from King's Cross to Little Whinging.

But some things are subject to powers that no amount of girl-heroing can overcome: Harriet didn't have any Muggle money.

"Oh no." She stuck her hands in her pockets and pulled them inside. A button that she'd stuck in her pocket after it had come off her anorak clattered to the pavement.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"I haven't any Muggle money," Harriet said. "Have you got some? I can pay you back in Galleons."

"Why do you need Muggle money?"

Hermione waved to a woman Harriet recognized as Hermione's mum, Dr Granger. And there was her dad, who was also called Dr Granger. Ron had already been swept into a clump of Weasleys and was enduring his mum's hugs with loads better grace than most thirteen-year-old boys could have.

Harriet hadn't told Hermione about the Dursleys' note. She hadn't wanted to see Hermione's reaction, which would have made it horrible instead of a reprieve. Honestly, any Dursley-free time was a blessing. But if she told Hermione, then she'd have to acknowledge the part of the story that meant going to a place she was forced to call home, to people she was forced to call family, who so terribly couldn't stand the sight or thought of her that they didn't care if she made it back to them or not. They probably felt even worse about her after last summer.

But before Harriet had to answer, Mrs Weasley hurried over, saying, "Oh, sweetheart," and swept her into a hug that smelled like baking bread and grass.

Harriet was so unprepared that she almost hugged back. She caught herself at the last moment. _Ginny hates you sometimes,_ Riddle had said. This wasn't Harriet's mum; she was Ron and Ginny's. She wasn't Harriet's mum to hug and breathe in, thinking,  _This is what my home smells like_.

Harriet's home smelled like lemon-scented Pledge and crisp carpet and Aunt Petunia's perfume of gardenias and oranges that she dabbed behind her ears every morning. Harriet despised those smells.

"How are you?" Mrs Weasley asked, pulling back and putting her hands on both sides of Harriet's face.

"I'm okay, Mrs Weasley." She saw Mr Weasley speaking to Percy and felt a wrench of terrible guilt about the car. "And I'm so sorry—"

"Nonsense," Mrs Weasley half-whispered, like she couldn't make her voice go any louder, and kissed Harriet's hair. "Don't you dare."

Over Mrs Weasley's shoulder, Harriet could see Hermione hugging her mum and dad. She and Mrs Weasley hugged their children the same way, as if they were trying to pull a piece of themselves back inside.

Mrs Weasley turned to Mum-Dr-Granger and reintroduced herself; both Dr Grangers shook her hand. The rest of the Weasleys trickled over, including Mr Weasley, and hellos and names floated back and forth.

"Harriet, dear," said Mrs Weasley, "where are your . . . relatives?"

Harriet saw the expression on Mum-Dr-Granger's face and wished the platform would open up and swallow her. "Er . . . "

"Muggle money!" Hermione exclaimed, thrusting her hand in the air like they were in class. "That's why you need Muggle money, isn't it?"

"How'd you work that out?" Harriet said, half vexed with embarrassment, half impressed.

"You wouldn't need Muggle money except for anything to do with, with _them_ ," Hermione said, her lips thinning.

"I'm afraid I'm not following, Hermione," said her mum. Her voice was tightly pleasant and brisk, exactly like a dentist telling you to be sure and floss every day.

Hermione bit her lip rather than reply. With a thicket of eyes on her—fourteen Weasleys' and six Grangers'—Harriet was more reluctant to admit it than ever, while knowing she had no choice.

"I need to take a train to Little Whinging," she said.

The grown ups' expressions turned to stone. Mrs Weasley's eyes were fierce like brushfire.

Then she and Mum-Dr-Granger looked at each other, like they were connected by Mum Telepathy.

"Don't be silly, Harriet," said Mum-Dr-Granger. "We'll drive you down."

"Oh—" Harriet felt that she ought to refuse, even though she wanted to throw her arms around Hermione's mum. "You, you don't need to do that, please—"

"Don't be silly, dear," she said, sounding exactly like Hermione: pitch, expression, everything, only somehow _more_. "It will be our pleasure. Are these your things? We're parked this way, then . . ."

In an enormous, roving group, they all set off: the seven Weasleys, the three Grangers and Harriet, lugging their trunks and owls and Scabbers and gathering perplexed looks like wildflowers. The Grangers looked so commonplace, the Weasleys so outlandish, and Harriet fitted somewhere in between. The Dursleys would have fled in horror. She loved it. 

The Grangers drove a pale blue Corolla. It sent Mr Weasley into raptures and made Harriet and Ron squirm. There was some difficulty cramming both the girls' things into the boot, and Hedwig would have to ride on Harriet's lap, but Hermione's dad managed without the help of magic while her mum and Mrs Weasley chatted about becoming better acquainted. Harriet hoped they would talk about magic and mum-things and not about her.

Then, with final hugs, they left the Weasleys waving at them and inched into the traffic snarled around Kings Cross St Pancras.

"Are you girls hungry?" Hermione's mum asked from the passenger's seat.

"Ooh, yes, Mum," Hermione said.

"What do you like to eat, Harriet?"

"I eat anything, Dr Granger."

"Jean, please," she said. "And this is Daniel." She laid her hand on her husband's arm, who smiled at Harriet in the rear-view mirror. "You must have some preference."

"No, really, ma'am. I . . . don't go to restaurants much." Aunt Petunia resented restaurants, as if they were trying to pretend their cooking was better than hers, and Uncle Vernon only ate English food anyway. The only time they had taken Harriet out with them had been during their attempt to flee the Hogwarts' letters.

"Japanese!" Hermione said quickly. "Harriet will like Japanese."

* * *

Harriet did like Japanese. She liked the sight of unfamiliar writing on the menu and the chopsticks that she couldn't use. She liked being there with the Grangers, who never made her feel stupid or like a poor, neglected orphan when they explained the menu or tried to teach her how to use the chopsticks.

But most of all, she liked how everything was strange and yet wholly normal, or would have been normal if she'd been a different person. The Dursleys would never come here, even though it was a Muggle place in Muggle London. It would be as foreign to them as the Leaky Cauldron, as foreign as Hermione's family was to Harriet. The Grangers were like a family from the telly, something you didn't expect to really exist, like unicorns to Muggles. 

But there were some awkward moments, like when Hermione's mum asked how the year had gone. Harriet nearly choked on a dumpling.

"Well . . . " Hermione blew on her tea to give herself time. "Our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was sacked. Again."

"That position seems to have a high turnover rate," her dad said.

"Yes," Hermione said with a nearly straight face.

"Should we get you back, dear?" asked Jean as Daniel counted out cash for the bill. "Are your family worrying?"

"No," Harriet said without thinking.

"Ice cream, then," said Daniel cheerfully, tucking away his billfold.

* * *

Twilit shadows had bled across the earth by the time they pulled onto Privet Drive.

As Harriet watched the mind-numbingly boring houses flit past, with their bright windows and dark blotches of lawn, she felt herself growing more and more numb inside. She had just had more fun than she could ever recall having outside of Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, and to punctuate it with the Dursleys . . .

She remembered (with a pulse of vicious satisfaction) how Snape had hexed and left them. She was surprised they were taking her back at all. What if they locked her up again? What if they took all her letters for real? What if, once they got hold of her, they really didn't let her go back?

_Snape saved you last time. Maybe he'll do it again._

She wasn't sure about that, though. He'd been so enraged when he'd found her in the Chamber of Secrets. (She was _still_ confused about that. Was he just furious that she'd broken so many rules?) He might think it served her right this time, getting locked up.

The Corolla bumped into the Dursleys' driveway. When Daniel powered off the engine, Harriet felt her happiness snuffing out with it.

"I'll see you to the door," said Jean, unbuckling her seat belt.

She squeezed Harriet's arm before she rang the doorbell. 

When Uncle Vernon answered, Harriet's stomach twisted.

At first, Uncle Vernon was perplexed by the sight of Hermione's mother: a professional-looking, attractive woman standing on his doorstep. 

"Can I help—" he started.

Then he saw Harriet.

" _You_ ," he snarled furiously, belligerence turning his face purple.

Then he remembered Hermione's mum. Maybe it was her appearance being at such odds with Harriet's, or maybe it was his natural desire to act normal around normal people, but he tamped down on his hostility.

"If you've been causing trouble," he said threateningly.

(Well, _sort of_ tamped it down.)

"My name is Dr. Jean Granger," said Hermione's mum. She sounded calm, but there was something hard in there, too, like a layer of rock underneath grass and earth. "I'm Hermione's mother. Perhaps you've heard of my daughter?"

"Daughter?" Uncle Vernon glanced uneasily over Jean's shoulder to where Daniel and Hermione stood next to the car. They had the same curly hair, although Daniel's was much shorter.

"Harriet and Hermione go to Hogwarts together," said Jean.

Uncle Vernon's expression fluctuated. He was probably battling the desire to shout her off his lawn. But he glanced uneasily now at the car. The Grangers' devoutly normal appearance was having the effect on Uncle Vernon that normalcy always did: he had to respect it, the same way he had to despise everything freakish.

"Well," he muttered. "Well. Good of you to bring her home. She . . . she wanted to take the train."

"I can certainly see the appeal," said Jean coolly. "But we were quite happy to take her. In fact, we'd like to have her for a bit longer, if you don't mind."

Uncle Vernon stared at her. Perhaps he couldn't wrap his mind around the concept that someone would want Harriet around.

"I," he said.

"Vernon, who is it at the door?"

At the sound of Aunt Petunia's voice, Harriet very nearly cringed. She hated Aunt Petunia more than Uncle Vernon. She hadn't realized it until that exact moment, but she did.

Aunt Petunia's thin, horsey face appeared over Uncle Vernon's shoulder. "Can we help—"

And then she saw Harriet.

"You must be Harriet's aunt," Jean said. Her hand had moved to rest on Harriet's shoulder. "I'm Jean Granger, Harriet's friend Hermione's mother. I was just inviting Harriet to come and stay with us." Her hand squeezed, warm through Harriet's jacket. "Tonight, in fact."

Aunt Petunia's face flickered, as if she, like her husband, couldn't imagine anyone deliberately seeking Harriet's company, especially after an hour's car ride with her. But then her expression shut down, going hard and distant.

"That's very kind of you." Like Uncle Vernon, she couldn't resist the respectability of Hermione's mum. "But I'm afraid she has to . . . stay here. For a while."

"I see," said Jean. "When could we steal her away from you, then?"

Aunt Petunia's eyes were narrowed, but she was apparently thinking seriously about it, because she said, "Let's say a week, shall we."

Harriet couldn't believe she was hearing this. Only a week? Only a week with the Dursleys? She could have sung and danced and turned cartwheels and shot fireworks from her wand.

Hastily she tried to look as if this news wasn't elating, in case Aunt Petunia saw and made it two weeks, just so she wouldn't be giving Harriet something she wanted so desperately it was making her toes curl.

"A week, then," said Jean. "Unless we hear otherwise. Thank you. It's ever so kind of you."

Aunt Petunia nodded curtly. Uncle Vernon fiddled with the doorknob. They clearly wanted the Grangers gone but couldn't bring themselves to look so bad as to slam the door in Jean's face.

She turned to Harriet, who found herself being hugged again. Hermione's mum smelled clean and crisp, like nearly unscented fabric softener and the briefest tang of mint.

"We'll see you soon, dear," she said.

A patter in the grass, and then Hermione was throwing her arms around Harriet as her mum let go.

"Try not to turn them into newts," she whispered. "Even though they deserve it."

"Keep in touch, Harriet," said Jean. "Molly and I are expecting to know how you're doing."

With that subtle parting barb, the Grangers climbed into their Corolla and pulled away, Hermione waving through the window until the lamp post-tinted darkness swallowed her.

* * *

"Everything goes in the cupboard," Aunt Petunia said, like she really wanted to say _Everything goes on the fire._ "And it will be locked. You're not to touch any of this freakish rubbish so long as you're in this house."

"Right," Harriet said, trying to unclench her fists and make her voice sound normal, easy. Just one week, just one—

"And you're to give me your wand."

"What!" Harriet stared in horror, first at her aunt, then at Uncle Vernon. They were both wearing terrible smiles, although Uncle Vernon's was more like a grimace and Aunt Petunia's had a gleaming edge, like a knife in the sun.

" _Now_ ," Aunt Petunia said, holding out her hand.

Her hand shaking with anger, Harriet groped inside her anorak. She clenched her wand by the handle. Giving it to Aunt Petunia—it was so much worse than just locking it in her trunk.

"Careful, Petunia, dear," Uncle Vernon said, sounding genuinely anxious. "You never know what those freaky things can do—"

"They're not like guns, Vernon," Petunia said. She didn't look at him. "They're nothing but wood. Give it to me now," she snarled at Harriet, and wrenched it out of her grip.

Harriet tried not to feel like something was being ripped out of her inside. It was like giving Hedwig to Malfoy.

"I am going to put this in a safe place," Aunt Petunia said, gripping Harriet's wand. "If I catch you snooping around for it, it's kindling. Go to your room."

* * *

Next morning, life with the Dursleys had resumed its routine horribleness. Then again, routine horribleness never left Privet Drive.

Harriet looked out her tiny bedroom window, into the tidy backyard that was identical from the tidy back yard on the other side of the fence. She thought of the street, straight like an arrow and lined with identical houses. You could probably walk down the streets of Little Whinging until you lost your mind. She thought she remembered Aunt Petunia gossiping, once, that one of the neighbors' wives had done just that, put on a house coat over an evening dress and pearls and just walked out of her life.

Harriet would much rather fight a Basilisk than live here. And Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon _loved_ it.

At least she only had a week's worth of Dursley-suffering ahead of her. Only a week of being treated like her Invisibility Cloak had been sewn into her skin, except when the Dursleys wanted to be cruel. Then she'd get to stay with Hermione for a bit. She didn't care if it was only a single night. Anything to get her out of this life for even that long.

It didn't matter what happened during the year, how she triumphed, what she suffered, who hated or loved her. At the Dursleys', there were only the Dursleys. At the Dursleys', everything else started to unravel, memories turning into dreams. Sometimes that meant they were sharper and clearer—sometimes stranger and more frightening—but always less real. When she was cleaning coffee grounds out of a sink in a kitchen that smelled like lemon Pledge, under the glare of fluorescent lights, it was hard to imagine that she was some kind of hero who'd held a magical sword and slain a monster.

This summer, the Dursleys let her eat, but they didn't offer her dinner or a place at the table. There were only three chairs now, and Aunt Petunia told her strictly that the leftovers were for Vernon and Dudley only. Harriet fixed a lot of toast and cereal and scrambled eggs: quick things, because if she took up too much time in the kitchen Aunt Petunia would throw her out and dump the uncooked food in the trash, scolding her for wasting.

Dudley had returned to being terrified of her, just like the summer when Hagrid had given him a pig's tail. He jumped up and fled the room whenever Harriet entered it, even during dinner (which was why Harriet wasn't allowed to come downstairs until the family had finished eating). He spent most of the day outside of the house, and Harriet never saw his gang at all. She thought seriously about sending Snape a thank-you note.

On the second day, Aunt Petunia dumped her at the grocery with orders to see to the shopping while she drove up the lane to the salon. She had been doing this since Harriet was nine. It was actually one of her backhanded kindnesses: as long as Harriet was in the grocery store, she was away from Aunt Petunia. She couldn't buy anything for herself because Aunt Petunia always demanded to see the receipts, but the clerks didn't get paid enough to care if she paged through the comics while she was shopping.

Aunt Petunia sat in the car while Harriet loaded the groceries into the boot and then climbed in the back seat. Aunt Petunia didn't like for her to sit up front, but again, the further from Aunt Petunia, the better. The air in the car stung with the scent of hairspray and nail polish; Aunt Petunia had also gotten a perfect, salmon-pink manicure.

"The receipt," she said tetchily, even though Harriet was already pulling it out of her anorak pocket. "And don't forget the change."

As they drove to Privet Drive, it started to rain. Drops pattered on the roof of the car and sluiced off the windows. The rhythmic _thump thump thump_ of the windscreen wipers threaded the thick silence of two people who hated and had nothing to say to each other.

"I suppose you wish you were back with that pervert," Aunt Petunia said abruptly.

"What pervert are you talking about?" Harriet said, honestly bewildered. "I don't recall knowing any perverts."

"Don't you," said Aunt Petunia. Harriet could hear Aunt Petunia's lip curling. "Does he like for you to play the little innocent, then? I would rather have supposed he put you in a red wig."

If Aunt Petunia hadn't been so relentlessly Muggle, Harriet would have thought she was talking to an invisible person. "A . . . wig?"

"Because he was sick as a dog for your mother." Aunt Petunia braked so hard at the light that Harriet was jerked against her seat belt. "Of course, _she_ wasn't innocent, or at least she never played like she was."

Now this was about Harriet's mum? "Who are we _talking_ about?"

Aunt Petunia's eyes fixed on her in the rear-view mirror, hard and cruel and something else Harriet didn't understand. "That professor who you went with so willingly. Snivellus Snape, the pervert, all grown-up. Never thought I'd live to see that. He looked like an overgrown bat."

Harriet had thought that once Aunt Petunia explained the name, things would clear up. But she was only more confused than ever.

"Snape didn't know my mum," she said coldly. "You're making it up, the way you made up everything about me before Hagrid came and you had to tell me the truth—"

Aunt Petunia laughed, a short sound as nasty as her words. "She was always like that, too, thinking she knew everything. Oh, he knew her. She knew him. He used to stalk her about the neighborhood. At first she ate it up, little queen of Cokeworth that she was, but then he did one too many things she didn't like and he fell right out of favor. Well, I'd told her how it would be, but she did so like being worshiped."

"You're lying," Harriet said even more coldly than before. She was quite certain that it was all a lie, because there was no way it could make sense . . . but she had a hot, queasy feeling in her stomach.

"Did he tell you that you were precious to him? Is that it?" Aunt Petunia asked, her voice meaner than Snape's had ever been. "That you were special? He's seeing her when he looks at you. You're nothing to him but a little copy of his spoilt princess."

Harriet opened her mouth to say that Snape didn't even like her; that he ignored her, except when he felt like being mean . . . but then she shut it. A vague, formless notion was drifting through her like smoke, so light she knew she couldn't try to see what it was just yet or it would evaporate. But it made her stay quiet for now.

Aunt Petunia pulled into the driveway. "Bring in the groceries," she said without looking at Harriet as she patted the plastic hood over her hair. "And put them away."

Like the conversation had never happened. Harriet couldn't help comparing Aunt Petunia's method of ignoring her with Snape's and finding them very similar. But Snape had tried to save her from being murdered by a giant monster snake. Aunt Petunia would surely be disappointed to learn how close Harriet had come to dying, only to have survived.

Once the groceries were all put away and the kitchen was left looking like a display in a model home, Harriet escaped to her room. She wanted to be alone and think.

She was still confident that Aunt Petunia could be lying. For ten years the Dursleys had pretended that Harriet's parents had died in a car accident. Both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had big fat lies on their track record.

But . . . the night Hagrid had told Harriet the truth, Aunt Petunia had burst out about Mum, her face twisting when she shrieked about how proud her parents were to have a witch in the family, how deluded, because Lily was nothing but a freak . . . _And then she married that Potter and they had you, and then she got herself blown up_ . . . Like she'd been waiting to tell Harriet how much she'd hated her own sister. That stuff in the car about Snape and Mum had been a lot like that.

There was also the part where Aunt Petunia knew who Snape was. If she was lying, who'd told her his name? What did she call him? Snivellus? That seemed like a pretty realistically nasty nickname for "Severus."

So . . . had all that been true? Had Snape known Mum? Fancied her?

This must be what Uncle Vernon had felt when Dr Granger had asked for more Harriet-time. She just didn't see how this could possibly be true. Snape, having warm and fuzzy feelings? For her _mum_? Next she'd find out Dudley had a brain.

She wished fiercely for her photo album, but it was shut away in her trunk, locked inside the cupboard. She was certain there were no pictures of Snape in it or she'd have noticed and her jaw would've dropped, but she couldn't help feeling the sight of her mother's face would solve some part of this bloody maddening mystery.

She reminded herself that Aunt Petunia's version of the facts, if facts they were, was probably as twisted up as wet laundry. Aunt Petunia had hated Mum, whereas all Harriet had heard since meeting Hagrid was how great her parents were, how many people had loved them, how much sadness there'd been when they'd died. All Aunt Petunia seemed to care about from Lily's death was that it had stuck her with Harriet.

And the idea that Snape would fancy her . . . He was a grown-up! He was her _teacher_. She was twelve (well, very-almost thirteen, but she was the smallest girl in her year, something Pansy Parkinson loved to point out). After a homeless man had given Harriet some chocolate when she was seven or so, Aunt Petunia had bewildered her with a talk about blokes who loved kids the way they were supposed to love women, but there was no way Snape could be like that. 

And most of all, Snape couldn't stand her. The idea of him ever telling her that she was precious was madder than she'd ever thought dragons and unicorns, before she'd seen one being born and the other dying.

No one had ever told her she was precious.

* * *

The next day, the wind and sun stripped the clouds away, and Aunt Petunia handed her a long list of chores to finish before lunch. In Aunt Petunia's sharp, slanted writing it read:

"Wash the car. Mow the lawn. Paint the garden bench. Wash the windows. Manure the flower beds. Prune the roses. . . "

And so forth.

And as if some other spirit had slipped into her body, Harriet said quite calmly, "I think Professor Snape would think this was too much work for me."

Aunt Petunia dropped her glass of lemonade. It cracked on the counter, the lemonade and ice cubes gushing across the tiles. Harriet forced herself to keep staring into Aunt Petunia's twisted face. She was just another villain, like Quirrell-demort or Riddle.

" _Go_ , then," Aunt Petunia said, ripping the list out of Harriet's hand so hard, it tore in half. "Walk the neighborhood, run away to Kuwait, I don't care, but get out of my sight!"

Harriet meandered toward the play park on the edge of the neighborhood, where the rusted equipment creaked in the wind. Now she knew what that vague smoke of an idea had been: to play off Aunt Petunia's fear and suspicion of Snape to protect herself.

 _Very Slytherin of you_ , said a sly little voice that reminded her of the Sorting Hat.

 _We're a lot alike, you and I_ , Riddle had said.

"No, we're not," Harriet said aloud. " _You'd_ have killed her."

The grass whispered in the wind that pushed the creaking swings, sounding nothing like snakes. Harriet could understand snakes. The grass was just speaking gibberish. Were there wizards who could understand the wind?

"I'm not their house-elf," she told the unintelligible grass.

She hoped Dobby was happy working at Hogwarts now, where no one would be cruel to him. She really had loved Professor Dumbledore then. When she'd asked for Tom Riddle's diary to give back to Lucius Malfoy, he had said, _Of course_ , and as she'd run from the room, _Do let Dobby know that if he ever needs work, he can find it at Hogwarts._ The food at Gryffindor table had been extra rich all the rest of the year. And there'd been that cake that had squashed Pansy Parkinson's stinksap-squirting bouquet.

It had all worked out, hadn't it? Slytherin's monster had been defeated. Lucius Malfoy had lost. The Muggle-born students were restored to life, and Dobby was freed from enslavement. There had even been a magical sword. Just like a fairy tale.

Only it wasn't over, not the whole story. If it were over, then Harriet would be free, too. There would be no threat of Voldemort, no Dursleys . . . just her and Hermione and Ron and Hogwarts, forever.

She waded into the grass, walking carefully in case of snakes. If she concentrated, she thought she could hear them murmuring to each other.


	16. Escape

The lights were too bright, the voices too loud, the room too warm. Some woman standing nearby was wearing too much fucking perfume. The clouds of cigarette smoke made the back of his throat burn, wanting one of its own.

He found Narcissa easily, reigning over the roulette wheel. A besotted ass old enough to know better was lighting her cigarette, looking far too pleased with himself when Narcissa leaned in almost close enough for their noses to touch. Severus was too far away to see it, but he knew her sliver of a smile would be calculating and amused. Narcissa knew the effect she had on men.

So, she didn't need him yet. When she did, she would send one of her admirers to find him. So Severus swiped a pack of cigarettes off the bar, where a young wizard flirting with a snubbing blonde witch had been careless enough to set them down, and slipped out of the refracted brightness.

Beyond the main room, the casino descended from glint and glitter into lush velvets in dark colors, gilded wallpapers and warm lamplight. Go even further, and one could find its rich supply of shadowed corners, dark and secluded balconies, and sound-proof bedrooms.

Severus went past several balconies that he knew would be occupied until he found himself one that wasn't. He stood on it alone, in the regrettably balmy night air, and lit up, watching the end of the cigarette burn like the lights of the city spread through the darkness.

He hated coming to places like these. Only Narcissa held the cards of his obligation; only she could inspire him to suffer the tedium and tension of a night full of raucous drunks. He'd felt stirrings of pity for few people throughout his life, but Narcissa's stoic, brokenhearted calm in the face of Draco's growing away from her had resigned him in a way few things ever could. She had stoically borne Draco's enthusiasm at spending a month of the summer with relatives on the Continent, but when she had suggested casually to Severus that he accompany her to Milan, where she would be within Apparating distance of her son, he had understood and acquiesced.

He hated to be around people—anyone—drinking. He stayed away from pubs and bars and clubs, eschewed dances and concerts, even avoided festive staff-room parties. It was a moment of acquaintance he dreaded, figuring out what sort of drunk a person was. Everyone thought of it as letting their hair down, lightening up, having some fun; for him, it was being wound tighter and tighter until he wanted to break. He never drank anything stronger than water. He took a glass of mead or wine or brandy when propelled to, but he never drank it. He'd hold the glass he'd been forced to take and methodically vanish the contents throughout the evening, the only one in control of his faculties, his heart hammering and his palms sweating as everyone around him degenerated into slurring, shouting, cackling, staggering, falling. Nobody ever noticed. 

Instead of drinking, he'd taken up smoking. And Dark magic. Death Eating.

He ground the stub of his first cigarette into the stone and lit another.

On the balcony below, two people were having sex. He flicked ash over the balustrade, but it probably blew away in the tepid wind before it landed on them.

He really fucking hated places like these. 

At least it wasn't Hogwarts. He'd needed to get the fuck out. He needed to spend time among adults, even if they were irresponsible addicts—needed to spend time with one other person, at least, who he knew was as incensed as himself about the Basilisk, the risk to one child in particular, even if it was a different child.

_"How could he, Severus? Endanger my baby, the only child I will ever have. I could kill him, in cold blood I could. . ."_

The waitress Narcissa sent to fetch him wore her nut-brown hair styled in a coil and a dress that was at least one size too small; smelled of perfume and cologne and smoke and sweat. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused; she'd been taking something. He could smell it on her breath, a sharp scent like crushed flowers. The pure-bloods called them candied violets.

He pushed her away as her hand grazed his arm and left her. The sweat from her shoulder stuck to his palm, and he wiped it on a silken drape in the hall.

"You didn't have to come right away, darling," Narcissa said when he located her divan inside the card-room. An older man whom women would surely have described as _handsome_ and _distinguished_  sat with her, while a much younger man, as pretty as he was vapid, hovered jealously. "Otherwise I'd have sent a waiter to get you."

"So you did send her," Severus said. "As doped as she was, I wasn't sure it was really me she was looking for."

"Oh, dear," Narcissa murmured. "Well, now that you're here . . . Julian," to the older man and, "Larkson," to the younger, "I must abandon you for the night."

"Please stay," said Larkson, the yearning half-wit.

"I'll get your cloak," Severus told her, more to escape the sexual melodrama than from any chivalrous urge. He left Narcissa looking archly amused and went to the cloak room, bullying his way to the front of the queue. When he returned, Julian skillfully scuppered Larkson's chance at draping Narcissa in her cloak, and she bid them both a fond and sparkling good-bye.

"I promise you I didn't give the girl anything," said Narcissa as they left. "She looked . . . friendly. That's the only reason I sent her."

Severus grunted.

Narcissa threaded her arm through his. "Thank you for escorting me, my lamb. I know how you detest it, but I do promise to make it up to you. Shall we go to the club? I have a wide range of acquaintance there whom you can bully with impunity."

The offer of bullying was tempting, and he knew that Narcissa had only left the casino because she wanted a change of venue, so he agreed. Narcissa kissed his hand and they strolled onward; or at least Narcissa strolled and Severus approximated her pace. He wasn't sure he had ever been relaxed enough to stroll in his life.

Even at night, the wizarding quarter of Milan couldn't be described as fully dark. Patches of blackness so deep and silent they spoke of concentrated secrecy alternated with bursts of dazzling light and sound. Sometimes they passed people whom Narcissa regally acknowledged; others, without speaking to or even looking at. Jewels glittered in Narcissa's hair, at her throat and on her hands as they parted the folds of her cloak, where a blue diamond brooch whispered of wealth and curses. But Narcissa didn't fear a mugging. She didn't travel with Severus because she needed protection; only an escort, for a daughter of the Blacks would never suffer the ignominy of venturing out alone.

"How is Lucius enjoying Brussels?" he asked with irony. His hand tightened in his pocket as he remembered the tingle of the spells he'd cast, there on Hogwarts' steps.

"Not at all." Narcissa's fingers curled on his arm, nails scraping through her gloves and his sleeve. "I understand his mother is very upset with him, poor lamb, for endangering the succession."

 _Not nearly as upset as I was._ "I don't think I ever saw his mother ever truly upset. Does her hair turn to snakes and her gaze to stone?"

Narcissa's smile glinted like her brooch. "Something like that, I believe, yes."

_"What are you doing, Severus?"_

_"I'm showing you the price of ambition."_

Dumbledore would also have been very upset with him, had he found out. Severus had almost told him, just to get back at him, to make him feel as betrayed and disappointed as he'd felt at Christmas. But then Dumbledore might have revoked the spells, and Severus hadn't cast them only for his own satisfaction.

Lucius wouldn't remember what he'd done, and the spells were undetectable. If—when—if the Dark Lord returned, there would be one less Death Eater whom the girl would have to worry about hurting her to gain the Dark Lord's favor.

"And all to stop that shabby circus-freak Arnold Weasley's Muggle Protection bill," Narcissa was saying with cultured disgust. "Lucius should just poison the blood-traitor and leave my son out of it."

"I'm positive that he thought any object left to him by the Dark Lord would never harm a child as pure of blood as Draco," Severus said, adding to himself, _The fucking fatwit._

"Lucius is a baboon's arse," Narcissa said coldly. The use of a common vulgarism like that would have shocked at least three quarters of her acquaintance, but he'd heard Narcissa say much worse. He'd taught her most of it. "He didn't even know what that wretched diary would do. Releasing a Basilisk, for Merlin's sake—how was Draco supposed to be safe from that?"

 _But that's Lucius all over,_ Severus thought. _Do what seems to get him ahead first, get hit in the nose with the consequences later._

In this case, it had been the consequences of Severus's own . . . displeasure.

"He learned nothing, twelve years ago," Narcissa said. "He thinks the Dark Lord is gone."

Severus could feel her looking at him. He watched the black windows of closed shop-fronts, smelled a thick burst of jasmine from a bush climbing over the wall of a late-night restaurant. Narcissa's hand tightened for a moment on his arm.

"Do you think he has gone, Severus?"

"I believe the events this year have proved he hasn't."

"But the Potter girl destroyed whatever was in that diary."

"She did." He had not told her about Quirrell. "But Dumbledore does not think he has gone. And however little you care for the man," he added when she made a soft, scornful noise, "he's always been right about the Dark Lord in the past."

He had been right this year, too: it had been the Dark Lord's spirit, possessing a child, driving her to commit evil. He had been exactly right. And about Quirrell, too.

The only place Dumbledore's intellect had failed had been in Harriet Potter.

 

* * *

Harriet had never been to a Waterstones before. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't read fiction; they considered it to be too full of unnatural things that no decent person could support. Hermione's parents, as they walked through the bright summer evening light, argued about the merits of libraries vs. bookstores. Jean thought they should save the money and patronize local libraries, but Daniel said that owning books was good for the soul. "It's like playing with someone else's pet versus having your own," he said.

"They always do this," Hermione whispered to Harriet. "Whether we go to the library or the bookstore."

But then they'd come to the store, and Harriet had been overwhelmed by all the _books_. The Hogwarts' library was enormous, but frankly creepy, with all those dark, thick grimoires and Madam Pince glaring over the top of her desk. But these books were cheerful, disorganized, chaotic - and there were so _many_.

After wandering for ages, reading curious titles like _The Phantom Tollbooth_ and _The Left Hand of Darkness_ , she wound up on a very educational aisle.

"Hey, Hermione . . . come look . . . "

"What is it?"

"Just come look."

A teetering pile of books with Hermione's bushy hair appeared at the end of the aisle. 

"Are you buying all of those?" Harriet asked, awed.

"Of course not. Mum's said I can't buy more than fifteen books at a time," said Hermione's brisk voice from behind the moving library. "I've got at least twenty-three here. I need to sort through them to see which ones I want most."

"You're done looking, then?" Harriet asked innocently. "Been through the whole store?"

"No, of course I haven't been through the _whole_ store." Hermione crouched to set the books carefully on the floor. "This aisle, for instance—" She gave the brightly colored books (most of which were pink) around her a look of scornful superiority. "I know there's nothing on it for me. What are you doing here, anyway? These are romance novels, you know."

"Really?" Harriet made a show of looking at the cover of the book she was holding, where a woman with yellow hair streaming in the wind was about to fall out of her dress and into the arms of a bloke who'd lost his shirt. "Suddenly this cover makes loads more sense."

"Oh, ha." Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's not what you wanted to show me, I hope."

"You bet it is. Listen to this." Harriet turned the book over and read off the back in a low, feeling voice, "'Don't make me love you, she whispered, and the steely look in her eyes warned Tanner not to take her words lightly, even while her supple body responded to his burning kisses'—"

"Eurgh," Hermione said, doing a good impression of Snape when he looked at Neville. "What rubbish."

"It's called _Passion's Bride_ ," Harriet said. "They're both willing prisoners of their passion. She wants to give herself up to the exquisite pleasure of his embrace."

"Please tell me you aren't buying that," Hermione said, starting to sort through her books, all of which were very large and had serious-looking covers.

"'Imprisoned by his passion, she became a captive of his love,'" Harriet read. "I am absolutely buying this."

Hermione shook her head, an incredulous look on her face.

"Gilderoy Lockhart," Harriet said idly.

Hermione went pink. "Oh shut up," she muttered, opening a book and pulling it over her face.

 

* * *

Narcissa's club was decorated with more velvet and gilding and crystal that would ensure he had a migraine before the night was over.

"There are the Blenkinsops." Narcissa unfurled her fan, a reality-defying ephemeral construction of lace and gauze. "Let us navigate that way, hm? They deserve a bit of a verbal scything from you."

As Narcissa steered them through the overdressed throng, so skillfully it looked like he was the one steering her, she suddenly sucked in a breath.

"Cornelius," she breathed, and her hand tightened on Severus's arm. Her discomfort was so subtle that even the most hawk-eyed socialite wouldn't have noticed anything wrong; Severus only did because he knew her so well - and because he knew why Narcissa would pale and stumble at the sight of Cornelius von Ritter.

Everyone called him "the Baron," although he had no title. He was the last of a proud Austrian line that once had owned half of Europe, and twice he had almost cost Narcissa everything.

"He hasn't seen you," Severus said, pretending complete unconcern.

"I'll have to acknowledge him," Narcissa said. They were both speaking so quietly that no one around them noticed a thing. "It would give rise to too many questions if I don't."

"He won't do anything to compromise you."

"Of course he won't, darling." Narcissa's voice caught somewhere between wistful and pained. "You know very well that isn't why I'm—Carlotta, dearest Carlotta, how have you been faring?"

Carlotta, whoever she was, had chosen a gown of such obscene chartreuse that for the sake of his eyes Severus had to look away. He lookedtoward the Baron von Ritter, who was partially hidden by a crowd of women wearing upright ostrich plumes on their heads. 

But then one of the ostrich-headed women dropped her purse and bent to pick it up, giving Severus an unobstructed view of Narcissa's only devastating liaison (if you discounted Lucius and his Death Eater involvement), and Severus wished the woman had fucking stayed put.

"Shit," he muttered.

Narcissa heard, because with all the natural grace in the world she sent Carlotta on her way. "What, darling?"

He thought about not telling her, but Narcissa had the tenacity of a steel clamp. 

"Von Ritter has a woman with him," he said, flat and wanting it over with. "She used to work for Melisande."

Narcissa glanced swiftly toward the Baron, whose head was bent toward a woman with a coil of dark, loamy hair. The last time he'd seen her, her hair had been a striking dark red. She'd never looked anything like Lily, but the hair had been incentive to choose her above the others for the evening .

"When?" Narcissa asked.

"Seven years ago, at least. She never keeps anyone for very long." No; some appearance of freshness was paramount in a business that eroded it as unerringly as the moon shifted the tide.

"Well." Narcissa's expression was languid, but when she snapped open her fan, Severus head the whistle of a guillotine. "She's done well for herself in the interim. Let us go and say hello, lamb of mine."

Severus almost said, _Do we have to?_ but he might as well argue with Dumbledore and expect to get anywhere. He was used to humiliation. At least, he experienced it enough.

Narcissa's method of "going and saying hello," however, involved circling around the room, dropping into groups of acquaintances or relatives, so that a person less familiar with her might have dared to hope the evening would end before she got near the Baron and—he was pretty sure she'd called herself "Florivet." It wouldn't have been her real name. But that pair was Narcissa's goal, and she had only been majorly thwarted twice in her life. 

But in the end, the Baron came to them.

Severus felt a hand on his shoulder, which was startling in this place, where he was always treated like an overlarge cheesemite. He turned and found the Baron smiling a warm smile of welcome and pleasure.

"Master Snape," he said, holding out his hand. "A very long time it has been."

Florivet adorned his arm well. Severus could tell that she recognized him. Well, he'd probably been ugly and pathetic enough to stand out, even in that business. She was dressed in the Italian fashion, with a high-cut waistline and a low-cut neckline, her now-dark hair arranged loosely in delicate curls. It suited her more than the red had.

She smiled at him: a private smile, which told Severus that she wasn't there as the Baron's demure and proper companion.

"Mrs. Malfoy," said the Baron, releasing Severus's hand to take Narcissa's with courtly grace. "I hear that at the casinos, you carry all before you."

"My Lord von Ritter." Narcissa afforded him a light curtsey. "It was well done, I'm sure you'll agree."

She might have been talking about the gambling but could have been talking about anything. In fact, she was probably taking about three things at once, and possibly more.

"Allow me to introduce to you my companion, Olivia Lacourt," he said, and Formerly Florivet curtseyed deeply to Narcissa, as meek as a merchant's daughter being presented to Marie Antoinette.

Severus pretended to be interested in the moldings in the ceiling. He wasn't sure what the etiquette was when one encountered a high-class prostitute one had patronized for one night seven years ago, but he'd always been shit at etiquette anyway.

When the Baron and Narcissa decided they had chatted long enough for vague acquaintances who weren't embroiled in a hushed scandal fourteen years ago, they parted, freeing Severus from durance vile. 

"Isn't she a sweet one," Narcissa said, though she might as well have said _diseased hussy_. She looked idly after the Baron, wafting her fan. "Was she very good, when you knew her?"

"She was adequate," Severus said, which was as much as he could remember. He never enjoyed those encounters very much. Only on a physical level, and that quickly eroded.

Narcissa looked almost amused. "You're an incurable romantic, my pigeon."

"She probably said even less of me," Severus said, truly unconcerned.

"You know," Narcissa tapped him with her fan again, "you're supposed to enjoy it, Severus. I'm sure I wouldn't tell anyone if you managed to have fun for an hour seven years ago."

"I need a bloody smoke," he said instead of answering this.

"Merlin, so do I," Narcissa said, and they slipped away to one of the club's many balconies.

He lit her cigarette and then his, remembering when he was eleven and Narcissa sixteen and she had followed him behind the greenhouses, where he'd go to hide when Lily wasn't with him, to smoke and generally hate the entire world and everyone in it (except Lily). Narcissa had bribed him with expensive chocolates, asking to learn how to smoke, studying Muggle swear words; her separate objectives of seeking to entrap Lucius Malfoy into marriage and indulging her crude, decadent side entwining.

Narcissa expelled smoke toward the skyline that glowed with all those electric lights and souls. Unlike so many people Severus had known as a boy (too many), Narcissa had grown into the person she had always meant to be.

"I'm not fun," he said, after he'd smoked through half his cigarette. 

Amusement etched across Narcissa's face, just visible in the dim overlay of light and shadow. "Now, how am I supposed to reply to that? If I repudiate, you'll only scorn me, but conceding would only be cruel."

"You enjoy being cruel."

"To others, of course." Narcissa did not laugh, because laughter was vulgar and common, but the mirth was there in her voice. "So do you, my lamb."

"Of course," he said, which made her eyes brighten.

They smoked on the balcony for a time. Narcissa ordered a glass of ice cold gin for herself from an unobtrusive waiter, and they talked of nothing at all. Draco was enjoying his holiday with those distant Continental relatives who had young daughters whom Narcissa did not loathe too terribly. She was already on the lookout for a suitable daughter-in-law. Lucius had written her a grovelling letter that she might deign to respond to within a week or ten days. She'd lost sixteen thousand galleons at the casino and won twenty thousand, five hundred and sixty. Larkson had also written her a letter, full of very inappropriate sentiments and suggestions that would have been quite amusing if the rawness of her meeting with the Baron hadn't been too fresh for anything similar, however juvenile, to be anything but ironic.

Part of the reason Severus always accepted Narcissa's invitations to squire her around a load of tedious soirees and casinos was because it made his life at Hogwarts seem more remote. Ten months of every year of his life since he was eleven had been spent in that place; a place he called home more than any other, but which was full of duties and reminders, desiccated hopes and fossilized nightmares, oppressive solitude mixed with claustrophobic company. There, he was a teacher, standing _in loco parentis_ to two hundred children, disciplinarian terror and pathetic old creep to eight hundred more. His life was taken up with something he didn't give a bloody fuck about.

So often he felt as if his life, the life he'd meant to lead, had washed away from him, borne off to sea on the tide of all his worst decisions; and the life he could have had, though close enough for him to distinguish, however distantly, was never near enough to touch. He sometimes felt as if he wasn't an adult yet because he had chosen a life that proscribed so many adult experiences: loves, marriage, children, even the irresponsible things adults did. He was surrounded by adolescents but he wasn't a pedophile, so even the humanity of lust and affectopm was mostly foreign to him. 

He existed on the fringes of Narcissa's real society, but it was distinct enough from Hogwarts that he found relief in it. Even among the other Hogwarts' teachers he did not really feel like an adult, perhaps because they had known him as a student and he wasn't sure they would ever stop thinking of him that way. Certainly they didn't like him very much. Hardly anyone did. He couldn't seem to make them, even when he tried.

Narcissa laid her hand over his. Her palms were always cool and dry. "Now, don't hurl me off the balcony for saying so, my darling," she said, sounding not the least bit timid, "but I think you ought to seriously consider getting married."

Severus stared at her. Narcissa stared calmly back, her pupils so wide in the twilight they almost entirely consumed her pale irises.

"I thought you didn't get drunk," he said.

She didn't roll her eyes—it would be too plebeian—but the vibe was the same. "I don't, as you well know. Don't deflect, my peach."

"I'm not deflecting, I'm incredulous. There are a thousand absurdities in that statement, but I'll start with who, in God's name, am I supposed to marry?"

"I didn't have anyone in mind," Narcissa said. "I merely think you ought to consider it as a . . . future possibility."

"In Merlin's name, why?"

Narcissa considered him. "Most people either need to be around people or they don't; anyone will do for the purpose. You, however . . . I believe you choose to be alone if you can't be with someone whose company you truly enjoy. It doesn't mean the desire for. . . companionship isn't there."

"I loathe people." And he hated being psychoanalyzed. "They're a race of fatuous cretins."

"Yes." Narcissa patted his hand. "But you like certain persons. A minuscule few in all the world, yet you do."

"Given that it's difficult enough for garrulous social parasites to find someone whom they wish to marry and who wishes to marry them, my chances of achieving the same would be so infinitesimal as to be nonexistent."

"Well." Narcissa shrugged, not as if she was dismissing it, but with an air of _que sera, sera_. "You never know. All you need is luck. It all comes down to that, with each of us."

"I've never been remotely lucky in my life. It's why I don't gamble."

She shook her head, earrings glimmering. "Oh, darling, most gamblers have the worst luck in the world. You don't gamble because you believe, deep in your heart, that you'll always lose."

Severus's gut twisted. She had said it playfully, but far beneath the light surface of her voice was a depth of certainty.

"M'sieur?" The waiter skillfully insinuated himself into the silence, barely an intrusion at all. He was holding a tray in both his hands, and on it lay a single white envelope.

The memory of a similar letter, coming to Severus at a similar time in a similar way a year ago, pinged bright in his mind. This letter was addressed not to Dumbledore, however, but to himself. His name, in Dumbledore's familiar, looping script, bleak on the parchment.

He tore it open and shook the message free. It contained only one line:

_Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban._


	17. Bearers of Bad News

Remus was bartending in a seedy joint when Albus Dumbledore walked back into his life.

Even at the time, the irony amused him on some level.

The bar was nameless, simply referred to as the bar, perhaps because it was the only bar that most of its patrons could frequent south of the Hog's Head; and even the Hog's Head was more respectable than the bar. Remus had always felt the Hog's Head gained a veneer of respectability from Hogsmeade (in a village you watched yourself because everyone knew everyone's business and Strangers' Business was always no good). But in London, nobody knew anybody's business because they didn't want anyone knowing theirs; and instead of a chill of suspicion, the bar was thick with the miasma of mind-your-own-fucking-business. These were people whom the wizarding world would chew up and spit out, and sometimes had already. It was the only place where Remus could hold the same job for any length of time. Darius, who ran the place, was so used to his employees disappearing for a time without a word, only to turn up again later, that Remus's planned absences and habit of coming to work bruised and battered didn't register as anything suspicious, as long as Remus varied the pattern. He had a few people to help him; people whom he otherwise might not have dealt with, but he'd survived long enough not only to outlive a lot of ethical squeamishness, but to forget any projected lists of people he might never want to know.

He already knew most of them, anyway.

The night Albus returned, Remus was suffering the society of one of his comrades-in-crime, Mundungus Fletcher. Or suffering the odor, at least. He was thankful that the lore about werewolves having a heightened sense of smell was bollocks.

"'Ere now," Fletcher said, failing to lean across the bar because he'd been drinking cheap firewhiskey for the last hour, the kind that took the roof off your mouth and shriveled your tongue, "really think you ort to let me, mate, oy do."

"Mundungus," Remus said pleasantly, trying not to breathe, "I am not letting you cover for me on the full moon. You'll pocket all the cash in the till and drink all the stock under the bar before Darius opens, and he'll find you passed out with your pockets stuffed with Galleons and haul you off to Petty Azkaban."

"Righ' you are, mate," Fletcher said, grinning loosely. Then, without any noticeable change in expression, he gently toppled backwards off his bar stool and didn't get back up.

Remus dumped his glass in the sink, mopped the firewhiskey puddles off the pitted wooden bar top, and dropped a few of his own Knuts into the till to pay, because he knew Mundungus had paid for that last glass with rocks he'd painted himself.

"Are you just going to leave him there, then?" asked a young woman curiously. At least, her voice was young, though her face wasn't, nor her hair, which straggled around her shoulders in a candyfloss-colored snarl. Her eyes made her look like she was about to walk off in two separate directions. She looked to be a hag so hideous that her warts were probably growing their own warts, but something made Remus suspect she was playing dress-up with a really good glamor.

"He could use the rest," Remus said, not smiling because a smile to the wrong person here had once been responsible for a pair of singed eyebrows, and that was only because he'd ducked in time. "Would you mind terribly kicking him behind the bar? He'll sleep better back here, where there's only me to trod on him."

The hag grinned, showing several snaggle teeth. "Would I mind terribly, or would I kick him terribly?"

"Yes."

"Oh, ha," she said, rather good-naturedly for a hag. But she took out a wand and Levitated Fletcher over the bar, dropping him none-too-gently on Remus's side. Fletcher snorted in his sleep, then rolled over and started snoring, rattling the row of bottles nearest the ground.

"Cheers," Remus said. "What'll it be, then?"

"None of whatever he was drinking," said the friendly hag. "I could smell the fumes out on the street. Can you make a Vermouth carnassis?"

It was an old-fashioned drink, favored by pure-blood ladies of a certain class and age. Unlike the teeth and the crooked eyes, which were going stereotypically overboard, the drink was incongruous.

"Is that your order?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in mock-skepticism. "Or are you just asking?"

"Oh, go on," she said, her grin showing the snaggle teeth again. "Stop being smart and just make the bloody drink."

"Yes, ma'am. Tell me how accurate that is," he said, setting the glass down in front of her a minute later, "or isn't."

"It's totally dreadful," she said, smacking her lips, "so I'd say you'd got it right."

He didn't ask why she'd asked for it if she didn't like it. Instead, he folded his arms against the bar and leaned in. "A word of advice?" 

She leaned in, seemingly in spite of herself. "What?" she asked, just as lowly, her cocked eyes moving from his eyes to his mouth (or at least one of them did, anyway).

"Three snaggle teeth are overdoing it just a bit," he whispered.

She stared at him. Then she ran her tongue over her teeth. "How—"

"It just seemed like a disguise," he said apologetically.

She sighed. "Bugger. Look—it's okay if you say no, but can you act like you think I'm the most super bloody convincing hag you've ever met?"

"If you'd like," he said, bemused.

"I'm in a test," she stage-whispered.

"Say no more," he said.

It was in that lull of silence that he first noticed that the bar had gone strangely quiet. When he looked up to see who—or what, in a place like this—could silence this crowd, he saw Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorway, smiling at him, resplendent in robes of magenta and gold. The cheap spell on the lamp outside shone orange on his waves of silver-white hair.

"Albus," Remus said blankly, for they hadn't spoken in over ten years.

The hag turned on her bar stool and choked.

"Remus." Dumbledore drew up to the bar and reached across it to shake Remus's hand with both of his. "It's ever so good to see you."

Dumbledore didn't say he was looking well, which Remus appreciated because he knew he wasn't. He looked at least ten, fifteen years older than his contemporaries, weary and ill.

"It's good to see you, too." Remus wasn't sure if it was, but neither did he know if it wasn't. He let a wry smile sketch across his face. Dumbledore, at least, wouldn't try to hex it off. "Shocking, too, I must admit."

"I would have written," Dumbledore said, "but as I intended to come anyway, it seemed unnecessary work for one of our poor Hogwarts owls—and Fawkes is, regrettably, undergoing the intermediate stages of sexual maturity. I'm afraid I can't rely on him whenever he does that."

Remus couldn't help laughing. "He reminds me of—" But then he could help laughing, because he never spoke that name anymore.

He glanced at the hag. She seemed paralyzed. When Dumbledore turned an inquisitive smile on her, she gurgled and scuttled away, tripping over her bar stool.

"Friend of yours?" he asked.

"Just a customer." From the floor, Mundungus let out an ear-ripping snore.

"Then that is what I shall be," Dumbledore said cheerfully, and nimbly seated himself on a stool. "I don't suppose you've any oak matured mead stashed back there?"

"You and the hag have just asked for the most sophisticated drinks this bar has ever served. I think Darius actually pours turpentine into old firewhiskey bottles."

"Well," Dumbledore smiled, "fortune favors the bold."

He accepted the firewhiskey and drank half the glass without a blink. "Potent," he said thoughtfully. "I'm not sure even Aberforth serves anything this strong."

"It's been known to knock teeth loose with one sip. You're tougher than most, Albus."

Dumbledore smiled. "I would love for this to be a social call," he said, obviously meaning that it wasn't. "There is a great deal for us to catch up on, and you deserve more than the cursory visit this must, regrettably, be. But I have very much to do, and quickly."

Remus nodded along. Dumbledore folded his hands on the bar and looked at him in silence, not hesitating, but as if preparing the both of them for what he was going to say. But Remus's heart did not speed up with nervousness, his palms did not dampen, he did not fidget. He'd known from the first sight of Dumbledore's face that he could only be here for something serious.

"Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban," Dumbledore said.

For a long moment, Remus felt no reaction. Then his heart did speed up. His hands did feel cold, his stomach weighted with lead . . . but not with fear. Not with despair, either. This . . . was something else.

"Good God," he said, hoarse. "How?"

"That, we have not been able to ascertain," Dumbledore said, no twinkle in his eye or smile on his face. "Nor his whereabouts. Remus. You know I have no wish to cast suspicion on you, nor any ulterior motive of malice, but is there any chance you know what means he used to escape or where he might be?"

Remus was so numb he could only shake his head—numb all over his skin, but his blood and his heart were beating hard.

Dumbledore nodded once. "I thought not. Which brings me to the second, though related, reason for my visit. I want to offer you the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at Hogwarts."

Remus's mouth actually fell open.

"I do not do so lightly," Dumbledore said, holding up a hand, as if to forestall whatever objections Remus would raise; but Remus was too stunned to say a damn thing. "For your own sake—the curse upon it is very real. You will only serve three terms at the most, and several of its occupants have terminated their lives with their posts. But I have a powerful reason to suspect that Sirius Black's target is his own goddaughter, and if that is the case, I need you on hand."

"You think Sirius broke out of Azkaban to kill Harriet," Remus repeated. For a moment, he pictured James pulling her away from the fireplace, the day she learned to crawl. She had crawled for the first time when it was just the two of them in the house, and James had been so worried that Lily would be upset for missing it that they had never told anyone and had pretended, when she crawled again that evening, that it was for the first time.

"I can think of no other explanation," Dumbledore said. And if a brain like Dumbledore's could find only that possibility, who was Remus to argue?

It had never seemed right, what Sirius had done. It had never seemed like something he would do. It still didn't, twelve years later, even after Remus was so used to thinking his name with a twist of bitterness in his heart that if they cut him open, they'd probably find that organ tied in a knot. Yet Sirius had done it, and Remus had been so very wrong about him that who was he to say whether anything Sirius did needed to make sense?

He'd be mad anyway, after twelve years in Azkaban.

"Perhaps he just wanted his freedom, after all this time," he said slowly.

"It is possible," Dumbledore acknowledged. "But why now? I feel the timing is significant, though I have not yet seen how. And according to the dementors," a darkness of emotion rippled across his face, "he was heard saying _She's at Hogwarts_ in his sleep."

Remus scrubbed a hand across his face.

"Good God," he said again. "Of course I'll take it. The Defense position, I mean."

"Good." Dumbledore's smile returned and he took Remus's hand again. "It relieves a weight from my mind. Oh—I meant to add a further incentive, but consider it a bonus for your estimable good nature. Have you heard of the Wolfsbane potion? Very recently released to the public—"

"Incredibly expensive and virtually impossible to procure?" Remus had been following the preliminary findings since they'd been released eight years ago. "It sounds vaguely familiar, I think."

"Well." Dumbledore's eyes sparkled. "I happen to have—somewhat under my thumb, if you'll pardon the expression and keep it to yourself—one of the foremost Potions experts in Britain on staff, and have managed to oblige him to brew it. If it interests you, of course."

Remus felt like someone had hexed his head spinning. "Merlin—yes, it does, of course. Albus—that's incredible, I don't know what to—"

"Well, seeing as you've already accepted the position," Dumbledore said cheerfully, "you've thanked me in the best way you can. I thank you, my boy. You've done me—and the children, of course—a great service." He stood; Remus remained swirling in disbelief. "You may come to Hogwarts whenever you are ready, though of course by 1st September."

"Of course," Remus parroted dizzily. "Albus—Headmaster—thank you."

They shook hands again. That time, Dumbledore held both his hand and his gaze. "If you remember anything that might help us find Black or uncover his motives, share them with me. Even if it is in the dead of the night. I found, once I passed a hundred, that I hardly need much sleep at all anymore."

"Of course," Remus said again. And again, "Thank you."

Dumbledore smiled once more, and then he was gone, the door snicking softly shut behind him.

Remus did not know how he spent the next few minutes or even hours. He went through the motions of his nightly routine almost without feeling them, his head and heart full to bursting. The last time he'd seen Harriet—wailing in the arms of her aunt at Lily and James's funeral—the last time he'd seen Sirius, hair falling into his tired, laughing eyes—Peter's mother sobbing as she held the box containing all that was left of her son. The moonlight shining on Prongs's antlers, when they'd all transformed for the first time on a night when Remus was human, so he could see. Wormtail cleaning his whiskers. Padfoot. . .

CRASH. He'd dropped a bottle of Darius's best firewhiskey on the floor, but he was too preoccupied to care that it was eating through the concrete.

Perhaps the reason they hadn't found Sirius yet was because he could turn into a dog, and nobody alive knew that except for Remus and Sirius himself.

* * *

 

 

  
Harriet awoke the morning of her birthday, snuggled beneath the blankets on Hermione's trundle bed. The sound of Hermione's sleeping breath, soft and familiar, threaded the silence, and her nightlight—a globe with a lamp inside—glowed dim against the dark.

Harriet let her eyes adjust until she could see the things she knew were there: the photographs of the Earth as seen from space, the movie poster for Labyrinth; the bookcases crammed with Hermione's favorite books, since she had so many she had to pack away several boxes for storing in the cellar every six months; the old record player with her dad's favorite albums stacked next to it; the burbling fish tank. It was the sort of room Harriet had always wanted, when she was lying on her cot in the cupboard under the stairs, staring at the grille in the door, listening to the rattle of the telly and Aunt Petunia's nasally voice gossiping on the phone.

Since leaving them three weeks ago, she hadn't communicated with the Dursleys at all, though before she'd escaped Privet Prison she'd overheard Aunt Petunia talking on the phone with Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon's sister (and so not really Harriet's aunt, thank God; she couldn't have handled being blood-related to both Aunt Petunia _and_ Aunt Marge) about a long visit at the end of July. The last time Aunt Marge had come over, her bulldog had bit Harriet by the hair and dragged her down the stairs.

Bitch. And Harriet didn't mean the dog.

For Harriet's birthday, Hermione's parents had made plans to be home from the office early to take the girls to dinner and a play. Harriet had never been to a play before. Before coming to the Grangers, she hadn't been out in public much at all. Even at the Weasleys', Mrs. Weasley hadn't liked for them to spend too much time in the Muggle village, which was too foreign and strange to her. She worried about cars leaping off the street and hitting them, the way Uncle Vernon worried about Harriet's wand going off and hexing them.

Harriet rolled quietly out of bed and padded to the kitchen, savoring the feeling of being able to move freely and feed herself whenever she wanted, even if it was just cornflakes and toast.

When she got to the kitchen, she saw an unfamiliar owl perched outside the window over the sink, watching her impatiently through bright yellow eyes.

School letters, she realized.

She couldn't reach the window over the sink; she was still too bloody short. Resigned to her extreme non-height, at least today, on her sure-to-be brilliant birthday, she pushed one of the kitchen chairs over and climbed up to let the owl in.

It dropped two fat envelopes on the table, spurned her feeble offer of cornflakes, and with one last burning, reproachful look, winged out the window.

"Sorry!" she called after it.

"Goodness," said Jean. Harriet pulled her head back inside the kitchen to find Jean staring after the owl. "I'm sure you find me silly," she said, "but that still takes getting used to."

"Wizards feel the same way about phones," she said. "Mrs. Weasley can't stand the way they ring."

Jean smiled briefly, which was the only way she ever seemed to smile, and held out a plain white paper envelope. "For yours and Hermione's shopping today." Then she leant down and brushed a kiss across Harriet's cheek. "Happy birthday, dear."

Harriet's face burned, and a lump formed in her throat. Jean straightened up and fastened her earrings. Unlike her daughter, she had dark brown hair that she wore cut slightly above her shoulders; about the length of Harriet's own hair, but so much tidier.

Jean left Harriet to open her letter. It seemed thicker than usual this year. There was the usual booklist, the standard greeting letter . . . and something else.

_Hogsmeade Visit Permission Slip._

That was right—third years got to visit Hogsmeade. Harriet read it over, wondering why her stomach felt like it was sinking, why she didn't feel excited . . . and then, as clearly as if someone had pinged their fingernail against a crystal glass, she knew:

She'd have to ask Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon to sign it. And what were the chances of that?

She stuffed it halfheartedly back into the envelope with the other papers. The only way she'd have the tiniest hope was to make Aunt Petunia think Snape wouldn't like it if she didn't sign it, and she wasn't sure how much weight that threat could keep carrying. Still, she'd do it, if it meant not getting left alone at Hogwarts.

Cereal in hand, Harriet drifted into the parlor that looked onto the Grangers' little lawn, where a high brick wall and tall hedges blocked the house from the street, and turned the volume down on the telly very low before switching on the set.

The blank screen filled with the image of a corpse with blank, staring eyes. Daniel always watched the evening news, so the telly was always set to that channel, but why were they showing a dead person? This looked more like a B-horror film.

". . .escaped convict, Sirius Black. . ." murmured the newscaster's subdued voice. "The public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous. . ."

Oh. He wasn't dead; it was just a still photograph. Well, he looked dead—his skin waxy skin was the color of earthworms. His hair hung from his bony skull to his elbows in a matted tangle like thick, ancient cobwebs. What prison had he _been_ in? He looked like he'd been locked in a hole in the ground and starved for at least a decade.

"The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will announce today . . ." the newscaster was saying, as Sirius Black's image disappeared from the screen.

Harriet clicked over to another channel, but she wasn't really watching the cartoons as she ate her cereal. She kept seeing Black's dead-looking face. What had he done?

"Thought I heard the telly," said Daniel's cheerful, easygoing voice, making Harriet jump. "Anything good on this morning? Or are they being as bloody-mindedly dreary as ever?"

Jean and Daniel headed off to work within the next half-hour, while Hermione crept sleepily out of her room, rubbing her eyes. As soon as she'd awakened properly, however, she was filled with brisk instructions for the rest of the day.

"We'll need to get the clothes first, of course—we'll start at Marks and Spencer. And shoes, too—depending on how long shopping for outfits takes, we might have to break for lunch and then tackle the shoes—"

Harriet let her plan and just concentrated on trying to get the tangles out of her misbehaving hair. She didn't care what they did or in what order they did it, and organizing made Hermione feel better.

"This is already the best birthday ever," Harriet told Hermione as she gathered up her handbag and checked obsessively to make sure she'd got her wallet and house keys and Oyster Card. "And we haven't even done anything except eat breakfast."

"Well, you did spend your last birthday locked up with bars on the window and padlocks on the door. This one was bound to look up," Hermione said, pressing her lips together. It was weird how often she and her mum did that—nice, but also painful, like an electric shock in Harriet's blood. Whenever they did it, Harriet wondered what she and her mum would have done that was just the same.

"Well," Hermione said, reaching for the doorknob, "let's g—"

The doorbell chimed.

They looked at the door, then at each other. Hermione's mum had been quite firm about not answering the door when she or Daniel wasn't at home.

The bell chimed again. The girls stood quite still, looking at each other, not saying a word.

Then someone banged on the door.

Harriet stood on her tiptoes ("Harry!" Hermione whispered) and squinted through the peephole.

"It's Professor _Snape_ ," she hissed.

Hermione dropped her bag.

"And _Professor Dumbledore_."

"What did you do?" Hermione squeaked.

" _if either of you is in there, you had better open this bloody door_ ," said Snape's voice through the wood.

Harriet pulled the door open to hear Professor Dumbledore saying, "You would make a very interesting door-to-door salesman, Sever—ah, good morning." He smiled brilliantly down at Harriet and Hermione, who were peering around the door frame. "It's a pleasure to see you two. May we come in?"

"Yes, of course, sir," Hermione said, in a robotic way.

Professor Dumbledore was wearing an electric blue velvet suit with pants cut like bellbottoms. It was as astounding as anything Lockhart had ever worn, especially with Dumbledore's hair and beard. Snape, however, was all in black, but other than that looked relatively normal. For himself, anyway, or those artsy Muggles you saw round London. Together he and Professor Dumbledore looked like they should be sitting in a cafe, smoking and drinking coffee and arguing about _Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology_ (something Harriet had seen Daniel reading).

Harriet looked at the hard lines on Snape's face, his cold, biting eyes, and couldn't imagine him ever fancying anyone, let alone her mum.

Dumbledore glanced around the house, which was dim with all its lights off, the only sound the ticking of the clock in the foyer. "Are your parents at home, Miss Granger?"

"No, sir," Hermione said, clutching her bag to her chest. "They've gone to work. Did, did you need to speak to them?"

Snape made a soft noise but said nothing. Harriet didn't know what that noise meant, but it sounded scornful. She frowned. As if he could hear her displeasure, he looked away from the wall photograph he'd been glaring at. His severe black eyebrows met over the beaky bridge of his nose as he glared at her.

 _You're nothing but a copy of his spoilt princess_ , Aunt Petunia had said. But if that was the truth, then Snape couldn't really have liked her mum, because that wasn't the expression of someone who thought nice things about you.

"I will eventually," Dumbledore said, "but at present I want to speak to you, Harriet."

"Me?" Harriet blurted. Snape rolled his eyes. Harriet glared at him but spoke to Professor Dumbledore: "Why me, sir?"

"I think the point of this visit is to explain that," Snape said with all his usual charm.

Dumbledore looked mildly at him, but that one glance made Snape subside (irritably).

"The—the parlor's through here," Hermione said in a high-pitched voice.

"Thank you, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said pleasantly. Hermione led them through, still clutching her bag and looking terrified to have two teachers in her house.

Dumbledore took the sofa Hermione's trembling finger pointed to, hitching up the legs of his trousers as he sat. Snape stood behind the couch with his arms crossed. 

"Won't you both sit?" Dumbledore smiled at the girls, who perched together on the end of Daniel's Barcalounger. But no sooner had Hermione sat than she sprung back up.

"Tea!" she cried rigidly.

"Sit down, Miss Granger," Snape snapped.

"Tea would be lovely, my dear," Dumbledore said, ignoring him. "Thank you."

Hermione scuttled out of the room, going the long way round so she wouldn't have to bypass Snape. They heard her spilling a whole cabinet full of pots across the floor, by the sound of things.

"I hope your holiday has been going well," Dumbledore said to Harriet.

"For God's sake," Snape muttered under his breath.

"It's been terrific, sir," Harriet said, glaring at Snape again.

"I'm delighted." Dumbledore smiled. "I wonder, do you watch the news at all?"

Harriet had no idea what that had to do with anything, but surely Professor Dumbledore hadn't come visiting the Grangers—with Snape—to ask about her holiday or talk about the news. He must be working up to something else. "Dr. Granger—that's Hermione's dad—he watches it every evening, sir."

"I wonder if you saw the recent segment about Sirius Black? The escaped convict."

Harriet nodded slowly. "I saw it this morning."

"Then there is not quite so much to explain."

Harriet glanced from Dumbledore to Snape, who was watching the headmaster now, his black eyes fierce and intent.

"In brief, Harriet—I regret to say we believe that Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban in order to find you."

Harriet blinked. She blinked again. She looked from Dumbledore's calm, grave face to Snape's. His expression was ferocious, his gaunt features crystallized with something like . . . hatred. 

The thought _I thought he was only a Muggle_ flitted through her mind and out the other side, as quickly as the Hogwarts' owl had come and gone. She thought of Jean's surprised face and thought, _Yes, that's how it feels._

"Find me?" she repeated. "What . . . what for?"

"Twelve years ago," Dumbledore said, "on Hallowe'en night, when you lost your parents and Voldemort was defeated"—

(Harriet saw Snape's hands spasm where they were clenched on his arms, and his face became, if possible, even more hate-filled.)

—"Sirius Black, believed to be in a rage at his master's loss, murdered thirteen people on a street full of witnesses—twelve Muggles, one wizard. For that, and for the many crimes he is believed to have committed as an agent of Voldemort, he was sentenced to Azkaban prison, where he remained until he escaped three nights ago."

Harriet's chest felt oddly tight. She saw Black's corpse-like face, his matted hair, his dead eyes. She'd wondered what he'd done. Now she knew.

"So he's coming after me because he's, what, angry I defeated Voldemort?" 

"That is our belief, yes." Dumbledore's voice was calm and measured. Harriet wondered if this was how doctors talked to patients with fatal diseases. "From things he was . . . overheard . . . saying during his final days in prison, we are fairly confident we have the right of it. Accordingly, we must take steps."

"Steps?"

"I am afraid," Dumbledore said, his voice gentling, "that you can no longer remain with the Grangers."

Harriet sat up straight, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water down her spine. The dread certainly felt that cold.

"It is not safe," Dumbledore said, still gentle.

"Please don't send me back to the Dursleys." It came out sounding, not pitiful like she'd feared, but tight and upset.

"That was not my intention," Dumbledore said. Snape moved slightly, but by the time Harriet's eyes flicked across him, he was motionless again. "Instead, I am inviting you to come early to Hogwarts."

She digested this offer. She knew that under other circumstances she might have been, maybe even should have been, thrilled, just as she knew that this wasn't really an _offer_ offer.

"It isn't an invitation," Snape said. Now he was glaring at a knick-knack on Jean's mantle, a doe with her fawn.

"Severus," was all Dumbledore said. "Harriet?" he asked her in a kind voice. But for the first time, Harriet wasn't glad to hear that kindness, and she didn't want to see him anymore. She wished he would go, take Snape with him and leave her to enjoy her birthday without the shadow of Voldemort creeping across her life.

"I don't—it's not like I have a choice, do I?" she said to her knees.

"We always have a choice," Dumbledore said.

That wasn't really helpful. Especially since she didn't think she did.

"Professor Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore turned to look at Hermione, who had come through the door that joined onto the dining room, which led to the kitchen. She was holding a tray with her mother's turquoise teapot and four matching cups, and she looked pale but resolute.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore said.

Hermione walked determinedly around the sofa, but instead of setting down her tea tray, she stood holding it, as if gave her strength to talk.

"Tonight we, we all had plans to go out for dinner and see a play," she said. The cups on the tray tinkled as her hands shook. "It would be a sh-shame if we didn't—after all, it's Harriet's birthday. Could—could Harriet stay one more night, and go to Hogwarts tomorrow morning?"

Dumbledore studied her, his fingers trailing along the edge of his beard. Snape had turned to stare at him incredulously.

"You surely aren't going to—" he started, but Dumbledore held up his hand and Snape swallowed the rest of what he'd been about to say, although the taste of the unsaid words seemed to twist his stomach.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, smiling from Hermione to Harriet. "I think that sounds an excellent idea. Harriet ought to be able to enjoy her birthday celebrations."

Snape choked. Harriet wondered if he was swallowing his tongue. She barely resisted the urge to give him a gloating look. He looked so furious that he might have killed her if she did.

"Thank you, Professor," she said to Dumbledore.

"Not at all, my dear. I'm sorry to have to cut your holiday short at all. Thank you, Miss Granger," he said, accepting the tea cup she handed him. "Two sugars, please. Severus, do stop looming and have a seat on this very comfortable couch."

Dumbledore stayed to drink his tea, drawing Harriet and Hermione into conversation about—something. When he got up to leave, Harriet wasn't sure what they'd been talking about, although they'd been chatting the whole time. Well, Snape hadn't. He'd sat crunched into the corner of the couch, glaring into his cup, and whenever Dumbledore had said something to him, he'd just transferred the glare from to Dumbledore.

"Thank you for the tea, Miss Granger. I'm afraid I have much to do or I would linger for longer. Professor Snape will stay to explain the situation to your parents."

Snape's sour expression was totally lacking in surprise, but Harriet couldn't stop herself from staring at Hermione in horror, and seeing that horror mirrored exactly in her friend's face.

"Y-yes, sir," Hermione stammered. "They—they might not be home—for a while."

Snape rubbed at his forehead, like he'd been dreading that.

"Severus will stay however long it takes," Dumbledore replied. 

Then he left.

They stared at Snape. Snape did not look at either of them.

"Well?" he said, trying to kill a potted ficus with the force of his glare. "Haven't you something to be getting on with?"

"We were going shopping," Harriet said. 

"Where are your parents?" Snape asked Hermione, making it sound like they were terrible people for not being there.

"At work, sir. They'll—they'll be home at lunchtime." Emboldened a little by Snape's not biting her head off immediately, she said, "Harriet and I have been out loads of times by ourselves—"

"There wasn't an escaped convict after you then," Snape said in a tone like liquid nitrogen.

The silence that followed was sharp and fragile.

"I'll go call my parents," Hermione said in a high, thin voice.

 

 

* * *

The Grangers were clearly bewildered and quietly mistrustful. Harriet didn't blame them. She felt that Professor Dumbledore would have been much better at instilling confidence, because Snape clearly didn't give a damn if he didn't. It could not have been plainer that he intended to bring Harriet to Hogwarts by hook or by crook. Whether the Grangers liked or understood the situation didn't make any difference to him.

"Well," Jean said, reading over the letter from Professor Dumbledore. "I appreciate your time, Professor Snape, but I believe we are fully capable of looking after Harriet until tomorrow."

Snape's distasteful expression didn't flicker, and he didn't budge.

"The letter says you may leave Harriet to us," Jean said, not quailing the way people normally did when Snape stared at them like that. "She'll be perfectly safe."

Snape still didn't move. Daniel cleared his throat.

"Would you like to read it?" Jean asked with icy, precise politeness.

"No, thank you," said Snape in a tone that wasn't anything like grateful. "I can imagine what it says." He stared at Harriet and Hermione as though they were unpleasant potions ingredients. "You will get your wands and keep them on you."

"But what about—" Hermione said, and went bright red when Snape's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Thank you, Professor," Jean said, not sounding grateful either. In fact, she sounded like she wanted him out of her house. She stood as she spoke, in case the tone wasn't clear enough. "I'll see you to the door."

"I'm not so mentally incompetent that I can't find it myself," Snape said. With one last glare for Harriet, he strode out of the room.

"So," Daniel said once the front door had shut, just short of a slam. "That's your teacher, is it?"

 

 

* * *

Once out of the Muggle house, Severus didn't Apparate. He Disillusioned himself and settled in to wait, blending into the bricks and the grass. He'd watch the fucking play with them, if that's what it took. Muggle protection wasn't worth a paper boat in a flood.

People were so fucking stupid, wizard or Muggle. Nobody ever learned a thing. Life must go on, they said, but it wasn't courage so much as thick-headedness. Selfishness.

He didn't blame the girl so much as he blamed everyone else.

He blamed Dumbledore most of all.


	18. The Dementor

Harriet hated Sirius Black—not because he was a follower of Voldemort, not especially, nor because he had murdered thirteen people with one curse, or even really because he was probably coming to kill her. Harriet hated Sirius Black because he'd cut short her holiday with Hermione. She would have seen him thrown back in prison for that alone.

Hermione almost made it a bit easier to leave, however, by severely annoying Harriet the night before she was to go.

"It's probably better that you go," she said briskly as she checked off the inventory she'd made of Harriet's luggage, making sure Harriet didn't leave behind any socks or homework essays. "If Sirius Black is really after you, which it makes sense that he would be, Hogwarts would definitely be the safest place for you."

"Right." Harriet shone a torch under the bed, looking for her _Monster Book of Monsters_ , which had scuttled away yesterday after trying to chew her fingers off. "Because after Voldemort and a great dirty Basilisk lived there for ages, there's no way Sirius Black could ever sneak in."

"For God's sake, Harriet!" Hermione said, so loud and sudden that Harriet jumped and banged her head on the bed's footboard. "There's a madman out to kill you, and you're sulking!"

Harriet grabbed a spare trainer from under the bed and chucked it into her trunk, not caring if it was hers or Hermione's. "Oh right, and that's never happened before! It only seems to happen every bloody year! You're acting like you're not even going to miss me!"

"Of course I'm going to miss you!" Hermione balled up her list and threw it into her rubbish bin—or at it—or so Harriet guessed; it hit the wall about three feet to the left and landed in her open trunk. "But it's better I miss you than you die!"

Hermione's face was flushed and her lips were pressed very tight together in a way that Harriet knew meant she wanted to burst into tears. Harriet suddenly felt very horrible.

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry. I just . . . I _hate_ these people. They don't just try to kill me, they bugger up all the times they're not around, too. I've got to live with the Dursleys because of them, and now I've got a proper holiday, they've got to ruin that, too."

"You spent last summer with the Weasleys, though," Hermione reminded Harriet as she slumped next to her onto the bed.

"I wanted to spend this one with you, though. I love the Weasleys, but you're my best friend."

Hermione blinked. Then she did burst into tears, and threw her arms around Harriet. A second later, Harriet jumped up swearing; the _Monster Book of Monsters_ had just bitten her on the ankle.

They swore to write every day. In a moment of guilty Slytherin-like intuition, Harriet asked Hermione to send her some more romance novels. Hermione rolled her eyes but agreed.

"Really trashy ones," Harriet clarified.

"Trashy what?" asked a cold, forbodeing voice just above and slightly behind their heads. They both jumped, not having heard Snape come in to the parlor. He moved as quiet as a cat.

"Er." Harriet looked at Snape's sharp, sardonic face, his shrewd black eyes that drove into you like a drill press. She was enjoying _Passion's Bride_ , but she would face Voldemort, a Basilisk, and Sirius Black before ever telling Snape she was reading a single romance novel, let alone asking for more. "Magazines?"

"You aren't sure?" Snape's expression was sarcastic.

"It's a private conversation," Harriet settled for saying.

"Well said, dear," Jean said—pleasantly enough, but she did not seem to like Snape. "Are you ready to go, or would you like a few more minutes?"

"Whether or not she would like a few more minutes is immaterial," Snape said to Jean. "I said I would be collecting her at 8:30. It's 8:32. Miss Potter, find your things."

"Here they are," Harriet said hollowly, kicking at her trunk. Hedwig clicked her beak inside her cage.

"Then come along," Snape said. He couldn't really swoop around wearing Muggle clothes, but he still didn't walk like a normal person. She imagined that's what Dracula would look like if he had to wear trousers and a regular coat.

Harriet shot Hermione one last, mournful look. She seemed to be trying to put on a _It's for the best_ face, but was clearly having trouble pretending that extra Snape-time would be anything like fun.

Jean and Daniel followed Harriet, Hermione and Snape to the door. Snape stalked to the foot of the lawn while Harriet dared to linger and hug Hermione one last time.

Hermione kissed her cheek. Harriet kissed her back, and then took Hedwig from Jean, who kissed her, too, and trudged down to where Snape was standing, looking tense and suspicious, one hand clenched on his wand inside his coat while his narrow eyes glared up and down the street.

"You look like a kidnapper or a bank robber or something," Harriet said. When he turned the glare on her, she added, "Sir."

"Whereas you are all that appears respectable and well-groomed. Stand back, Miss Potter."

"Why stand back? Aren't we doing that Applerating thing again?"

"No one has never Applerated, because it does not exist. Further back. Stop."

"Then what are we—"

A deafening BANG made her jump once, then twice when, with a CLANGSCREECHCRUNCH, the Granger's mailbox was completely flattened by a triple-decker bus painted in a shade of purple that must have been magical, because it surely didn't exist in nature.

"What just happened to the post?" Harriet heard Jean say.

"Wh," Harriet said.

"Get on," Snape said, shooing her.

"Is that a bus that appears from nowhere?" Harriet asked, not budging.

"Yes. Now get on. Take this," he snapped at the attendant who had just wrenched open the doors, and rammed the poor boy in the ribs with Harriet's trunk. Snape used the trunk to shove the attendant back on board, and then grabbed Harriet and shoved her at him, too.

Harriet clambered on, staring around in awe. She'd never been on a bus that appeared from nowhere, with armchairs for seats instead of plastic benches. The passengers looked a little strange, which was fairly normal for a bus; but these had greenish-looking skin and kept handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths.

"Why are so many of these people green?" she whispered to Snape, who was paying the attendant with such a hostile glare that the poor boy seemed very reluctant to take his money. When he handed Snape the tickets, his hand shook so badly that they fluttered to the floor.

"Because they're passengers on this wretched bus," Snape said. "I hope you don't get motion sick. Sit." He jabbed his wand at an empty armchair near the back of the bus. When he did, Harriet heard four loud thunks, like nails driving into metal.

She sat.

"Hold onto that owl," Snape said tersely.

BANG went the bus. Harriet slammed back into her chair; Hedwig screeched; several passengers' chairs went toppling to the floor, and one little old woman was flung free of her seat and went rolling down the aisle. Snape hadn't bothered to sit; he braced himself against one of the golden poles, looking disgusted and put-upon.

"Wh," Harriet said, staring out the window, which showed the jewel-bright coast of Cornwall whipping past. The bus vibrated around her like a thing possessed, juddering her teeth in her head. She gripped Hedwig's cage for dear life, wincing when Hedwig pecked her displeasure on her fingers.

Snape didn't reply. He seemed to have forgotten Harriet was there. She doubted it, though.

Looking at his vulture-like profile, she remembered how he'd protected her the last two years. Was this more of that? Surely he had better things to do with his holiday than babysit her sarcastically.

_He was sick as a dog for your mother. . . Did he tell you that you were precious to him?_

And of course, exactly when she was remembering Aunt Petunia saying that, was the moment Snape chose to look at her.

"What is it?" he asked testily as she went so brightly red she could see her face glow in the window glass.

"What is this thing?" Harriet asked, trying to act like nothing was any big deal.

"The Knight Bus. The Headmaster wanted you to be familiar with it." Snape's expression made it clear what he thought about that.

"I think I prefer the apple thing." She winced when the bus made another sudden leap, wrenching her to the right this time as it veered around Yorkminster.

"It's called Apparating and has nothing to do with apples. The trick to the Knight Bus," his voice grew colder, "is that it's impossible to predict where it will turn up." He swung forward as the bus braked so suddenly that Harriet would have been thrown to the floor if Snape hadn't grabbed her by the shoulder and wrenched her back.

"Or what will turn up," Harriet said, as she heard someone on the deck above being sick.

"I ordered the driver to let us off at the next stop," Snape said. "Don't lose your owl."

"I wouldn't. Shhhh, it's okay," Harriet said to Hedwig, who was screeching accusations at her and battering the inside of the cage with her wings. "At least our chair isn't rolling around. Why isn't it?" she asked Snape.

"I nailed it to the floor."

\--

Harriet had heard of people kissing the ground when they got off a boat after a storm. When she climbed down from the Knight Bus onto the mushy Hogwarts road, she finally knew how they felt.

"Can't you shut that owl up?" Snape snapped; Hedwig was jabbering loudly.

"It's not her fault," Harriet said hotly.

"I didn't say it was, Miss Potter," said Snape in a dangerous voice, "I asked you to shut her up."

"Fine." Harriet unlocked Hedwig's cage. She took off with an angry screech, knocking Harriet's glasses crooked with a swipe of her wing. "I'm sorry!" Harriet shouted after her as she wheeled off into the gray, low-hanging sky.

"She's a bird, she can't understand you," Snape said.

"Then how was I supposed to get her to be quiet?" Harriet asked indignantly.

"You figured it out well enough. Come along. Watch your footing." Even though he had said two things that could be taken nicely—one praise, the other watching out for her safety—Snape managed to make both things sound like total insults.

Grumbling, Harriet squelched after him. It had been raining, or maybe pouring was a better word; the road was mostly mud, with bleak patches of standing water reflecting the clouds. The dark gray sky melted into the horizon, blurring it, trailing around the castle's spires. Harriet's trainers caked with mud and the hems of her jeans were soaked.

"Don't dawdle," Snape said sharply, turning his head to glare over his shoulder at her.

"It's hard to walk on this stuff," Harriet said. "It's almost pulling off my shoes." _And I'm a lot shorter than you._

Snape sighed a put-upon sigh and stopped walking so that she could catch up, squelching. When he started walking again, it was much more slowly, though the snail-like pace seemed to irritate him. What didn't irritate him, though?

"Why've we got to hurry?" she asked.

"Have you forgotten about the homicidal maniac already?" he asked, making her feel like Neville adding his salamander blood at the wrong time.

She sighed. "No," she muttered. Why couldn't Snape answer a question like a normal person?

Aunt Petunia really was cracked, imagining Snape liked Harriet.

A cold, inhospitable breeze moaned through the trees and across the road. She shivered, tucking her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker. The air had been cold and damp and clammy from the moment she got off the Knight Bus, but maybe she had just been out in it long enough now for the chill to catch up to her. The cold had crept beneath her clothes and the smell of the mud was filling up her mouth so that she could taste it.

She suddenly felt very strange. Like something was pressing on her chest, squeezing her heart so it beat faster. She felt . . . scared. . ?

Blinking, she stared around at the surrounding trees. The forest that grew close to the road was soaked black with rain, still and silent and deep. It had never frightened her before, even when she'd been walking at night with the cowardly duo, Fang and Draco Malfoy. Was Sirius Black in there somewhere? Was this a kind of—of lizard-brain thing?

When a hand grabbed her shoulder, she gasped, her heart cramming its way into her throat.

"Don't stray," Snape said, sharp and tense. "Walk faster."

Harriet tried taking longer strides and kicked a spray of mud on him accidentally, dirtying his coat. He didn't say anything, which rattled her even more. The road ahead of them was so thick with mist, it was like the world ended there; just dropped off into nothing.

"Is he—is Sirius Black—"

"No," Snape said, and waved his wand in a complicated motion that looked somehow random and yet not, like a conductor leading an orchestra through a slow song. Through the mist she saw the towering gate opening slowly, its dark bars smudged by the mist.

She felt so cold, unlike she'd ever felt in her entire life, so cold her body was slowing up. She struggled to keep walking but she couldn't. Something black was closing over her head, like she was sinking through water, cold cold cold . . . and someone was screaming, far away and thin, screaming so scared, scaring Harriet along with her . . . she wanted to run to help but her body wouldn't move . . . everything was so black and far away except for the cold that was all around her, right there . . .

\--

Harriet did not realize she had passed out until she understood that she was lying on her back on a creaky leather sofa, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling, dark and dusty. The room smelt like cold, dry stone.

 _How'd I get here?_ She reached up to rub her eyes and bumped her glasses instead. The skin of her face was damp and clammy, and she felt weak and shaky all over and through.

She pushed herself up, dislodging a blanket someone had draped over her. Something clattered in the next room. She tried to stand, but she felt too ill and slumped back down on the couch.

She opened her eyes when she heard a step in the room: Snape, still wearing his Muggle clothes, coat and all. Mud was smeared all over his front, including a streak on his cheek, and he was carrying a tray packed with bottles and jars and a teapot.

"What happened?" she asked, her tongue feeling thick.

"You fainted," Snape said curtly, rapping the tray down on a nearby table with a sharp clink that rattled everything on it.

"Why?"

"Take off your glasses," he said instead of answering.

Harriet did, even without arguing, though only because she was too unnerved by what had happened. She'd never fainted before in her life.

Snape moved closer and knelt next to the couch. He touched the skin around her eyes very delicately, like he was handling very fragile tissue paper, and had her blink into a bright, concentrated light on the tip of his wand.

"Very well," he said, drawing away quickly, seeming relieved to have that over with. "How ill do you feel?"

"Like I've had a bad flu." She fumbled her glasses back on. "Why did I faint?"

Snape was mixing powdery green stuff in a little clay cup, the sort without a handle. From the clay teapot he poured a stream of something brown into it. She hoped it didn't taste like mud. She was sick of mud.

He handed her the cup without looking at her. "Drink this."

She sniffed it cautiously. It smelled like . . . chocolate? Yes, she found, sipping it; chocolate. Really rich hot chocolate, tasting a little bit like mint and cinnamon. She felt warmer, steadier.

"Thanks," she said. Snape didn't answer.

"Why did I faint?" she asked again, pleased her voice came out so much stronger.

"Drink the whole thing," Snape said as if she had asked something completely different.

"Why did I faint?" she repeated.

"Did you remember to eat breakfast this morning?" he asked, keeping his back to her as he fussed with his tea tray.

"I've skipped meals loads of times at the Dursleys and never fainted—"

Snape knocked a jar off the table. It fell to the stone floor and shattered. He turned to glare at it, his face looking somehow hard, like all his bones had suddenly turned to stone beneath his skin.

"Perhaps your constitution is changing now that you're older," he said, his voice gone chilling cold and distant. He vanished the shards of the little jar with a wave of his wand.

"It was cold," Harriet said doggedly. She kept her hands cupped around her hot chocolate, wanting the warmth to flow through the clay into her skin and blood. "And I heard somebody screaming."

Snape breathed in sharply, once. He reached out to straighten the jars left on his tray. It almost looked like he was holding onto them.

"I heard no one screaming," he said in a voice as brittle as ice.

"A woman." When Snape's voice sounded like that, it made her own want to shake. "Sounding—like she—" 

_Like someone was coming to kill her,_ she thought, with a slice of certainty, and took a drink of chocolate against the returning cold. She pictured it black inside her, like water so deep light couldn't reach to the bottom.

Snape was looking out the window. It wasn't raining, but the sky was still gray, the daylight cold and dim. He did not turn toward her.

"Do you know what Dementors are, Miss Potter?"

"No," Harriet said with certainty.

"They . . . " Snape's voice trailed away. He kept staring out the window. Harriet thought he really did forget she was there, that time.

"They are the reason you fainted," he said, sounding like himself again. "Finish your chocolate."

Then he left the room, went into another and shut the door, leaving Harriet alone.

She stood experimentally from the couch. When she didn't fall back against it, she picked her way over to the window. From there, she could see the dark slope of the grounds and the black presence of the forest, the sky trailing down in rain-colored wisps. The world was eaten up with mist.

She drank her chocolate, watching the clouds swirl across the grounds, thinking of the woman's voice. It was a memory no amount of chocolate could warm.

\--

There had been plenty of times when Severus wished he drank. But every single time was just a reaffirmation of why he shouldn't. The number of days when he'd thought _I could really fucking use a drink_ would have qualified him for alcoholism alone.

_"I heard someone screaming. A woman—sounding like she—"_

And he knew who that was likely to be, didn't he?

He felt as cold as if he were standing in a circle of fifty Dementors. Colder than he had when the girl had fainted and he'd lost his feeble grip on his Occlumency, which deadened the Dementors' ability to feed; when he'd carried her unconscious up the track, his memories of Lily's face during those years when she'd hated him and fallen in love with Potter trickling through his empty spaces like rain down window glass. A memory of a woman screaming, the girl said—a memory terrible enough to render a child unconscious—

Push it away—lock it away—get rid of it—

He couldn't this time. It was like trying to light a cigarette the Muggle way, with matches, when your hands were shaking because you hadn't had enough to drink, because you usually had too much and now a little was too little—

_"Another vice, Tobias? Will this one cost more or less than the drinking? Will it be women next? They're the most expensive of all."_

Goddamn _fucking_ Dementors.

He reached out and found a jar. It fit snugly into the palm of his hand. Somebody might have given it to him, he might have bought it. He hurled it into the fireplace, where it exploded. He ground the shards into his carpet with his boot, and then broke another by chucking it into a mirror as tall as himself. The shattering of all that glass reverberated in his bones. He felt it in his collarbone.

He wanted to Crucio someone. He wanted to feel that magic like actinic electricity coursing through him, promising strength even as it shredded him; wanted to watch their faces contort and feel the panic and exhilaration press on his chest as they screamed, to feel the answering pain in his limbs as they thrashed, beating themselves on the ground. Was Dark magic more or less expensive than alcohol, smoking, whores?

More. It was the most expensive vice of all.

Something went tap tap tap at the door to the adjacent room. He'd left the girl in there somewhere.

His eyes dropped to the pieces of the mirror scattered across the floor. He'd ground a few of them to powder.

Shit. Had he forgotten to put up a Silencing spell?

He vanished all the debris and arranged his face into a distant, foreboding expression. After so many years, it took hardly any effort. The numbing embrace of his Occlumency slipped around him like a cloak placed by a paramour on a woman's shoulders.

He pulled open the door sharply. The girl blinked but she didn't jump. She peered up at him, her eyes smaller behind the thick lenses of her glasses. When she'd taken them off, he had been unnerved by how much they were like Lily's and yet were nothing like them at all. The shape was the same, and oh, the color—but set inside her thinner face, they seemed much larger; and the expressions they helped convey were entirely different.

"I thought I heard something breaking," she said.

He had meant to freeze her in place when he opened the door, but he'd gotten sidetracked. Today he was a fucking mess. A thirteen-year-old girl, with her miserable childhood and haunting memories and bold green eyes, could wrong-foot him.

"Well?" He thought about sneering but found he wasn't in the mood.

She opened her mouth, but then shut it, shrugging. "What are Dementors?" she asked, as before.

"Go to the library and look it up." _I'm sure, with Miss Granger as your friend, you're familiar with how to use a card catalog._ "First, though, get to your room." He pointed.

"Where did they come from?" she persisted.

"They have been sent from Azkaban to look for Sirius Black," he told her coldly. "Since Sirius Black is searching for you, the Dementors have decided that going where you are is the easiest way to find him."

"But what are they?" she asked, looking bewildered.

Ignoring this question, he said, "Your room is this way," magicked open the door to the corridor and strode out. Behind him, she let out an irritated sigh, but a moment later she was trailing behind him.

"Are these your rooms, then?"

He didn't answer that question either, only opened the door to the room Dumbledore had allotted her for the summer. Severus had converted it years ago to a storeroom for his old odds-and-ends; it had been easy enough to banish the rubbish to his quarters and shift this to a makeshift bedroom that would satisfy a child raised on the malicious avarice of Petunia Dursley. He had thought as much as he'd scoured the dust from the corners, and yet he'd found himself repairing an old bed from the Slytherin dorms that had broken last term, smuggling an armchair out of the staffroom, filching a couple of tapestries and a magical Axminster from the corridors above. He'd felt supremely stupid all the while he was doing it—especially at the end, when it was done and he found himself wondering if she'd like it, and had spent the rest of the evening despising himself for hating the fact that he was ruining her holiday with the know-it-all Granger. Because he wasn't ruining it, goddamn it, Sirius Black was. He was just trying to save her life, for all the bloody thanks it got him. He shouldn't care if she was happy as long as she was alive.

But if that were the case, he'd have left her with Petunia last year. He wouldn't have forced Dumbledore to have agreed to board her at Hogwarts, against all school rules. He certainly wouldn't have volunteered to give his summer over to the tedious task of babysitting a resentful thirteen-year-old girl.

He still had her trunk in his pocket; he'd forgotten to take off his coat. It was filthy now, since he'd dredged her out of the mud where she'd slumped in a dead faint, and carried her up the hill.

She hadn't weighed anything at all. He could almost believe she flew the way she did because her bones were hollow, like a bird's.

"You will be sleeping in here." He pulled out her trunk. It also fit snugly in his palm. "And doing whatever else. The Headmaster is allowing you to move around the castle, but don't abuse the privilege or you'll find it revoked. If you meet a locked door, do try to quash your inherent Gryffindor impulse to cause trouble and let it be."

She had been studying a fifteenth-century hanging tapestry of Yggdrasil, its uppermost branches extending into the heavens; but at that she turned to glower at him. For such a tiny person, it wasn't a bad glower.

"Fine," she said mulishly. "Can I go outside?"

"No." Dumbledore had said she could, but Dumbledore was worried about the decency of her summer holiday. Severus had no such concerns. At least, he was good at quashing them. More or less. With the Dementors hanging above the gates, he had good reason to keep her inside, at least.

"That's so unfair!" she said, sounding every inch the child she was.

"No doubt Sirius Black is saying the same thing." He restored her trunk to size mid-air, so that it made a deafening bang as it slammed into contact with the stone floor. "He'll be at least as cross about it as you."

"I thought Hogwarts was supposed to be safe." He couldn't tell from her tone of voice whether she was honestly asking or if she was trying to smart off but failed because he had at last punctured that genetic Gryffidor arrogance.

"And Azkaban is supposed to be impregnable," he answered.

She frowned, but it looked more thoughtful than petulant. She didn't reply, however.

He watched her, trying to tell if she was worried but finding it impossible. When it came to emotions that could be exploited, he knew he was an excellent judge, so he had to assume that if she was worried, it was so inchoate a feeling that she could repress it entirely. Even her pallor could be attributed to her run-in with the Dementors. Or perhaps the oversized glasses and shaggy hair left very little face to read. Despite all the evidence, he found it difficult to believe that even James Potter's hard-headed offspring could be entirely sanguine knowing that a mass murderer had escaped prison to come after her.

"Hogwarts is safer than anywhere else," he said at last.

"Yeah," she said absently. "But it's not exactly safe, is it?"

It wasn't, and no good came of pretending. "Nothing is."

Of all things, that seemed to relax her. Her body language softened, like she'd at last heard something she wanted to hear. Severus had no idea how that could be true, but it seemed to be.

"Right," she said, sounding resolute. Like the glower, she did a fairly good job of it.

"You will inform me whenever you leave this room," he said, ignoring this pint-sized show of courage. "In person. Sending your owl with a note isn't good enough. If I am indisposed or unavailable, you will stay put until you can communicate with me. Is that clear?"

The glower was back. "Fine," she grumbled.

He paused as he turned to leave. "You may also be interested to know that I have an impeccable memory for offenses committed during the summer holiday. I also have a habit of redressing them . . . appropriately . . . when the school term resumes."

She gaped at him. The expression on her face was rather amusing, really. Or it would have been, if he'd had a sense of humor.

"I'll leave you to get settled," he said, and left her to nurse those little wounds while he curled up with his own, which ran as deep as cracks to the core of the earth.


	19. The Power of Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I borrowed a line from LotR: FotR: "History became legend, legend became myth."

Harriet didn't want to write first to Hermione. She knew that if she wrote complaining that Snape was tallying up all the times she was smart with him so he could give her detentions and dock a million points from Gryffindor on 1st September, Hermione would just lecture her on behaving well to a teacher and keeping her temper. She'd also probably approve of the no-going-outside. So Harriet decided to let Hermione write to her. Then she'd at least have something to reply to.

She looked round her room, remembering how she'd thought, just yesterday morning, that she'd wanted a room of her own. Not one in the Slytherin dungeons, though: one in a house on a street with a mum and dad and things they'd bought her.

It was a nice room, though. It had an arched window in a deep recess, with a sort of stone bench built in and a tattered velvet cushion to soften it. The bed might once have been in the Slytherin dorms; its duvet and hangings were deep green. The hanging of the tree on the wall rustled like its leaves were touched by the wind.

She changed out of her muddy clothes and spent the time before lunch in the library looking up Dementors.

One of the library doors was locked, but the other opened at her tug. She fully expected to find Madam Pince looming where she always did, behind her circular desk just to the right of the doors, but the desk was empty and the lamps on it dark. The whole library was much dimmer than she'd ever seen it in the day, lit by no light except the mist-tinted daylight shining against the towering windows. She remembered coming here with Hermione at night last Christmas, to find the Basilisk. It was slightly less creepy today, although she didn't like the way the books rustled in the shadows and almost seemed to breathe.

"Dementors," she said under her breath as she headed for the card catalog.

Her fingerprints left tracks in the dust of the first book she pulled down from the shelves. Its pages were parchment, but cut in different sizes, so their edges were uneven, and when she unlatched the hinge on the side, the pages crackled as they unfurled. She pushed them flat and found herself staring at an inky drawing of a streaming black cloak with skeletal fingers and shoulders, its suggestion of a face hidden by a deep hood. The ink flowed across the full two pages beneath her hands.

She stared at the darkness beneath the hood, where she guessed the face would be.

Slowly she turned the page over.

 _The origins of the Dementor are as lost,_ said the parchment in a scrawling script. _History has become legend, legend has become myth, and even the myths have been forgotten. Created by magic, some believe, though most wizards shall never will themselves to think of the Dementor, by magic only can they be repelled. Non-magical beings have no recourse against the Dementor, whose evil power yet affects beasts and men alike. All creatures, possessing a soul or none, can feel the taint of the Dementor's evil. . ._

"Lord," Harriet muttered, trying not to feel unnerved, "just get to the point. What do they do?"

. . . _Their power to drain the life from every thing that lives, and to take from every conscious creature the memory of all that is good, and to leave in its wake only those feelings of deepest despair, misery, and fear. To cross paths with a Dementor is to become reacquainted with the darkest grief in one's heart: to meet a Dementor is to revisit one's worst days: to know a Dementor is to know fear._

She stared at the blotted scrawl on the page, understanding and confusion pulling at the edges of her thoughts. Was this book saying . . . what was it saying? She read it again. _To revisit one's worst days._ Did that mean . . . what did it mean?

The rest of the book was annoyingly vague like that. She shut it and went to the next book she'd found, Dangerous Beasts of the Dark. It began a little more concretely:

_The Dementor is one of the most dangerous creatures that haunts our world._

Well, that was nice to know.

_Even a single Dementor is to be avoided with all the power one possesses. Proximity to a Dementor will result in feelings of bodily cold and a pervasive feeling of despair. The Dementors do not have the power to manufacture fear or fantasies, but the power they do possess, to recall the worst experiences of one's life to date, and to—_

Harriet stopped and read that again. _Don't have the power to manufacture . . . the worst experiences of one's life to date . . ._

But that . . . that would mean . . . that woman screaming in her head . . . she was . . .

She was from a memory.

She'd thought before that the light in the library was dim, but now it seemed too bright. Dust motes swirled in the air, which felt suddenly thick in her lungs. Her fingertips tingled, like she was cold. For a wild moment, she thought maybe a Dementor was close by, and she jumped, upsetting the book, so that it slammed shut.

The truth didn't come to her, not really. It was rather as though it had been exactly where it was, deep inside her, for her whole life, and she had only now just seen it was there.

Because it had been there all the while.

Hadn't it?

She felt a sudden, horrible urge to cry. It was so strong she didn't know, then or later, how she held it off.

Shoving her chair back from the table, she stood, leaving the books where they were. As she left, she heard them slipping off the table and rustling back to their shelves.

\--

Some time later she wound up back in the dungeons, with no real idea of how she'd gotten there. She must have just walked downward until she came to them. They were as dark and creepy as she'd always thought, as stained with shadows as the grounds above were with mist.

And they were perfect for Snape to move silently about in.

"Where have you been?"

She jumped—not higher than usual, but with a stronger aftereffect. Even when she recognized Snape's voice, even when she thought, Of course it's only Snape, her heart was still beating a funny pattern against her ribs.

 _Fucking_ Dementors, she thought, using Snape's word from last year.

"Miss Potter," he said in a you-had-better-answer-me voice.

"I went to the library," she retorted, "where you told me I could read about Dementors. Since you wouldn't tell me what they were and all."

Snape stared down at her for a long moment. "I am far too busy to spoon-feed you information you are perfectly capable of finding for yourself," he said at last, his tone angry. She realized she had expected him to say something quite different. She couldn't think of what it would have been, though. Even the thought—that he might've been about to say something . . . kind—seemed mad.

"It's noon," he said, as though this were somehow her fault. "You will eat something. Follow me."

He glared her back to the room she'd woken up in earlier, which she guessed was some sort of sitting room or parlor. It didn't look like the kind of cozy she associated with parlors, though. There was the leather couch where she'd lain, but now that she was off it, it had been piled with boxes of books and papers and a flannel throw. The ceiling was vaulted, hung with a couple of age-spotted brass lamps; a sideboard running along one wall was crammed with bottles and jars in all sorts of different jewel-like colors, but they were muted with dust. There were even a few paintings stacked on the floor. How did Snape live in this mess? One look would give Aunt Petunia a heart attack, Harriet thought with satisfaction.

"Sit."

Snape was pointing a table cluttered with stacks of leather-bound journals that he told her not to spill on. She wasn't hungry, but she ate the potato and leek soup and the asparagus and the rhubarb crumble that had been laid out for her, while Snape messed about in another room. She could hear him rustling through the open doorway.

By the time she'd finished chasing the last of her rhubarb crumble around its dish, Harriet was heartily sick of her own thoughts. They were pretty much all she'd had until Hogwarts. Now, they were filled with the memory . . . and it was really a memory, wasn't it? hadn't she decided it was? . . . of something she would much rather not remember.

Or would she?

She shivered. No. Not that. Not like that.

She peeked into the next room. It looked like much more of a proper sitting-room, less crammed with dusty junk, but there was still almost nothing cozy about it. She didn't see any pictures of people (and certainly none of her mum), although over the fireplace hung an art print of an old man in an alpine forest petting a deer. It wasn't the sort of thing she'd have expected to see hanging in any room of Snape's, sweet and sort of twee.

Snape sat next to a soot-stained fireplace with a completely bare mantle, reading from a magazine with an expression of concentrated disgust/annoyance/ferocity. Every so often he would slash at the pages with a quill, circling or marking or scribbling in the margin. He did it so fiercely she could see droplets of ink flying. She wondered what the magazine had done to get on his bad side.

It figured that when Snape was on his own, doing his own thing, he was still getting mad about something—and being mean and sarcastic, probably, if that wrist action was anything to go by. It made a comfortable kind of sense. It would have been too weird if Snape had a soft, warm, caring side. If anyone asked her what Snape was like during hols, she could say, "Exactly like he always is," and nobody would be at all surprised.

Watching him, though, she felt there was something different . . . but she couldn't put a finger on what it was.

"What are you doing?" he asked suddenly, like he'd just looked up (which he'd done) and found her holding her bowl of soup over his precious journals (which she most certainly wouldn't do). He was giving her a strange look, too.

"I'm . . . " she started, but then she trailed off. She didn't know what she was.

"Then find something to do," he said, dipping his quill in its ink pot, readying for another assault.

She fiddled with a loose thread on her too-big flannel shirt. "I was reading about Dementors."

"You said." The ink was running down his fingers from the quill's tip while he held it in midair. "If you're done eating, go back to your room and find a decent way to occupy yourself. I'm sure you've holiday assignments to complete."

"I've finished them all. I was with Hermione," she explained. His disbelieving stare didn't make her feel smug or anything, even though it maybe should have. It was like the feeling just disappeared inside her, as if it was too small to fill up that big empty space that was suddenly there. Had the Dementors done this to her?

"The books weren't that helpful," she said, winding the loose thread around her finger so that it whited out the tip. "The ones on Dementors, I mean."

His quill scratched across his magazine. He didn't look at her.

She knew he wanted her to go away but she had to ask, and she didn't want to go back up to that empty library, with the books that moved on their own in the silence, and read about these things that made her feel cold and uncertain and . . . scared.

She hated being scared more than anything.

"Do they really make you remember—things?" she said in a rush. _Terrible things,_ she thought, but didn't want to say. She didn't want Snape knowing she was afraid.

Snape looked up at her then. Was it her imagination or was his face wary?

"The Dementors do not have the power to manufacture fantasies," he said at last. Just as the book had done.

"So everything you . . . hear when you get near them," she said, curling her icy fingers into her palms to warm them, "that's all—that's a memory. It's something that really happened to you."

"Yes." He watched her for a moment, his eyes slightly narrowed, like he was thinking. But he didn't elaborate.

She willed herself to ask the next question. "How far back can they make you remember?"

Snape didn't move. When he did speak, after a long, long moment, his voice was somehow distant and strained. "I imagine there is no limit."

"Why would I hear something—from a really long time ago—and not from—from more recently? If the Dementors make you relive bad memories, I've got loads of those that are just a couple months old. Why didn't I see them instead?"

Snape was staring now at the mantle. Harriet folded her arms across her stomach, trying not to fidget, to show how anxious she was, or how much she wanted to shiver. It was freezing in Snape's dungeon, and the fire was over by him.

He finally seemed to realize his hand was covered in ink that had sloped off his quill. Silently, he conjured a handkerchief and wiped his hand clean. The red ink stained the white cloth bloody.

"Stop hovering in the door," he said without looking at her, and levitated a stack of papers off the other chair and to the floor.

Harriet gratefully drew nearer the fire, though she was rather nervous about getting nearer Snape. She didn't know why. It wasn't as if she'd never been near him before.

"Not very much is known about Dementors, aside from their effects on the human body," Snape said in a cold, detached voice, staring now into the fire. It was like her first year and all last term, when he'd looked everywhere but at her. "In part because not very much is known about the human mind. The range of any one person's experience is so variegated that it would be impossible to say why certain memories arise before others in the presence of a Dementor. Very often, however, one experiences the worst of them before the more trivial, even if that worst memory might have occurred . . . very long ago. The Dementor's power works in conjunction with your mind—or so it is assumed. From what we know of the mind, it is right to assume so."

Harriet digested this. It took her a while. She wasn't quite sure what "variegated" meant.

"Why did I faint?" she asked at last.

Snape looked straight at her for a moment, but then quickly away again, as soon as their eyes met, as if he hadn't meant to do it.

"The state of one's mind has a great effect on the body." His voice was less distant now, but more strained. "When one experiences great emotional distress, it translates to a physical effect. Presumably the memory you—re-encountered—was so—distressing that it caused you to lose consciousness."

Harriet opened her mouth, but then shut it again. She felt cold all the way through, like she'd been emptied out and a numbing wind was blowing through all those empty spaces. She couldn't help shivering and hoped that because Snape wasn't looking at her, he didn't see.

If the memory made her feel this bad . . . then it really probably was . . .

She almost, almost asked Snape, _Do you think it could have been my mum that I heard?_

But she didn't. He was clever enough that she was sure he would know whether it was or it wasn't—and she didn't know if she wanted to hear yes or no. She hoped he didn't remember her mentioning it right after she'd woken up.

"Is that why I feel—" hollow "—bad right now?" she asked instead.

Snape looked at her again, a frowning crease between his eyebrows. "You still don't feel well?"

"I felt okay for a while." But she she didn't want to say anything more because she didn't want to explain. "Maybe it's just because it's cold down here," she added.

Snape was still frowning. "Do you have a fever?"

She pressed a hand to her forehead, then her neck, then shook her head.

"The chocolate should have worked," he said, almost to himself.

"The hot chocolate?" she said in surprise. "Why?"

"It has healing properties, especially against emotional distress. I'll give you some more in a couple of hours. In the meantime, you might—have a bath," he said, gritting his teeth a little, as though he didn't want to talk about baths. Harriet tried her hardest not to stare at his hair, feeling a sudden, wild urge to giggle.

"There's an en suite joined on your room," he said irritably, shuffling the magazine he'd been abusing, and Harriet knew the conversation about Dementors was over. "Be back here at three. I need to know if you're still feeling unwell."

"All right," Harriet said, feelings of embarrassment and gratitude at being fussed over (in a warped, Snapely way) warring for prominence in her chest and finally intertwining like thread. She hesitated, then said, "Thanks," with a sudden timidity.

Snape grunted, already glaring down at his paper again. Harriet left him to it.

\--

_Write to him. Just pick up the quill and write it._

Remus rubbed his hands together. Because he was a werewolf, he was always warm; he figured it was evolutionary superiority at work. So many werewolves lived so much of their lives outside that the ones incapable of producing their own warmth died off before they could pass on the curse. At any rate, every werewolf he knew was always hungry, no matter how much he or she ate, and always hot.

But right now, his hands felt cold.

 _Pick up the damn quill,_ said a curt voice in his head. It might have been the voice of his conscience. It was frequently annoyed with him, and with good reason. It was getting angrier with him the longer he didn't do what it wanted.

It wanted him to write to Albus that Sirius Black was an unregistered Animagus.

 _You can tell him without incriminating yourself,_ said the conscience, like someone who's said this a million times before and is sick of it. _You don't have to tell him that Sirius did it to lark around with you as a werewolf. You can just tell him that Sirius did it for his own lark._

He stood from his desk, or the crate that passed for it, and paced away.

 _Maybe Sirius didn't transform to escape Azkaban,_ said Conscience. _You don't know if he did or didn't, so let's say it doesn't matter that you never told anyone before now. But he could certainly be hiding from everyone as a dog._

 _Could the Dementors distinguish between a regular dog and an Animagus?_ he argued back. _We don't know that they can._

_Shouldn't you let Albus decide that? At the very least, he can keep any black dogs away from Harriet. You're endangering her by keeping this quiet. She doesn't deserve to be in danger because you're too much of a coward to do what you ought. What you know you ought._

He scrubbed his hand over his face. Conscience was right. He didn't even have to be told to know it was right.

And yet he paced, and rubbed his hands together, and argued with the silent spaces in his mind, long into the night.

The letter stayed unwritten.

\--

Snape's rooms were located on the uppermost storey of the dungeons, though the grounds' design made his room seem higher up than it was. From his windows the earth plunged away, part of it rolling toward the forest, the other dropping off into the deep moat that separated the castle from the lake shore. Harriet had no idea how far down the dungeons went or what their layout was; paging through Hogwarts: a History (which Hermione had given her a copy of last Christmas), she learned that Salazar Slytherin had designed them not only to prevent prisoners from escaping, but also as a place of retreat if the castle was under siege. He'd built corridors that looped back into themselves and ended in blank walls, stairs that made abrupt and disorienting changes in direction, narrow windows that opened onto other corridors, sudden drops into utter blackness. Layers of spells were woven into them, thick as a tapestry and so old now that no one living had any hope of understanding them.

Harriet navigated them with a trick she remembered from Greek mythology, where someone going through a labyrinth had unrolled a spool of yarn to keep track of the way they'd come. She unraveled an old, ugly jumper she had finally outgrown, threading the mustard-yellow yarn behind her so she wouldn't get lost, shining her Lumos-lit wand in front of her. She went so far down that she heard the rushing of an underground river that she couldn't remember reading about in Hogwarts: a History. She tried to find it, but the damp stone walls turned the roar of its breath into a thousand echoes.

Eventually, hunger stirring like a sleepy dragon, she turned to follow her mustardy yarn back upstairs, but dropped it when the Bloody Baron misted out of the wall right next to her. At least her heart clogging her throat prevented her from screaming in a very un-Gryffindorian way.

"The Professor is searching for you," said the Bloody Baron in a voice quite as creepy as the rest of him. It sounded like the invisible rush of the water, hollow and echoing.

"Okay," she said cautiously, scrabbling for her yarn. He stared at her unblinking, floating in place, his robes glittering with silver bloodstains. As she looped her yarn over her wrist, taking up the slack, he stayed where he was, watching her go with his lamp-like eyes that never seemed to blink.

Yep: the dungeons were creepy.

"You were exploring the dungeons?" Snape demanded when she explained where she had been. "Why am I not surprised? Have you any idea how perilous they are?"

"I read Hogwarts: a History. And I had this." She showed him her destroyed sweater. "Like in that story about the minotaur?"

"You are not to do that again," Snape snapped. "Now sit."

He pointed at the table where she always ate but where he never ate with her.

"Fine," she said, annoyed. "Where can I go then? Have you got a list?"

"It is very shortly going to be very short," he said, his eyes flashing in a way that would probably have quailed ten minotaurs.

"But I'm bored," Harriet said, poking her spoon into the vegetable stew in front of her. "There's no one here and I've got nothing to do except explore. I can't even. . . "

She glanced at the windows, where rain sluiced down the foggy glass. She'd woken up that morning to jagged walls of mist rolling in from the lake, thunder crumbling the air and rain thrumming against her window panes. A thoughtful house-elf had lit the fire in her bedroom, some time after she'd struggled into sleep early in the morning.

"Explore something other than the dungeons," Snape said, grabbing a stack of journals off the table and dumping them in a box.

"They can't be that dangerous or all your students couldn't live in them," she pointed out, feeling pleased with this assessment.

"They know their way," Snape said, with a look that was half prideful, half disdainful.

"The dungeons aren't really that dangerous," she said again, though his expression was making doubt creep in. "It would be way too unfair to let kids hurt themselves."

"Our House is known for its resourcefulness," Snape said, baring his teeth slightly. "And you, by the way, broke your back falling off a moving staircase. Hogwarts has never been a school well-suited the fainthearted."

"I'm not fainthearted," she pointed out.

"No," he said, with a nasty look that probably meant he wished she was. "I want your promise that you will cease this foolhardy prowling round the dungeons."

Harriet thought it was pretty rich for him to accuse her of prowling, but she said, "Fine. I mean, I promise."

He stared hard at her, as if wanting to nail that promise to her tongue. Then with a final scathing look, he picked up his box of rubbishy old papers and swept out of the room.

Harriet chewed on the vegetables in her stew, fuming at first, and then feeling increasingly bewildered. She just didn't get Snape. He didn't seem to like her at all, so why he went to the trouble of fussing when she did something dangerous, she didn't get. The Dursleys had been angry with her loads of times, but if she'd wandered into a creepy dungeon and fallen into an oubliette, they probably would have thrown a dinner party and invited Aunt Marge and all ten of her bulldogs. There was that whole thing about a debt to her father, but if that was the only thing making him watch out for her, why did he get so angry when she did something dangerous (or what he saw as dangerous, at least)? She was sure that a lot of people at Hogwarts liked her loads better than Snape did, and Hermione was the only person she could imagine getting as worked up as he did. Was it something about wizarding debts she didn't understand? Or something . . . something to do with her mum?

But her mum had been dead for twelve years. Even if Snape had fancied her, which Harriet still wasn't at all sure wasn't a lie, that was ages ago. He couldn't be worrying this much about Harriet breaking her neck for no more reason than liking her mum when they were both young. Unless maybe her mum had asked him to watch out for her . . . ? But then why would Professor Dumbledore say all that stuff about a debt to her dad?

She hadn't wanted to tell Snape, but she also needed something to do that would stop her from thinking and make her so tired she would just fall asleep at night, instead of lying awake fearing her own nightmares. Ever since she'd suspected that the voice in that black, ancient memory was her mother's, she'd been having trouble sleeping. When she did, she dreamt of her mother screaming, and she was trapped in her cupboard, where it was black and blind and she and couldn't get out, no matter how hard she kicked and pounded and scratched at the door and screamed for someone to let—

"Is there something wrong with the food?" asked Snape's cold voice.

Harriet jumped because she hadn't heard him come back in. She looked reflexively at her stew, which she'd been stirring round and round while she thought.

"No, it's fine."

"Your appetite has been waning for the past few days." He didn't draw any nearer, but his gaze was narrowed on her face, making her feel like she was under a Snape microscope. "Are you sleeping properly?"

No. But she shrugged and spooned up some of the stew. "I'm fine."

"That isn't what I asked," Snape said, like she was being deliberately untruthful.

She stared back defiantly. "I am fine. I'm just bored."

Snape looked disgusted. Harriet turned back to her lunch and diligently swallowed several mouthfuls as if he wasn't there. After a few moments, he made a soft, disparaging sound and left the room again. After checking to make sure he really was gone, Harriet let her spoon clink into her bowl and pressed her fists against her forehead, closing her eyes.

\--

_Wretched girl,_ Severus thought.

She had been at Hogwarts for five days, under his sole jurisdiction. Albus was off trawling for Sirius Black, Minerva on the same errand; Flitwick was so deep in research to reinforce the castle's wards that Severus hadn't seen him in ten days. Sprout and Pomfrey were still on holiday—and that was the list of all the useful teachers. He didn't know or care how Burbage, Vector, or Babbling spent their holidays, and Sinistra and Trelawney seldom came down from their respective towers.

It figured that, when given the sole charge of one thirteen-year-old girl, he was helpless to see her properly fed and rested and occupied. Only five days, and she looked pale and tired and drawn and had taken to picking at her meals. Even her current sullen obstinacy seemed listless.

Something was wrong with her; he wasn't such a blockhead that he couldn't figure that out. The Dementors couldn't be affecting her from their station at the gates, but if they had stirred up old memories, memories harrowing enough to cause her to faint when she was first exposed to them, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suppose that those memories could affect her mental state long after they had been dredged up.

 _I heard a woman screaming._ Had she figured out who it was likely to have been? Surely hearing your mother's voice for the first time in memory—as she was being—

Surely that would be enough to distress anyone. Strong enough to make her faint when a Dementor was lancing it out of the darkest places in her subconscious; disturbing enough to rob her of sleep and appetite.

He couldn't even blame her for secreting it away, as she was doing. He could be aggravated, certainly, and want to wring her neck, but could not blame. He too had grown up placing very little trust for adults. Children knew they should be protected. When they weren't, it damaged something deep inside, draining their reservoirs of implicit trust. The girl wasn't as suspicious as he himself had been, but she was still wary and secretive. When she had the slightest doubt of how her information would be received, she didn't give it. And unfortunately, his methods of dealing with her had certified, in her mind, that anything she told him would be badly received, and so she told him nothing.

He wondered bitterly if she'd have told Dumbledore, if he were here; shared the truth with that manipulative old bastard who, uncertain whether she was a Basilisk's master or its victim, had left fate to decide whether she would live or die. Because Dumbledore smiled and called her "my dear" and gave her candies, she trusted him at least a little. Because Severus got angry with her for foolishly risking her neck, she mistrusted and resented him. Mean old git bastard Professor Snape.

His Slytherins appreciated his protection. It shouldn't have bothered him so much that one little Gryffindor brat didn't. He knew that.

But it did bother him. That simple, childish trust she placed in Dumbledore in exchange for smiles and sherbets should be his and more. He was the one who had argued that she shouldn't be left with fucking Petunia. He was the one who'd taken her away from those inhuman pustules. He was the one sleeping so little during the night at the thought of Sirius Black walking the earth, coming straight for her. Not Dumbledore. She didn't know that, but that's why it fucking mattered.

The candles around him were ribbed with wax, the drippings of hours of frustrated thought. He'd lit them ages ago, and the sun hadn't set until well after nine o'clock. He didn't keep mirrors around, except in the bathroom, but he knew he'd look terrible, his face lined with exhaustion and his hair hanging in greasy rattails round it.

The charm he'd placed on the girl's room to show movement flickered, as it had been flickering all evening since she'd disappeared behind her door. As it had been flickering for the past five nights. That's how he'd known she was lying, beyond a simple look at her tired face. She tossed and turned well into the night, finally falling still, except for the occasional flickers of deep-sleep movement, close to dawn.

Some nights he sat and watched the soft charm-light shimmer while the candles dripped to darkness around him, wondering what he should do. If had been the matter of finding the right spell—especially a crippling one—or the right information from an enemy, he would have been in his element. He was good at the things other people were wretched at. But what came so easily to others—understanding, kindness, comfort—were so alien to him that, even when he knew they were necessary, he didn't know where to begin.

Tonight, he felt the breath of an idea. Perhaps it was the product of his own sleeplessness, as when half-asleep, one stumbles upon an answer or a truth to a question asked long ago.

He slipped his wand out of his sleeve, where he always kept it, even when he slept, and let himself out of his room. The girl's door was dark, so at least she was in bed, valiantly trying to sleep.

He closed his eyes, breathed out, and shut everything away. His mind slipped into its pool of memories that were set aside to sustain him in those long stretches of life when every moment seemed as cold and hopeless as Dementors could ever make it.

" _Expecto Patronum_ ," he whispered.

The doe slipped past the wood of the girl's door, spots of brightness dancing where she'd existed for a moment, reminding him of Narcissa's earrings.

He went back into his room and shut the door.


	20. Dog Days of Summer: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The full quote, "When you are joyous look deep in your heart..." is from Khalil Gibran, most talented of poets.

The light shimmered behind Harriet's closed eyes like stars.

She held her breath as the thought _I know what that is_ danced through the cold spaces in her mind, because what if she was wrong?

She opened her eyes. There stood the doe, glimmering and bright, watching her placidly.

"Hi," she breathed.

She knew it wasn't a real animal—she could see patches of the dark room through its flank—but it was created out of magic and magic was real, so it was a real thing, even if she didn't know exactly what. She sat up slowly, afraid of startling it away, of making it disappear, and stretched out ever hand even more slowly.

The doe leaned up and nuzzled her hand. She _felt_ it. It wasn't cold or warm or any temperature at all, but its nose tingled against her fingers. She felt a well of something bright and indescribable inside, something familiar and yet stronger, much more powerful, than she'd ever known it before.

When the doe faded that time, she cried, and felt like her heart was breaking.

\--

Harriet didn't understand what Hermione saw in the library the same way she didn't understand what Pansy Parkinson saw in Draco Malfoy. As far as Harriet was concerned, they were both bloody aggravating and unlovable.

She'd been trying to read about Dementors for days. She didn't want to go outside because of them. This bloody. . . _cowardice_. . . had to stop. There had to be a way to fight them.

So she'd gone to the library. She knew that if she asked Snape how you fought Dementors, he'd assume that she wanted to march out and duel them, and then his eyes would flash with that dangerous black light and he'd lock her up in her room. So she'd taken a leaf from Hermione's book, which was a cliché her friend ought to approve, and gone to the library. The annoying, stupid, unhelpful library.

Maybe it was just that Harriet didn't know how to research properly. Whenever it was essay time, she would scratch her head for a few days, bumbling through enormous books with terrible spelling like "spreit" and "mair," while Hermione made exasperated noises like a pipe organ, until her noises grew so loud and frequent that Harriet knew her best friend was about to shove a stack of books at her and say, "Here. Pages two ninety one through three oh eight, I've highlighted the proper paragraphs." Left on her own, there was just more and more bumbling.

Sighing, Harriet crossed off two more books she had eliminated as being totally bloody useless. Considering how dangerous all her reading was making them out to be, she would have expected to find a boldly titled book called _How to Fight for Your Life Against Dementors_. But that book that had said wizards didn't want to think about Dementors at all had been right: no one ever appeared to have done any useful study of them. Most of the books were just creepy drawings of rotting corpses in cloaks who made Sirius Black look like Clark Gable.

She frowned at the table of contents in the next book the card catalog had suggested to her: _A Historie of Deefinseive Chyarmes_. At least it had been published since the printing press was invented, unlike that last one. She didn't recognize any of the spells listed in it, and didn't think it was just the spelling.

Flipping to the table of contents, she looked up Dementors. Page 367.

The Patronus Chyarme.

She tapped her wand against the book and said, " _Praelego_ ," a charm Hermione had written about in her last letter, which read the words out to you. It was loads more helpful than any of the books had been.

"The Patronus Charm," said the book in a Shakesperian voice, "is the only known means of defense against the powers most evil of the Dementors. Simple in concept though it is, the charm is most advanced, and troubles many wizards of quality."

(That was another thing about these books: they hardly ever mentioned witches. Sexist.)

"Its incantation, Expecto Patronum, translates from the Latin to 'I await a protector,' for exactly that is what the Patronus Charm affords. Upon fear and despair do the Dementors feed, as supplied in ample force by the human mind. The Patronus, however, being a magical manifestation of perfect joy, cannot thereby experience the negative emotions which give to the Dementors strength. A Patronus of great power shall weaken the Dementor, and act to the despair as a shield to a spear. Great wizards have been capable of producing a Patronus of such strength to repel a host of Dementors, though this feat has been attempted seldom, and would be beyond the capabilities of many. The Patronus is advised as a means of precaution, for a weapon in reserve shall it seldom be."

This sounded so exactly like what Harriet was looking for that for a moment she was afraid she must've misunderstood what the book had said. But when she re-cast the charm and listened a second time, the meaning seemed to be the same. A charm to repel Dementors—to drive them away. Perfect.

She cast another of Hermione's useful study spells, copying the writing on the page onto a separate sheet of parchment. The book said no more about the Patronus Charm than what it had read out to her, but she was starting to expect that. Magical books seemed to like to talk as airily about spells and things as possible, and leave proper instructions to other people. Still, now that she knew what the charm was called, she could go look that up.

She dragged down more and more books, casting her charms over and over. . .

Words, words, words. . . She was drifting on a sea of words. The library grew dim and soft around her.

The silver doe was there again, just like last night . . . just like last year, that night in the hospital wing . . . it shone like a galaxy stars, brilliant blue-white, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, making her feel fiercely, tenderly safe . . . it looked at her and she wished it could speak, that it was magic enough to have a voice. . .

"Miss Potter," it said.

Harriet blinked. Everything was gray and blurry, and her face hurt. The doe was gone.

She'd fallen asleep with her nose mashed into the open pages of that last book. She remembered taking off her glasses and laying her head down. Rubbing her cramped nose, she groped for her glasses. The library came into focus, the table spread with her books, and Snape, a pillar of black. He was looking down at her books.

"The Patronus Charm," he said flatly.

"It repels Dementors," she said, blinking her dry, gritty eyes. How did Hermione do this so often? How did she like it?

Snape touched his long fingers to the pages of parchment she'd collected. Then he withdrew his hand, tucking it into the drape of his robes.

"You missed lunch," he said. Harriet looked up at him warily, expecting a storm of sarcasm, but his tone was almost . . . neutral, and his expression was weirdly bland.

"Sorry," she said cautiously. "I fell asleep reading."

He didn't answer immediately. Then he said, still in that bland tone, "Come eat something now, then."

She boggled. _Who are you and what have you done with Snape?_

"Okay," she said, even more cautiously. When that didn't set him off, she reached out to close the books, keeping an eye on him, waiting for the explosion.

Except Snape swept his wand over them and they snapped themselves shut, whipping off the table and winging back to their shelves. She gathered up her notes, rolling them up and stuffing them under her arm, eying Snape all the while. He looked un-Snapely back, without any glares.

Weirder and weirder.

All the way down to the dungeons, into his rooms, and halfway through her meal, neither of them said a word. Harriet was getting unnerved by this dully silent, expressionless Snape. She didn't know why he was acting so weird or what to expect from him, and was so distracted that she ate her dessert first.

"The Patronus Charm is highly advanced magic," Snape said at last, startling her into dropping her fork on her trousers and smearing chocolate mousse on her thigh.

"The book said," she replied still warily, watching him where he stood at his sideboard.

He tapped his nails on the wooden top. "Why were you looking it up?"

She shrugged, not wanting to tell him about the dreams now any more than she had before. She didn't want him to react in some way that would make the experience more horrible than it already was.

Snape's face had finally taken on some expression: a tint of annoyance around the eyes. She felt instantly relieved.

"You are voluntarily undertaking advanced research during the summer for a reason unclear to you," Snape said, a familiar edge to his voice. Her relief multiplied.

"I don't like them," she said simply, which was true enough. "Have you ever fainted?"

"I've lost consciousness, yes," Snape said in a tone designed to quash any questions.

"Well, then," Harriet said, though part of her filed that away for obsessing over later: what could have made Snape faint? "It sucks. It makes you feel so . . . " _Weak_ , she thought. _Helpless._

"Your reaction to the Dementors is beyond your control," Snape said, in such a way that she felt he was answering a question she didn't even realize she had asked.

"I don't want it to be," she said, slightly confused. "That's why I was looking up the Patronus thing."

"I sincerely hope you aren't doing so in order to take them on single-handed."

That made her feel as if things were really getting back to normal. Wasn't it exactly what she'd pictured him saying?

"No, but if they're going to be out there, then I might have to one day. I want to be prepared."

Snape seemed to be trying to find something in her to argue with. At last he closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose.

Encouraged by this relative lack of sniping, Harriet said, "Can you do it? The charm, I mean."

Snape opened his eyes, looking at her past his fingers. For a second she almost didn't recognize him. It was so strange; she knew who he was, and yet in that moment it was like she didn't—as if she was seeing some part of him she hadn't known existed, a part that belonged to quite a different person from her teacher whom she'd known for the last two years.

Then he lowered his hand and the Snape she knew returned, the other vanishing back into this one.

"The Patronus Charm is notoriously difficult to cast. You might have read that many full-grown wizards and witches have trouble with it, even those who have scored high on their Charms and Defense N.E.W.T.s."

That didn't answer Harriet's question—or maybe it did. He might not want to tell her if he couldn't do it. She nodded companionably along.

"Yes, they said."

"You were reading Qureshi's book on the subject."

She honestly had no idea. "Was that the one that was being very confusing?"

"You might have found it confusing, yes," he said. "He was attempting to explain the nature of joy."

"One of the books said you have to find a happy memory," Harriet said. "At least. . . I think that's what it said. And then cast the charm. But they were talking about it being so hard I'm not sure that's really what they were saying? I mean, a happy memory—that doesn't sound that hard, everyone's got those."

"Very well," Snape said. "Finish your dinner and attempt to cast it."

Harriet was taken aback. "What—now? Here?"

"It won't destroy my house," he said.

Harriet had never really done magic in front of Snape before. Potions was different—like he'd said on the first day, there were no incantations or wand-waving in Potions. Well, she'd done magic in front of him at the Dueling Club, she supposed, and successfully disarmed Hermione . . . but the thought still made her nervous. At the Dueling Club there had been hundreds of other people. Here, there was just her. And Snape.

But she didn't want Snape to know she was nervous or afraid of looking stupid, so she said, "Okay," like it was no big deal, and turned back to her dinner.

She resisted the impulse to linger over it or to chase the stems of her artichokes around her plate—for the most part. She might have eaten a little more slowly than usual, but when she finished off her last bit of fish, she steeled her courage and went to the open door of Snape's parlor. He was sitting at his usual place near the fire, reading a book with gold letters that glinted on its thick spine in the firelight.

"What are you reading?" she asked, and she honestly wasn't sure whether she really wanted to know, or was just being polite, or was only stalling. Maybe it was all three.

Snape glanced up at her, moving only his eyes, the rest of him staying in the exact same position as he'd been when she first looked at him. Once again she felt that strangeness, that she was looking at someone very different than she'd thought.

" _Anna Karenina_ ," he said after a pause, as if he'd been judging whether or not she really wanted to know.

"Oh." It sounded very vaguely familiar, but she couldn't have said more than that to save her life. "Is it good?"

"It's considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written." The way he said it, though, wasn't chiding; it was more informative, like he didn't have an opinion on it one way or the other. She couldn't imagine Snape not having an opinion. Maybe he just didn't want to tell her what he thought. But then he said, "I doubt you would enjoy it," and closed the book, setting it on the crowded table next to his chair.

"I read," Harriet said, almost defensively.

"I didn't say you couldn't read it, I said I doubt you would enjoy it. The title character goes mad with jealousy and kills herself."

"Oh." Harriet eyed the book. That certainly didn't sound like something she wanted to read.

"Well?" Snape asked. "Have you thought of a memory suitable for casting the charm?"

Harriet chewed on her lip. "I thought, maybe, the, erm, first time I rode a broom."

Snape was restraining himself from saying something Snapely, she could tell. "Very well," he said again. "Do you know the incantation?"

" _Expecto patronum_ ," she recited.

Snape just looked at her. She stared back for a moment before realizing he was waiting for her to do it.

"Er." She pulled her wand out of her pocket and nearly dropped it.

"It's hard to concentrate with you staring," she said, when he continued to do just that.

"If you encounter a Dementor—or when, as you yourself believe—you will have a great deal more to contend with than my staring."

"Well, there aren't any Dementors now," she said, nettled. "And I've never tried before."

Snape sighed, sounding faintly but clearly exasperated. "Would you prefer I shut my eyes?" he asked, his tone communicating how ridiculous he thought that would be.

Harriet flushed. "No," she muttered. That'd make me feel even more stupid. She stared resolutely at her wand instead.

She remembered Malfoy zipping off with Neville's Remembrall, and slinging her own leg over her broom. She'd kicked off the ground and flown, the broom arching swift and perfect into the air, and her stomach had flipped and soared, and her friends had cheered—

"Expecto Patronum," she said.

Nothing happened.

Dammit.

She chanced a look at Snape, whose face was completely impassive.

"Um," she said. "Didn't work," she added, unnecessarily.

"The memory was perhaps not strong enough," Snape said, his tone pitched to match his expression. It was weirdly unnerving, just like he'd been when he'd fetched her from the library. She'd suspect he was an impostor—Sirius Black Polyjuiced into him, maybe—except in that case he could have blown her up a hundred times over by now.

She frowned at her wand. "I was happy then, though."

"Happiness can take on many different forms. One of the most common mistakes made with this spell is that people attempt to cast it on feelings of pleasure, which isn't sufficient."

"What's the difference?" she asked, confused.

"You can gain pleasure from relatively insignificant events," he said. "Or even from ones that bring pain to others. The Patronus requires joy."

"What's the difference?" She was sounding like a broken record, but she didn't know what else to say.

"Joy is more powerful yet more elusive, rarer. To create a Patronus, one must not only recall a memory when it has occurred, but must recapture the exact feeling."

Harriet was silent, partly because she still didn't really understand.

"Now you know why this charm is so difficult," Snape said.

"What's it look like?" she asked. "The Patronus, when it's cast."

Snape looked away. "Its form is unique to each person who conjures it."

Harriet repressed a sigh. Magic couldn't ever have an easy answer, apparently.

\--

_Days go by_

Harriet climbed to the Owlery, a pair of binoculars, borrowed from Hermione, hanging round her neck on their strap.

She'd been having an easier time of sleeping ever since the silver doe had appeared in her room, lighting up the dark. She wished she knew where it came from, so she'd know why it came and when, and could figure out how to see it again. Why had she suddenly started seeing it, but only those two times? Professor Dumbledore had said it had something to do with the force of love, but she hadn't really understood. It was all as vague as the Patronus talk.

Magic was just like that, apparently.

Snape had lent her a book that would probably make Hermione faint with envy, because Harriet didn't understand a word of it. It was about the Dementors, but intensely confusing, not simply vague like everything else was. It said things like:

" _When you are joyous look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that you are weeping for that which has been your delight_."

And it talked about the Patronus and Dementors being the bright mirror and the dark of the soul, one a punishment for surrendering to despair and hopelessness, and the other a means of reclaiming oneself. She had no idea what any of it meant, and Snape couldn't break it down enough for her to get it. Maybe Hermione could help.

Harriet might not understand exactly what joy was, but if the Patronus was tied to good memories, well, then she only had to find one that was good enough to cast it. Last night she'd done one of Hermione's favorite activities and made a list, this one of all the really good memories she could find.

 _Learning I was a witch and leaving the Dursleys_ was at the top of the list. Then came _Becoming friends with Hermione_ , and _Flying_ , and _Becoming friends with Ron_ , and _Seeing my parents in the Mirror of Erised_ because it was the first time she'd ever seen their faces. Also listed near the bottom, but then moved up, was _Snape taking me away from the Dursleys_. She was sure that other things had made her happy, but these things had made her the happiest, she thought.

But strangely, every time she tried to concentrate on them and cast the Patronus charm, she kept thinking of things that were linked to them that hadn't made her happy at all. Thinking about Hermione made her think of growing up without any friends, and especially of not having Hermione here with her now. Remembering her friends at all made her feel painfully lonely.

So she'd switched to learning she was a witch and leaving the Dursleys. But that reminded her that her parents were dead, that she'd lived with the Dursleys because they'd died, because Voldemort had murdered them, and whenever she went back to magic, she went back to people who wanted her dead. The happiness of coming into the wizarding world was tied up with so many painful things.

The Mirror of Erised was like that, too. Seeing her parents for the first time, but being unable to touch them; pressing her hands against that cold layer of glass, staring in at them, looking at their faces but knowing they weren't really there. Snape taking her from the Dursleys, that was all right, but in order to remember it, she had to remember being locked up in her room with no food, and how she'd just been left there for so long, until Snape had taken her away.

Was that what the book meant? That in order for things to make you really happy, they had to come out of things that made you so painfully lonely and sad? But then how were you supposed to cast a Patronus, if every memory with a drop of joy was washed with unhappiness, too?

The inside of the Owlery was cool and reeked of owl droppings. Hedwig fluttered down from the rafters, having forgiven her for the ride on the Knight Bus, and let Harried feed her owl treats.

"How are you doing, girl?" Harriet asked her as Hedwig nibbled her fingers affectionately. "Dementors don't bother you, huh?"

She'd brought the binoculars so she could try and see them. The thought of looking for Dementors scared her, so she'd made up her mind to do it. And she'd decided to do it from the Owlery so she'd have Hedwig there for moral support (and be very far away). Hopefully Hedwig wouldn't fly off to lunch.

Ever since Harriet had come back to Hogwarts, the sky had been gray and the air cold. Sometimes it rained, but mostly it was just the silver mist, creeping over everything, smudging the world in the distance like ink on a drawing that was hundreds of years old. She pressed the binoculars against her glasses, leaning out the window, sweeping the fog for the fluttering signs of a flying cloak.

Someone was standing at the front gates.

 _Sirius Black?_ thought her heart, bumping twice in one beat. But surely he wouldn't walk up to the castle gate and look inside.

The person was too far away for her to see much more than that, even when she twiddled the focus on Hermione's binoculars. Whoever it was, nobody seemed to be expecting him or her. At least, nobody was going to meet them. She was pretty sure that she and Snape were the only people in the whole castle.

Speaking of whom, Snape would surely want to know someone was there. More than that, he'd know what to do about them.

Dropping the binoculars to settle against her chest, she stroked Hedwig's feathers and said, "See you later, girl," and began the long descent to the dungeons.

\--

Wolfsbane was fiddly, complex, frustrating; it required an intense understanding of its chemistry and an even intenser concentration during brewing.

If Severus ignored whom he was brewing it for, he loved it. With the constant, tedious demands of his daily schedule, there were so few potions he had opportunity to brew that provided him with any real challenge.

Since Sirius Black had escaped, Severus had reverted to his survival tactics of subsisting almost entirely on coffee and cigarettes. Coffee allowed him to stay alert after weeks of sleepless nights, and the nicotine allowed him to drink twice as much coffee without overloading his system; so he was able to drink and smoke all day, pawning from those two substances the emotional and intellectual focus he needed. The Wolfsbane, too, gave him something to focus on, so he only spent about seven-eighths of the day worrying about the girl tripping and breaking her neck, or falling into one of the dungeon's many traps in spite of his altering the wards to recognize and protect her, or being slain by an Azkaban-mad Sirius Black who'd somehow broken past Hogwarts' millennium of defenses and come straight for her.

Severus approved of the Wolfsbane, moreover. It was entirely possible that, even following the recipe to the last jot, it would poison Lupin fatally, and then he'd have one less threat to contend with. By all rights it should poison any werewolf who ingested it, but all of the research findings suggested that it worked as advertised. This was another thing about Wolfsbane that both frustrated and enthralled him: by every natural law it should kill, not aide, and yet since the formula had been perfected in its lab, every werewolf who'd ingested it had lived. It worked in defiance of all reason.

He was chopping rue when a movement flickered at the door of his lab, which he'd left open in case the girl needed to find him. When he looked up and saw her fidgeting on his threshold, he had a brief moment to enjoy the satisfaction of being right, before he started envisioning any number of dire scenarios that could have brought such a stubbornly independent child voluntarily to see him.

"What is it?" he demanded. At least all of her arms and legs seemed to be attached and she wasn't bleeding from any arteries that he could see.

"I was up in the Owlery and saw someone standing at the front gate." She fiddled with the strap of the binoculars hanging round her neck. "I thought you'd want to know."

He was rendered momentarily speechless by this evidence of sensible thought. "I would."

"D'you know who it is?" she asked. "I couldn't see even with the binoculars."

"Since I have been underground, I haven't even had the glimpse you did." He checked the room to make sure he'd started nothing burning. When he turned back around, he found the girl giving him a half-expectant, half-exasperated look.

"D'you think it's Sirius Black?" she said, in a tone that suggested he should already have answered this.

"After being so cunning as to escape an inescapable prison and elude the entire country, it would be very anticlimactic for him to walk up to the gates and stare inside."

"That's what I thought," she said, surprising him yet again, "but who else would it be?"

"It seems like it will shock you to learn that other people do visit this castle." He moved to shut the door, causing her to shuffle back into the corridor.

"Teachers, yeah," she said, "but all of you should be able to get in on your own, shouldn't you?"

"Perhaps," he said.

She scowled, possibly at his bloody-minded unhelpfulness, but then an almost comical _A-ha!_ expression suffused her face. "It's the new Defense professor, isn't it?"

"Possibly," he said, for variety. "I'm still underground, aren't I?"

She gave him a look, one that Minerva would have been quite proud of. It said, _You're being deliberately difficult but I'm going to choose to ignore this._

"And where do you suppose you're going?" he asked in a foreboding voice when she attempted to follow him up the stairs to the Entrance Hall.

"I want to see who it is."

"You certainly aren't coming along." When she opened her mouth to argue, he said, "The Dementors will be haunting the gates. Unless you've mastered a post-N.E.W.T. charm in one morning, they will most likely cause you to faint again, which is an experience I thought you wanted to dispense with? And it will be much simpler for me to deal with our visitor if I don't have to carry you."

She flushed, and he remembered how sensitive Gryffindors were to any circumstance that could be remotely linked to physical cowardice.

"You will save yourself the emotional turmoil and wait here. In your room," he added.

She sent him a look that was part defiant, part injured puppy, and then without a word turned on her heel and headed toward her room. He would almost have called it a flounce if there weren't an air of wounded dignity to it.

He waited until the door to the girl's room was shut before casting a shield across the exit to the dungeons. Then he stalked out of the castle, toward the front gate.

He was tempted to let Lupin linger out there until someone else found him. He could always claim never to have seen him. Dumbledore would know better, but what could he do?

Something or other, Severus knew. Dumbledore always found some way to redress the balance of Severus's sins against the innocent. Some little humiliation to pay back.

Well. If he had to meet the werewolf, it would give them a chance to . . . talk.

The sky trailed low, full of storm portents, as it had done since the Dementors stationed themselves outside the grounds. The grass near the gates had started to wither, the trees on the road to lose their leaves. Walking forward felt like breathing in despair.

He sank into the grips of his Occlumency, letting it deaden everything. The memory of the girl fainting, of her asking Who was screaming; of finding her lying motionless on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets, sank beneath the surface of his emotions, snapping free.

Lupin looked so much older—that was the first thing Severus thought as he drew near enough to see the werewolf's face. It was lined and tired, and his hair was paler than Severus remembered, streaked with gray. His clothes were shabby, patched, disgraceful. A sense of triumph pushed against Severus's shields: his life, at least, had turned out more comfortably than the werewolf's. Or Black's.

Or Potter's, come to that.

Lily's. He at least was permitted to see her child grow up.

Lupin's worn face rippled with surprise when he saw who was stalking down the path toward him. So Albus hadn't told him Severus worked here. Now, what did you mean by that, old man?

"Snape," Lupin said, almost like a question. But then his surprise vanished beneath a shield of politeness so flawless Severus might almost have admired the insincerity, if he wouldn't rather Lupin have dropped dead on the spot. The bastard even smiled. "I didn't expect to see you, but you seem to have been expecting me. Judging by that look of disgust on your face."

 _Yes, do fucking drop dead._ Had they been teenagers, Severus might have said it. He was tempted to, anyway. "The Headmaster is withholding information from you already? What a slippery slope."

"Indeed," Lupin said pleasantly, not looking the least bit bothered. "Might I ask for permission to come inside, or do I need to pass an inspection first?" His tone was not offensive in the least, but his very existence offended Severus, so this effort at witty cordiality was quite wasted.

Severus drew closer to the bars, close enough to see the dark circles beneath Lupin's eyes, the lines on his face. "Did the Headmaster give you nothing to ensure your entry?"

"Let me guess," Lupin said, still smiling. "You'd leave me out here if he hadn't."

"No," Severus said softly, knowing there would be nothing soft in his own face, his eyes. "I'd hex you unconscious and leave you to the Dementors."

Lupin's expression didn't flicker, and his smile didn't waver. It should have. Instead, he reached into his pocket and produced a ruby the size of a hen's egg, which he held out in the palm of his hand. When he passed his thumb over the surface, it misted over golden, and a small cloud rose into the air, Dumbledore's voice leaking from it like a scent:

" _Remus Lupin, have entry into Hogwarts._ "

Severus almost expected the gates to open at the command of Dumbledore's voice, which would make him look like an utter twat. But they stayed shut.

Lupin put the egg back in his pocket. "Does that satisfy you?" he asked mildly.

"Nearly." Severus watched him. "One question, and then I'll let you in."

Lupin made a _go on_ gesture.

"Where is Sirius Black?"

And that, finally, got a reaction. A bleakness misted over Lupin's pale eyes, and his smile faded until his face was cool, remote and wary.

"I don't know," he said, his voice also cool. "Should I go down to the village and wait there until someone else is available to let me in?"

Severus looked at him. He took in the clenched hand on the handle of Lupin's battered briefcase, the tension in the narrow line of his shoulders, the hard emotion in his face, and nearly smiled. But he never smiled.

Waving his wand, he sent the unlocking spells rippling across the gates, his magic splitting the wards apart. He felt it all through his blood into his bones, the power of Hogwarts' protection. Hogwarts wasn't the safest place in Britain because it had Dumbledore; it was the strength of its magic, reinforced over a thousand years by the castle's own sanctity, the feelings of home and succor and sanctuary of all the students that had ever lived there.

And yet nothing was ever unbreachable.

Lupin walked through the gates, carrying nothing with him but that battered suitcase and a potted plant tucked into the crook of his arm. Severus wished, without much conviction, that Lupin owned just that little, but they were wizards; there was probably an Extension Charm on the luggage. Pity.

Another wave of his wand and the gates swung shut again, the wards knitting over, flaring bright white where they entwined; hundreds of them touching in syncopation, so the air shimmered from the ground to the top of the gates.

"So you're the Potions master Albus mentioned?" Lupin asked, as if Severus hadn't just threatened him with a fate worse than death.

"How am I to know?" Severus said coldly. He turned and began striding back toward the school, his pace not inviting Lupin to walk with him.

But Lupin jogged to catch up. "If you were," he continued pleasantly, "Albus mentioned something about you brewing the Wolfsbane for me."

"I am brewing the Wolfsbane, but it is certainly not for you. I am brewing it so that no one in the castle is endangered by you, as they have been before." He cut a look at Lupin, infusing it with as much cruel revulsion as he could. "At least, that is the theory. I would not allow it, but Dumbledore—"

"Is Headmaster, and what he says goes?" Lupin asked pleasantly, but Severus was good at detecting malice and knew when it was there.

"Yes," he said, curling his lip. "Unfortunately, he has been wrong before—placed his faith, and his suspicions, in the wrong people."

"Haven't we all," Lupin said quietly.

Severus had no desire to make any kind of heartfelt chat with Remus bloody Lupin; he'd only meant to snub him. So he ignored the regret he heard in Lupin's voice as he mounted the steps to the Entrance Hall, Lupin (annoyingly) just behind him.

"One more thing." Severus stopped and pivoted so suddenly that Lupin had to stumble to the side to keep from knocking into him. "You are aware, I am sure, that Harriet Potter is a student at this school."

"Yes, Severus," Lupin said, sounding almost irritated. Fucking finally. "I do know how old she is, and Albus—"

"You will want to tread very carefully there." Severus moved deftly into Lupin's personal space, a technique he'd had cause to perfect over the years, so close his robes brushed against Lupin's legs. The werewolf tensed but didn't step away, as Severus had been hoping he would.

"Very. Carefully," he said, staring into Lupin's pale eyes that gave nothing away, not even the faintest hint of emotion. "If anything should happen to Miss Potter, I will be looking to you, Lupin."

Lupin didn't say anything; he only gazed coolly at Severus. But beneath Lupin's measured reserve, Severus thought he detected anger. In his face only, though: not a single thought stirred to the surface where Severus's Leglimency could detect it. Was Lupin an Occlumens? But even so, Severus should have seen something.

Perhaps Leglimency didn't work on werewolves. It bore investigating.

"House-elf," he said curtly.

One appeared at their knees, bowing low. He snapped, "Take care of this," and left, hoping he'd managed to get Lupin to feel for him even one thousandth of the hatred Severus held for him.

\--

"I wouldn't have thought it possible," Remus said to Ermentrude, "but Severus Snape has managed to become even more unfit for human consumption than the last time I saw him—oh, must be fifteen years ago now."

Ermentrude did not answer because he was a non-magical potted boxwood. Remus arranged him on the windowsill, where he'd be able to catch the light.

The house-elf had showed him to a handsome set of rooms that faced over the lake. The air inside was stale and unlived-in, with a quality of reminded Remus of hotel rooms. Places that passed from person to person, or rather, that person to person passed through, developed a certain haunting feel, as if by belonging to everyone they could never belong to anyone.

"The curse upon it is very real. You will only serve three terms at the most, and several of its occupants have terminated their posts and their lives simultaneously. . ."

"A hotel and a funeral home," Remus murmured. Not a cemetery. Graves were marked with some sign of the person who decayed underneath them, which these rooms, when all the possessions had been removed, were not. But funeral homes were the hotels of the dead.

Remus wondered if that made Snape the mortician. He had all the personal warmth of a corpse, certainly. Remus couldn't imagine him as a teacher. In fact, the thought of it lay somewhere in the vast stretch between hilarious and unnerving. He would've been better suited to a life as a prison warden; children could do nothing that would render them guilty enough to deserve Snape's level of menace. And even after tending bar in a place frequented by hags, vampires, banshees, and others who'd fallen off the broad spectrum of humanity, Remus still found that Snape was one of the more menacing people he could easily bring to mind.

They'd wondered about him, all those years ago. Lily had been definite that he at least wanted to be a Death Eater, and he'd certainly been thick with the Malfoys and with Regulus, who just as certainly had been part of Voldemort's inner circle. Rumors had scorched their way across the papers during the long months of the never-ending post-war trials . . . Remus had disappeared from the wizarding world for two years after that Hallowe'en, but he'd read up on them years after, grimly determined to learn all he could. Some of the trials had never been publicized, however, and if Snape had gone to trial, his was one of those closed to public record.

But Remus couldn't imagine Dumbledore letting Snape work with children if he had ever worked for Voldemort.

He clicked open his briefcase and began pulling out of it the few possessions he'd managed to hold on to through the years of evictions, repossession and poverty. His books, some so battered he'd learned book-binding to keep them readable (and thereby, through freelancing, managed to employ himself off and on over the years). His few robes, so patched they were more patch than original cloth. A hideous Ormolu clock that had once belonged to his grandmother, then his mother, and finally to himself; his bedroll, which at least he wouldn't need here; a small 17th century Potter heirloom Norwich carpet Lily had given him when during her pregnancy she had taken a sudden and complete loathing to it.

Harriet.

Remus laid out the rug on the floor in front of the hearth, which the house-elf had lit so discreetly he hadn't even seen it happen, and set his clock on the mantle. His ritual for every new place he came to.

Her name should have been Holly. Harry for a boy, Holly for a girl. Lily and James had decided it, after eight months of bickering that everyone had known was really an expression of love, elation and fear. They'd decided on the names only two days before labor had set in and terrified them all. But when the baby had been born, Lily had burst into tears and wept that she just didn't _feel_ like a Holly. So they'd named her Harriet instead.

Remus and Sirius had said the name was too dowdy and old-fashioned. "She'll never get a date with a name like bloody Harriet," Sirius had protested, and James had lit up eagerly and agreed with Lily; she was much more a Harriet than a Holly.

Sirius had refused to call her Harriet. He'd called her "holly berry" instead, to Lily's annoyance; until one day the baby's eyes had changed from that milky, indeterminate blue of all babies to a bright, startling green, the same shade as her own, almost the same shade as holly leaves. And then Lily had stopped grinding her teeth at every "holly berry." And then she and James had gone into hiding and taken the baby with them.

And then Sirius had killed them.

Remus sat down in the armchair next to the fire. The brightness hurt his eyes, though he scarcely saw it.

It never made sense whenever he thought of it. He could still hear the way Sirius had said _holly berry_ , so like the way Lily had hummed the baby to sleep on her chest as they'd fallen asleep together on the couch, or James used to hold her in the air and swoop her around like she was flying on a broom. They were all the same. It should have been as unthinkable for Sirius to have sent Voldemort to kill that child as it would have been for James or Lily to have done it. Remus couldn't, had never been able to, think about it without wondering why it felt so wrong.

_Because he loved her. Because he loved them. Because he loved. . ._

Remus rubbed his hand across his eyes. However little sense it made, it had happened.

. . . he told himself, one more time.

\--

"Was it the Defense teacher?" the girl wanted to know that evening when he summoned her to dinner, after successfully managing to avoid her all afternoon. "What's he like? Or is it a she? We haven't had a lady teacher yet."

"You have several," he said, "or have you forgotten your Head of House?"

"I mean for _Defense._ "

"It's a man." Arguably, he thought. But he knew enough about Gryffindors, and especially this one, to suspect that telling her Lupin was a werewolf would only triple his stock as a person of interest.

"What's he like?"

 _He's a two-faced animal._ "I can't think why you would imagine I have any desire to discuss him. Eat your dinner," he said, and sought refuge in the other room.

He had the hope, though it was halfhearted at best, that she would simply retire to her room after she'd finished eating, but she was developing a bold and worrying habit of hanging round and trying to make conversation. If he'd had a sense of humor, her brave but awkward attempts to find something to talk about with him might have been amusing. As it was, he found the experience intensely uncomfortable, as if a joke he didn't understand was being played on him by someone he couldn't see.

 _God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh_. Someone had said that, hadn't they? With the girl poking around his rooms, looking at his things, asking him what he was reading, he felt every inch that audience.

His Inner Hufflepuff reminded him that he'd wanted to earn her trust. He had wanted it, he still did, but he wasn't sure he really had it, and he didn't see what having a miniature Lily-Potter hybrid cluttering up his personal space with nosy questions signified of trust.

"I read some of that book you gave me," she said, suddenly and out of nowhere.

It was only years of habit at controlling sudden movements that kept him from starting up from his chair. He hadn't heard her come in; she moved as quiet as a cat.

"I'm not sure I got it," she went on, picking at a loose splinter on his door frame. "Although I was thinking some things."

"Congratulations." He eyed her warily, in case she should come any closer and decrease the good twelve feet of space between them.

She gave him another Minerva-like look. "I wasn't sure what it meant by all the hope versus despair stuff, but I was thinking—whenever I remembered things that made me really happy, they were all tied to stuff that had made me feel really terrible. And it was hard to think of the happy things without remembering the bad things, and I couldn't cast the Patronus while I was thinking of things that had made me unhappy."

Severus was almost stunned. He would have said Longbottom was capable of quantum physics before he'd have expected this level of introspective awareness from any spawn of Potter, especially one so stubbornly hard-headed as this child had proved to be.

"Is that why the Patronus is so hard to cast?" she asked. The intensity of her focused stare was almost unnerving. "Because when you think of happy memories, you also remember sad things? But," she went on before he could reply, though he almost wasn't sure how to, "not all happy memories come from unhappy ones."

"It is because the type of joy necessary for the Patronus is linked to despair," he said. "Simple happiness or pleasure has a less potent inverse."

She was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, "But then how are you supposed to cast it?"

"You put the despair from your mind," he said. "You simply don't think about it."

Her forehead creased. "How?"

"By training your mind not to."

She stared at him resolutely, brow furrowed, and then bit her lip. But instead of deflating, she looked determined. Weary, but determined. "No wonder hardly anyone can do it."

 _Hardly anyone has slain a Basilisk, either_ , he thought, but he didn't say it. It would be too close to praise, and he didn't do praise. It didn't suit him.

He groped for a piece of reading on the table next to his chair and, finding something that seemed plausibly legible, opened it. It was a knitting catalog. The hell? This had to be Dumbledore's, but he had no idea why it was in his room.

"Hermione bought me Travel Scrabble for my birthday," the girl said, apropos of nothing, "but I haven't got to play it yet."

"And yet you've survived admirably," Snape said, throwing the knitting catalog away.

"Have you ever played?" she asked.

That actually made him look at her, though he didn't have the slightest idea what to say. She stared expectantly back.

"Want to play Scrabble?" she asked, in a tone that suggested if he was going to be that way, she would ask outright.

When he just kept staring, at an absolute loss for words, she said, "Or hangman or something? Have you got cards? I'm rubbish at chess."

"You want to . . . play Scrabble," he said, feeling like she'd asked him something very different and he'd had to translate for the last thirty seconds.

"Yeah," she said.

He pressed his fingers over the crease between his eyebrows. This had to be a fucking joke. Not from her, but certainly from life, or the creator, or whatever force propelled the rightness and lunacy of the universe.

"If I endure one game, will you find something to do on your own?"

"Okay," she said happily. "Wait here?"

He grunted. Seemingly deciding she wouldn't get any plainer assent than that, she dashed away.

He looked at Lily's photograph. He'd been going to say, "Your child is peculiar indeed if she's voluntarily seeking my company." But the photograph was staring where the girl had stood, a look of yearning grief on its face, so powerful it transformed her into someone he didn't quite recognize, because he had never seen Lily look like that.

For the space of a heartbeat, he thought about removing the invisibility spells from the frame. The girl would see it—she always stared owlishly at Severus's things, each time she came, even though he never had anything new around—and she'd surely ask to touch it. He could almost picture her happiness, the photograph's multiplied joy.

And he could certainly hear the questions it would raise. He had no desire to answer those questions. He couldn't answer them. Not even to make these last pieces of Lily happy.

But for the first time, he almost wished he could bear it.

\--

Harriet scrambled through her trunk and chucking socks around willy-nilly (though careful of the Sneakoscope Ginny and Ron had sent her for her birthday, along with the newspaper clipping of them on holiday), until she found the game stuffed underneath her schoolbooks. She'd not yet taken the plastic off. Then she dashed back to Snape's rooms, feeling triumphant at finding the door still unlocked.

Her triumph was slightly dented to find Snape in the exact place she'd left him, reading through his boring-looking papers and clearly intending to be as un-fun as possible. She was reminded of Ron when Hermione suggested he start his homework early, or of Hermione when Harriet tried to wheedle her into flying. It figured Snape would hate playing games.

"Okay," she said a few minutes later. "I set it up."

Acting very put upon, Snape set his reading aside and came resignedly into the room where she always ate her dinner, and where she'd laid out the game on his messy table. She'd been very careful to arrange his moldy old journals to the side so they wouldn't fall over.

"It's Muggle—" she started to explain.

"I know what Scrabble is, Miss Potter." He was eying the table as though what she'd really brought was a pile of Hedwig's owl droppings.

"You're going to make really long and hard words and win as fast as possible, I bet," Harriet said, starting to feel resigned along with him.

"Seeing as I'm allowed only seven tiles at one time and the game is only over when the tiles are all gone, I don't think that strategy would be particularly effective." He paused, then said, half under his breath, "Pity."

Harriet chose to ignore this spoil-sporty spirit. As if Snape had soured the game against her, though, she wound up with three Y's, a D, a Z, an X, and a G.

"Crap," she said.

"No better than chess, hm?" Snape said, and spelled _morbid._

It was a lot like playing chess—with Ron, who repeatedly trounced her and always won in an embarrassingly few minutes. Snape got triple word scores without even trying, and Harriet was stuck with her stupid X. He came up with words too quickly, too, while Harriet was hard-pressed to think of even simple words like "chimp." And when she did think of it, she realized she didn't have a P.

"I don't know why Hermione got me this game," Harriet grumbled as she struggled to add up Snape's score. (Hers was about twenty-five, his somewhere around two hundred and thirty.)

"You forgot to carry the one," Snape said.

Harriet dejectedly scratched out 230 and wrote 240. "Unless it was because she wanted to use it to get back at Ron for always flattening her at chess. And then Seamus and Dean sit around and cheer whenever his players smash hers. Or mine."

"You're their superior at Qudditch, Miss Granger at academics," Snape said with a bored sigh in his voice. "You can't expect adolescent boys to be inferior _and_ mature."

Harriet had no idea what to make of this. Was he being serious or mocking her? She decided she'd probably never know (though the mocking seemed more likely, since it was Snape). She looked at the new tiles she'd pulled. An A and an M. "Ooh. . . "

"Xanthum?" Snape read as she beamed at the board.

"It's a word. It's used in shampoo and salad dressing and stuff."

"Xanthum gum," he said, and she wasn't sure whether to be disappointed that she hadn't stumped him or relieved because he knew it and couldn't argue the realness of her word. "You haven't any 'gum.'"

"So?" she said defiantly, adding the slightly more impressive score—double word points!—to her pitiful twenty-five. "Xanthum gum is two words, and I got one of them. It counts."

Someone tapped on the door. Snape raised his voice: "Yes, what?"

Professor Dumbledore opened the door, wearing a long traveling cloak. It was the first time Harriet had seen him since he'd left the Grangers' house on her birthday. The electric blue suit was gone, replaced with robes that might once have been a startling purple, but they were so soaked it was hard to tell. He must have just returned from Sirius Black-hunting, and he clearly hadn't been expecting to see what he was now seeing, because his somewhat tired expression changed to one of pure surprise.

"Severus," he stated. "Harriet. A very good evening to you both." He looked curiously at the Scrabble board. "Is that a game of sorts?" he asked with even more surprise.

"It's Scrabble," Harriet said, blushing.

"Miss Potter has been experiencing persistent and incurable boredom," Snape said, folding his arms, "which she thought this might alleviate."

"Ah." Dumbledore smiled, but for some reason Harriet felt obscurely guilty, like she'd been caught doing something . . . not exactly wrong, but . . . inappropriate, maybe. She had no idea what it could be, though. "In that case, I hate to have to interrupt you both, let alone spoil your game, but I'm afraid I find myself constrained by circumstance."

"It's almost finished," Snape said, arms still folded.

"I'm afraid it cannot wait," Dumbledore said. There was apology in his voice, but something else seemed to be going on between him and Snape, some kind of silent and untranslatable communication.

"It's all right," Harriet said, scooping the tile holders and the score pad into the box and snapping the board shut. "It's for traveling, so you can put it away and . . . it's fine, I'll go."

"Thank you, my dear," Dumbledore said, smiling like she'd done him an enormous favor.

She smiled back awkwardly, strangely embarrassed, and said, even more awkwardly to Snape, "Thanks. G'nite, then," and left, wondering why she hadn't felt embarrassed or awkward for roping Snape into playing Scrabble with her until someone else saw she'd done it.

She tossed the game onto her bed and rolled down next to it. For a few moments she stared up at the ceiling. Then she sighed.

"Now I'm bloody bored again."

\--

When the door shut behind the girl, Dumbledore did not immediately speak. He watched her go, and then he looked at Severus, who started re-positioning the rubbish on the table the girl had nudged aside to make room for the game board. She had done it very carefully, lining up his stacks of moldering old journals in straight rows.

The air was thick with surprise verging on disapproval, wafted in by Dumbledore. It made Severus's teeth ache. For once he'd been humoring the silly girl, and Dumbledore was going to act like a Sunday school preacher about it.

"Scrabble?" Dumbledore said eventually.

"It's a Muggle word came," Severus replied at his most sneering. "A birthday present from Miss Granger," he added in a tone designed to mock the way the girl had said it.

"I'm very surprised to see you playing it with her," Dumbledore said, so plainly that Severus actually stared at him. It wasn't like Dumbledore to cut this close to the chase.

"You haven't had the persistent brat on hand for the past two weeks, constantly lamenting how bored she is. It's been driving me up the wall. Short of sedating her, I had run out of ways to get rid of her."

"It isn't like you to be kind," Dumbledore pointed out, which was the exact truth and for some reason was fucking annoying. In any typical conversation, he would only be this annoyed for Dumbledore's suggesting he was being kind; but just now, he was inexplicably offended at the implication that he couldn't suppress his repulsive urges long enough to play a single bloody game of Scrabble. (Though it had taken aeons, while the girl chewed on her scoring pencil and agonized over her word choices.)

"Call it a moment of storm-sent madness," he ground out. Then he decided to cut to the chase. "Unless you're implying that I was setting up a seduction scheme to entrap a thirteen-year-old girl—in which case you had better sack me right now, if you believe I'd do any such bloody thing—and with someone who can't even spell 'chimp' correctly—I wish you'd get out what you want to say. I've plenty of things to do now that I'm not stuck playing a never-ending sodding game of Scrabble."

"Severus, I'm implying no such thing," Dumbledore said, looking truly astonished.

"No?"

"No," he said, quite firm. "But you must admit she is getting very near the age where such . . . tête-à-têtes are verging on impropriety."

"If you really thought that, you wouldn't have made me Head of Slytherin. I've had _tête-à-têtes_ with girls that age and older for the past twelve years, and you've never breathed a word of whatever shock your sensibilities have just suffered."

"Conferencing is part of your duties as Head," Dumbledore said. "I've never heard of you . . . relaxing with any of your students before, however."

"You've absolutely no concept," he said incredulously, "if you think that was in any way relaxing. It was tedious and insipid. Miss Potter has a vocabulary and spelling that would make Rowena Ravenclaw turn in her grave, and she's entirely incapable of thinking without chewing on something."

Dumbledore looked at him with something so like exasperation that Severus almost didn't believe what his eyes were telling him. All the times spent in effort to ruffle Dumbledore, turning every trick in his considerable arsenal of personal habits that could've pissed off the Pope and never visibly succeeding, he now managed it without actively trying?

"I can't help thinking you're being deliberately obtuse, Severus," Dumbledore said. "But," he went on before Severus could vent his indignation, "I know you're intelligent enough to understand me, so we shall leave it there. How does Remus's potion come along? He thought you were both making progress, but with his lamentable Potions expertise, he said, he was wary of asserting more than that."

"Idiot," Severus said, transferring his annoyance with Dumbledore to thoughts of Lupin. "I told him we're still testing. How did he fail to understand that?"

"Forgive me," Dumbledore said. "It was two days ago now that he and I exchanged letters. I've only just returned."

"Yes, the cloak tipped me off," he said acidly, but Dumbledore's equanimity had returned and he only smiled.

"So everything is, as the Muggles say, ship-shape then?"

"As it can be. Lupin and I have . . . talked . . . " Severus didn't try to stop his lip from curling. "And he agrees he needs to transform in a safe location for this first trial."

Dumbledore regarded him over the tops of his spectacles. "Do you not trust the potion?" he asked. "Or the man?"

Anger prickled through Severus's blood and he stared back, but Dumbledore was not an easy man to intimidate with any amount of fury.

"You know my opinion on the werewolf," he said. Disapproval surfaced in Dumbledore's gaze, but he ignored it. "As to the potion, I trust nothing until I've seen its affects firsthand. Lupin has never taken it before, and abnormalities are just as likely among werewolves as among humans."

"Werewolves are humans, Severus," Dumbledore said, the disapproval strong enough to hear quite clearly.

"No," Severus said, "they aren't. Call them people if you like, but this potion proves that they are, in fact, categorically separate. This potion wouldn't work on a human nervous system except as a quick and deadly poison. Allow that I know more about this subject than you do," he said impatiently when Dumbledore only continued to stare at him with that palpable censure. "I do not dispute that you are a genius in many areas, if not most, but I do know more about this one potion, at least, than you do."

"I'm quite sure you know more about every potion than I do," Dumbledore said candidly. "It is an area in which you are, indisputably, a genius. But I do not like your letting your personal feelings about Remus transfer into prejudice toward those affected with his condition—"

"It isn't prejudice," Severus retorted with a flash of molten anger, "it is scientifically sound."

"That is what pure-bloods say about Muggle-borns," Dumbledore said, but if that reply was designed to assuage Severus's anger, it failed pathetically.

"It is entirely possible there is a genetic difference between pure-bloods and Muggles," Severus said sharply, "the same way it's entirely possible there's a genetic difference between a concert pianist and someone who's as tone deaf as a rock—the same way the Wolfsbane's effect on werewolves suggests there's a material difference between a person affected with lycanthropy and you."

"Of course there's a difference, Severus, but a difference doesn't spell a lack of humanity—"

"I am not saying werewolves are subhuman, I'm saying they're—forget it," he snarled, "I'm not remotely in the mood to debate this. I am brewing Lupin's prophylactic, which by all rights should poison him to death, not simply sedate him, and he's agreed to my conditions for the students' safety. That is all. If you've nothing further to accuse me of, you might get on and leave me to finish up my work."

But Dumbledore didn't move. "I know it's difficult for you," he said at last, sounding, contrary to Severus's every expectation, understanding. "Having Remus here, and Sirius Black out there. But if you—"

Severus didn't wait for him to finish. He strode into the next room and slammed the door.

He stood there, breathing harshly, the oppressive force of his anger pressing obliterating silence on his ears. If Dumbledore moved in the next room, Severus didn't hear.

It wasn't until almost a full minute had gone by that he at last heard Dumbledore's rustling step, and the outer door swinging softly shut behind him.


	21. Dog Days of Summer: Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The line "I didn't understand anything except the commas" is adapted from something similar that Buffy said during Season 3 of BtVS.

The next morning, Professor Dumbledore visited Harriet in her own room, conjuring a rich and enormous breakfast on a curly-footed golden table he magicked into existence.

"I imagine you'd like to be free of these walls for a little while," he said as Harriet was overwhelmed by a spread of croissants, kippers, sausages, fried tomatoes and eggs, and stacks of jellied toast. Snape had always fed her some variation of hot cereal or muesli. "Growing bodies need nourishment as well as fresh air."

Harriet thought of the drizzling rain, the thick mist and the Dementors, which she still hadn't seen except in the pages of those ancient books. Still, she said, "Yes, sir," because she was bored, and somehow she knew Snape wasn't going to play Scrabble with her again.

"Splendid, splendid." Professor Dumbledore beamed. "What do you say to a spot of flying after breakfast?"

The words _Did Professor Snape say that was okay?_ pushed to the tip of her tongue, but of course she didn't say them. She wasn't even sure if she'd have been joking or not. It wasn't that she thought Professor Dumbledore would make her stay inside if Snape didn't like her going out; it was that she didn't want Snape to rupture anything.

"Shall we meet in the Entrance Hall in, oh, an hour? Would that suit you, my dear?"

"Yes, sir," Harriet said again, through a jangle of confusion. Why did she need to meet him to go flying?

He left her to finish her breakfast. She hurried through it so she could finish yesterday's letter to Hermione before she went out. She'd thought about writing after her aborted game of Scrabble, but found she somehow didn't want to. Now, though, she was full of questions and writing them to Hermione (who would be sure to answer every single one) made her feel more centered. It was like Hermione's zeal for organizing.

By the time she'd wrapped up the letter and hunted through the mess she'd made of her room looking for her broom, she was feeling much more cheerful, even a little excited. She hadn't been flying since term had ended. Maybe if she tried casting the Patronus right after she'd flown, she would be able to recall that feeling of freedom strong enough to make it.

Snape's door was shut, no light behind it. Maybe he was in his lab.

When she trooped upstairs to the Entrance Hall, she found Professor Dumbledore deep in conversation with an unfamiliar man. _The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?_ she wondered, looking hard at him.

He didn't look like much, to be honest, but in all fairness neither did she. In fact, she looked like less than not-much. At least this man was fully grown, however thin and lined, with silver-flecked brown hair. An air of tiredness hung about him, and his robes were shabby and patched (but Harriet had made do all her life with clothes that Aunt Petunia begrudgingly bought her from Oxfam, which were always hideously ugly and never fit properly, and had led to Hermione's parents giving her several sets of nice clothes for her birthday).

As she stepped up into the Hall, the Probably Defense Professor looked over at her, and Harriet thought he maybe wasn't so tired after all. His expression was alert, his eyes intelligent, and although Lavender and Parvati would never in a million years build a magazine cut-out shrine to him, she thought there was something rather pleasant about him.

"Ah," Professor Dumbledore said, as though deeply content to see her again. "Exactly punctual. Harriet, allow me to introduce Professor Lupin, your Defense professor for this year. Professor, though she scarcely needs an introduction, this is Harriet Potter."

She'd much rather Professor Dumbledore had left out any allusions to her fame; it was embarrassing, and she wasn't able to say, "Pleased to meet you," as well as she would have without it.

But Professor Lupin only smiled, almost like they were old friends, and said, "The pleasure's mine," and shook her hand. It probably should have made her feel silly, but it didn't. In fact, she thought it was the best introduction she'd had since coming into a world where she was extremely, bewilderingly, undeservedly famous. It made her feel quite grown up.

"Excellent, quite excellent." Professor Dumbledore smiled somewhere in his beard, like they were two favorite grandchildren he'd finally arranged to meet each other. "I hope it doesn't inconvenience you too terribly, Harriet my dear, but I thought it best if Professor Lupin kept you company while you're outside—Hogwarts being what it must, this year."

Sirius Black. Dementors. Harriet's fledgling contentment evaporated like cotton candy in a blast furnace. "Yes, sir," she said. She supposed it didn't make much sense as a reply, but it was all she had.

"I hope you don't mind my not flying with you," Professor Lupin said, smiling down at her. "I have a history of nearly breaking my neck every time I get on a broom."

"No, it's fine," Harriet said. She hadn't expected to have any kind of company, let alone the airborne sort, and flying with a teacher would have been too odd.

"Then I'll leave you two to it. I hope you have a delightful time," Professor Dumbledore said to her, and then swept away.

Harriet felt awkward, standing there alone with a stranger, and one who was a teacher on top of that. But if Professor Lupin picked up on it, he didn't show her. Instead, he smiled again and opened one of the front doors.

"I'm afraid I can only spare the morning," he said as they stepped out onto the front steps, which were slick with foggy humidity, the air solid in Harriet's lungs. "Though we might not want to give it more in this." He peered into the hazy distance, where the mist rolling in from the lake blotted out the trees again today, just as they had done yesterday, just as they'd done since she got here two weeks ago. He glanced down at her, faintly smiling. "I'll leave it to you to decide. It's your outing, after all."

Harriet only nodded, not quite knowing how to talk to him. Maybe it was because she was used to talking to Snape, who bossed her around. She usually had something to reply to that.

Professor Lupin put out his palm, and breathed out once into his hand, long and slow. Blue flames sprouted up with tiny shapes inside them, flickering and leaping over each other. At least, that's what they looked like, though she'd hadn't seen or heard of such a thing before.

"What's that?" she asked, leaning forward to get a better look.

"Friendfyre," he said, in such a way that she could hear the old-fashioned spelling. "It creates warmth but doesn't burn—not painfully, I mean. If I were to drop it in the grass, the grass wouldn't even singe. And it'll stay lit until I cast the charm to put it out." He held it out to her, and passed his fingers through it for emphasis. "See?"

Harriet put her hand against the flames. They were intensely warm, but not uncomfortable, and tickled her finger when she poked it along the top. "Wicked."

"The only problem is, they must be held," Professor Lupin said as they walked down the steps, circling across the damp grass toward the Quidditch pitch. "They wither almost to nothing if you try and put them in a jar."

"What are the shapes in them?" Harriet peered closer. "They look like faces."

"Sprites," Professor Lupin said. "This fire is technically sentient—in a magical sense."

"Could I learn it?" Harriet asked, sure he would surely say it was too advanced for her.

But he only smiled. "You could always try."

Professor Lupin sat in the stands with his Friendfyre cupped in his hands while Harriet dived and looped around the goal rings. She wished she had a Snitch to play with.

Even without other teammates, without any competitors, any game, it felt wonderful to fly again. She was sure it felt as wonderful this time as it had the first, when she'd risen into the air so naturally she thought, _This is magic, this right here._

She couldn't have flown at the Grangers', she told herself. It didn't make up, though, for having such a miserably lonely holiday. Maybe this wasn't strong enough a feeling to cast a Patronus, then.

Still, she was going to try. She'd try to cast the Patronus now, up here, with the memory of flying so recent in her heart. She wouldn't think about being alone; she would do what Snape had said, and put it out of her mind. _Just think about flying._

Closing her eyes, she tried to push every thought away, tried to make her mind a blank space. Taking a deep breath, she went into a shallow dive, pulled up, and shot off. The feeling of soaring filled her; she imagined it was a tangible thing, one she could wrap around her and turn into magic.

And then an image bled into her mind: the image of a streaming black cloak, a flesh-rotting hand curling in a skeletal claw.

A feeling of cold—of fear—pulsed through her. She banked again. Were they near? She'd still never seen one. Snape said they haunted the gates. She scanned over the dark tops of the forest, looking for a scrap of cloak drifting through the midst, bringing the cold and the sound. . . the sound of. . .

But what she saw instead was curl of smoke rising out of Hagrid's chimney.

With a whoop of excitement, she shot toward his hut.

When she landed on the damp, squelchy grass outside his house, she found he was out. His door was unlocked, but she didn't see him anywhere inside or out in his garden. And it wasn't like there were many things around he could hide behind.

"Hagrid?" she called over the sloping, cheerfully untidy rows of carrots and cabbages, all entirely Hagrid-less. There was no answer, not even from the raven that watched her haughtily from its perch on the scarecrow.

 _Must be grounds-keeping_ , she thought, and had just swung her leg back over the broom to go looking for him when she saw the dog.

It was the biggest dog she'd ever seen—or at least the tallest. Though it was almost as tall as she was, weight-wise it was all shaggy, matted black fur and bones. It looked starved half to death, like it had lived a lot worse than sleeping in a cupboard.

Even ignoring its zombie-dog appearance, though, it was surprising to see a stray on Hogwarts' grounds; she never had before. In fact, Fang was the only dog she'd ever seen at school. Loads of cats and owls and even a couple of toads, but never a dog. She'd heard of Crups, but she'd thought they were much smaller and had forked tails.

The dog had been standing on the edge of the forest where the trees met the grounds when she first saw it, but now it folded back its ears and lay down, putting its head on its front paws, and made a whimpering, whining noise. It even wagged its tail—weakly, barely more than a twitch, but it was clearly intended for a wag.

"You look hungry," Harriet said, and then felt stupid, even though it was a dog and it couldn't understand her; of course it looked hungry. Hadn't she just been thinking it looked starved into zombiehood?

It whined again.

"Guess I'll have to start carrying steak in my pocket." She dismounted her broom again and stepped over Hagrid's cabbages carefully toward the dog. It didn't seem mad or dangerous, though. In fact, it wag-twitched its tail some more, and when she was close enough that she could have petted it, it rolled onto his side, which is when she saw it was a he, definitely.

"Poor doggy." Harriet scratched behind his ears. They were caked with dirt. "I wonder if Hagrid's got something you can—what?"

The dog had been lying peacefully, flopping his tail; but suddenly he scrambled up, a growl rumbling the back of his throat, his ears flattening, and then he scrambled back into the underbrush and was gone.

Harriet was stumped for a few moments, until she heard the crunch of someone approaching, and looked up to see Professor Lupin pelting across the green.

Oh, crap. She'd completely forgotten.

"I'm sorry!" she said before he'd even skidded to a halt, kicking up mud. "I saw Hagrid's chimney smoking and I just forgot, I'm sorry."

"Well, it got my heart rate up," he said, hardly out of breath at all. "All the same, I'd rather run with you than after you."

"I'm sorry," she repeated, thinking that Snape would've given her fifty detentions and probably sworn at her.

"There's no harm done—but let's not repeat the experiment." He checked his wristwatch. "We've still got a bit longer we can stay out here before I have to meet Severus. . ."

"You're meeting Professor Snape?" she asked curiously. "What for?"

Snape would have said something like, "When that's your business, I'll let you know." It _was_ a very nosy question, and she almost apologized and took it back; but she was so astonished and curious that she didn't really want to.

But Professor Lupin only said easily, "He's brewing something for me. One of the conditions of my employment. I hear this job has a very high turnover rate." His eyes were bright with amusement, but Harriet had developed an instinct for telling when grown-ups were not being entirely truthful, and that instinct was whispering to her now. But she only nodded, because it had been a very nosy question. When she considered it, she thought she was lucky he hadn't been offended.

"We can go inside if you need to see him now," she said by way of a peace offering.

"It's not for a—"

But then he stopped, turning his head to the side and narrowing his eyes. In a movement so slight she almost didn't see him do it, he had his wand in his hand. Heartbeat kicking up, she groped in her pocket for hers, looking the same direction he was. She could hear it too, now—a crashing, from something very large moving through the trees—

Hagrid appeared from the forest on the other side of his vegetable patch, carrying what looked like a bouquet of dead ferrets (eurgh). Professor Lupin exhaled, so quietly Harriet almost didn't hear.

"Harry!" Hagrid said happily, knocking leaves and twigs out of his beard and hair. "Professer Dumbledore told me yeh was here early." He glanced at Professor Lupin, and then did a double-take. "Remus Lupin? S'tha' you?"

"Last I checked," Professor Lupin said, sounding amused. "I won't ask the same of you. I don't think you've changed at all. Even the beard looks the same."

"A bit more tangled, 's'all," Hagrid said, and leaned over to clap Professor Lupin on the back. He almost knocked him face-first into the cabbages. Just the fact that Professor Lupin managed to stay upright told Harriet he was a lot stronger than he looked. Her back winced in sympathy just watching.

"What were you doing in the forest?" Harriet asked curiously. "With. . . " She eyed the ferrets. "Have you got another—pet?"

"Ahh, well. . . " Hagrid looked a bit shifty but pleased with himself. He toyed with the end of his beard. "No harm in tellin' yeh, I s'pose, though I wanted it ter be a surprise—but I s'pose it'll be a surprise anyhow. I'm gonna be yer new Care of Magical Creatures professer."

"What?" Harriet yelped as a grin started. "That's fantastic!" She threw her arms around his waist, or what she could reach of it, which wasn't much. Hagrid patted her on the back, which made her sink ankle-deep in the mushy ground. "No wonder you sent me a biting book! But what were you doing in the forest?"

"Preparin' for me first lesson. You want ter see 'em?"

"Yeah!"

\--

"What—what are they?" Harriet said, not sure whether to be awed or nervous.

"Hippogriffs," Hagrid said happily.

"Oh, my," said Professor Lupin, stopping some feet back from the paddock Hagrid had built on the other end of the wide clearing.

There were at least half a dozen of them, each one a cross between an eagle and some kind of horse, and all different colors. Their eyes, though, were all the same: blazing orange-gold, like a tiger's, with fierce, slitted pupils. They had to turn their heads to look at her and Hagrid, since their eyes were on either side of their faces, but one fiery golden eye was enough to see at once. Harriet thought they were surely the proudest creatures she'd ever met.

"Aren' they beautiful?" Hagrid said, gazing adoringly at the pack of hippogriffs, much the same way he'd looked at Norbert. Harriet supposed they were quite beautiful in a dangerous way, the way wild tigers were beautiful.

She glanced at Professor Lupin to see what he thought of them, but he merely looked thoughtful. He was standing exactly where he'd stopped on first seeing what was in the paddock, some twenty feet back at least.

"Wan' ter say hello?" Hagrid said, looking so eager that Harriet couldn't say no, even though she didn't really want to say yes. Snape would be pleased to know she did have some instincts of self-preservation.

"I'll wait here," Professor Lupin said mildly. Hagrid turned to look at him in surprise, and then something in his face—what little of it was visible between beard and hair—changed.

"Righ'," he said, nodding, suddenly serious. "S'a good idea."

A dozen more nosy questions crowded into Harriet's brain, but she let them go. Professor Lupin didn't look scared, but sometimes you couldn't tell. Maybe he was allergic.

In their paddock, the hippogriffs tossed their heads, looking immeasurably proud.

Reaching over the gate, Hagrid unlocked the paddock and shuffled in, motioning her along. "Now," he said, "the thing ter known about hippogriffs is tha' they're proud. You got ter earn their respect or they'll—well, see the claws?"

Harriet certainly did. They were talons longer than her hand. She swallowed. Snape would've grabbed her by the scruff of her jacket and dragged her off before letting her within fifty feet of a single claw.

"Not poisoned or anythin'," Hagrid said, "but they bite deep. So yer want to be careful."

"Yes," Harriet said feelingly.

"The thing ter do is bow. Look 'im in the eye—don' look away, makes yeh seem untrustworthy, an' they don' like that. Then yeh wait till they bow back. When they do, it's safe ter get closer."

"And . . . if they don't?"

"Well—yeh've got good reflexes," Hagrid said. "Here, let's try with Buckbeak."

\--

Remus stood back against the trees, a spell on the tip of his wand to drag Harriet back if the hippogriffs seemed in any way ruffled. She looked nervous but determined—to go forward, and not to show any nervousness. Lily would probably hex his head on backwards for allowing her into that paddock. James, too. Once when Sirius had accidentally dropped her on the bed, James had just about had a conniption.

 _They'd certainly hex you for keeping quiet about Sirius_ , Conscience said with cold disgust. It still hadn't forgiven him for writing Albus three letters and not a single line about a big, black dog.

At half past eleven, Remus left Harriet stroking Buckbeak's feathers and headed back to the castle for his meeting with Severus. He was positive that Dumbledore would approve of Hagrid as a bodyguard. Human spells had very little effect on part-giants, and although Hagrid could feel Dementors, he could also theoretically rip one in half with his bare hands. Besides, if Sirius had enough wits to escape from Azkaban, he was unlikely to attack Harriet in the company of a half-giant and a herd of hippogriffs.

Still, he sent his Patronus on to Dumbledore to report where he'd left Harriet, before descending into the shadowed chill of the dungeons.

Years ago, the Marauders had decided the dungeons were a perfect fit for anyone creepy enough to be Sorted into Slytherin. It was stranger to see a Slytherin in broad daylight than to catch them skulking where it was dark and twisty and gave you the collywobbles. Naturally, the Marauders had enjoyed going where it was dark and twisty and gave them the collywobbles, but they were Gryffindors, magical purveyors of mischief; it was an adventure, not a place where they'd belonged. That had been the thrill: along with the possibility of crossing paths with a Slytherin and fighting your way free of evil. They hadn't even cared too much when the dungeons proved unmappable by any spell, remaining a mostly blank place on the map, except for the top corridor where the Potions classroom and professor's office lay.

Sometimes Remus longed for the naïve simplicity of those days, when every good thing had seemed possible and bad things came only from the enemy. Knowing better was one lesson in growing up: a moment when you realized it was better to stay young.

The dungeons were somehow still eerie. He could tell they were chilly, though his permanently elevated body temperature meant he only felt the dampness in the air, not the cold. His way was lit by flickering torches, their wavering light creating an ebb and flow of shadow, and no matter where he turned, he heard the intermittent drip . . . drip . . . of water.

"You took your time," was Snape's genial greeting when Remus knocked on his laboratory's open door.

Ah, yes: Snape.

"I don't remember the dungeons as well as I used to," Remus said, smiling because he knew it would annoy Snape. It certainly had at the gates, and Snape's temper patterns had always been too predictable. "I'm quite sure I've never been down this way before." He looked around the array of cauldrons, all neatly in a row and smoking above magical fires that glowed an eerie green. "You haven't got a mad scientist streak, have you?"

"Stop trying to be clever," Snape said, "or witty, or charming, or whatever that is, and," he levitated a beaker at Remus so sharply, it almost hit him between the eyes, "swallow this."

"Thanks, I'd love a drink," Remus said under his breath, though from the way Snape's glare intensified, he must have the hearing of an ocelot.

Unfortunately, Remus breathed in as he went to down the beaker, and almost dropped it when his whole body revolted against the smell. "Good Lord, what's in here?"

"The Wolfsbane, idiot," Snape said. "I need to see if you've an allergic reaction."

"Does vomiting count?" Remus asked plainly.

"Not from the smell or the taste. Only if it goes down and comes back up later. Drink it or I'll force it down you. I haven't got all day."

"Cheers." Remus held his nose and chugged. It did almost come back up. He was sure his esophagus shuddered. "God," he said hoarsely, wanting to pull out his tongue and scrub it. But now that the gunk was down, and though he felt queasy, it seemed to be staying down.

He opened his eyes to see that Snape was eying him as though resigned to the fact that Remus was probably about to spew all over his tidy lair. "Seems to be staying put," Remus said, if a trifle unsteadily.

"Sensations?" Snape said curtly.

"Queasiness," Remus said with feeling.

"Any tingling or numbness?"

Remus thought about it. "My throat feels a bit odd." He massaged it and coughed experimentally. "A kind of tickle. Might be a tingle." He hoped they weren't going to be the last words he ever uttered.

Snape made a note in some kind of moleskin journal. "Anything in your extremities?"

Remus wiggled fingers and toes. "None so far."

Snape made a final scratch in his journal, then shut it on his quill and turned to one of the cauldrons, which he stirred with the air of a man who was going to ignore Remus until he needed something from him again.

"What does it mean?" Remus asked politely. "The tingling. Or the queasiness. Or both, if it comes to that."

"Do you know anything useful about this potion?" Snape asked without turning, and equally without any suggestion in his voice of thinking Remus had a brain.

"If you mean did I read the findings, yes, I did. If you mean did I understand a word of them—only the commas. Everything else was much too specialized for someone of my thorough non-expertise."

Snape glanced at him with patent disgust—from looking at Remus, or from contemplating Potions skills so wretched, perhaps. Remus smiled at him.

"Wolfsbane contains large amounts of aconite," Snape said in a voice of practiced insult. "You do know aconite is a poison, I hope?"

"Mmm," Remus said mildly. "Particularly lethal to werewolves."

"Aconite numbs," Snape said. "Hence the tingling in your throat. Taken internally, it paralyzes the circulatory, respiratory and nervous systems, resulting in death in most warm-blooded animals. This potion," he waved his stirring rod at the row of smoking cauldrons, "is a werewolf sedative. Belby's theory is that if the werewolf is sedated, the human mind can regain control over the body."

Remus massaged his throat, considering.

"The potion is, on its simplest level, a balance of ingredients that allows the aconite to sedate the werewolf without poisoning the body. It has no recorded analgesic qualities. In fact, the werewolves who have participated in the studies—"

"—have said that remaining conscious through the whole transformation is worse than letting the transformation subsume them," Remus finished calmly. "Those studies I did read and understand."

"Yes." Snape's face showed no pity. "I am having to adjust Belby's measurements. The man is an ass. He made no provision for variance in body mass. His tests gave the same dosage of aconite to a hundred pound girl as to a two hundred and eighty pound man. No wonder it took him thirteen years to develop even a provisional prophylactic."

"I'm about one-fifty," Remus supplied. "And . . . I do think I'm about to be ill. You don't have anything I could be sick into, by any chance?"

\--

Two hours later (Snape would only give him one dose per hour), Remus was nursing one of Snape's old, empty cauldrons after a third dose that had come immediately back up, when Snape suddenly barked: "Miss Potter!"

Remus managed not to upset the cauldron when Snape shouted, but then barely managed not to laugh when Harriet appeared in the open doorway covered in what James would have eloquently labeled "yuck."

"Yes?" she asked, looking far less scared of Snape than Remus had felt a couple of times in the last two hours. "Oh, hello," she said to Remus, with a slight smile. She rubbed absently at her cheek, smudging yuck across it.

"What have you been doing?" Snape demanded to know, while Remus, trying not to laugh or be sick again, did not trust himself to respond to her greeting verbally.

"I fell into Hagrid's compost heap," Harriet said with calm dignity.

"I thought you were going flying," Snape said, narrowing his eyes like he'd caught her out at some wrongdoing. Then he transferred the look to Remus. "And I thought it was only so long as _he_ ," the obscenity was implicit in the tone, "was with you."

"I was, but then I was helping Hagrid," Harriet said—quite reasonably, Remus thought, considering Snape was acting like, well, himself. He hadn't changed very that much more than Hagrid had, except that now he dressed like Dracula.

"Hagrid's compost heap is at least six feet tall," Snape persisted. "How did you fall into it?"

"I was flying." (Remus choked on a laugh. Snape either didn't hear or was ignoring him in favor of staring unblinkingly at Harriet.) "And I think there's a rotten peach just slid down the back of my jumper. Can I go have a bath now?"

Snape waved her irritably away. "Bye," she said to Remus, and left, grimacing and wiggling the back of her mucky jumper.

Snape stared at the spot where Harriet had stood, his forbidding eyebrows knitted together over the crag of his even more forbidding nose.

"Nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition," Remus murmured.

"Shut up, Lupin," Snape said without looking at him.

"I'm sure Harriet is ruminating on the sins of falling into compost heaps," Remus said reassuringly. "Have you ever had a bit of rotten peach down your shirt? I haven't, but I had a bit of cucumber, once—"

"She was concealing something," Snape said, continuing to eye the spot where Harriet had stood, as if he could still see her there, misbehaving.

Remus blinked. "You think she was lying about falling into the compost pile."

"I said concealing, not lying," Snape said, searing him with a why-are-you-too-criminally-stupid-to-understand-the-nuance look. "And you've gone green. I shan't give you any more today. The aconite has likely built up in your system now. We won't get anywhere else today, or until you recover, so bugger off."

"Now, Severus, surely you enjoyed poisoning me? On some level."

"If I were to poison you deliberately, Lupin," Snape said, baring his teeth slightly, "my preferred method would not be suffering your company whilst doing it. Aconite doesn't affect your hearing, so I assume you heard me tell you to bugger off, though why you're still here—"

"Always a pleasure, Severus," Remus said genially and left, feeling stirrings of honest amusement.

Despite the poisoning, it hadn't been such a bad morning at all.

\--

Harriet wallowed in her bath for a while, scrubbing all of the compost out of her hair, until the water started to feel like a cool drink on a hot day. She dressed shivering in the chill, and then, hungry, walked the six feet to Snape's rooms.

There was a note pinned to the door, with _Miss Potter_ written on front.

_You're eating dinner in your room from now on. Sit at your table and say "dinner."_

And that was it. No "hello" or "you miserable brat" or "see you later." She wasn't that surprised, but on some level it was always a bit startling how Snape was always so very . . . Snape. Even when he was doing something technically nice, like seeing you were fed, he was rude about it.

And why was she suddenly eating in her room now? Had he loathed Scrabble that much?

Puzzling it over, she wandered back into her room, sat at the table Dumbledore had conjured earlier, and said, "Dinner, please." A covered platter appeared: a filet of baked salmon, citrus rice, a spinach salad, and iced custard for dessert. More Snape food. She'd noticed how the food she ate in his room was usually vegetarian, with only fish if there had to be meat, and very healthy. It was awfully different from the food the house-elves served all the rest of the year, and from what Professor Dumbledore had fed her that morning. She wondered if Snape ordered these healthy meals himself.

She left her door open so she'd know when Snape returned, and was polishing off the custard when she finally heard him. He rustled on by without acknowledging her open door, went into his own room, and shut his door so firmly it was just shy of a bang.

A Hermione-like voice in her head said that she should probably stay put. Of course, she didn't listen to it. She pushed her plates away and stood, letting them wink out of existence.

She knocked on Snape's door.

After a very long time, he pulled the door open just enough for her to see his face and eyed her narrowly. She thought of the hippogriffs, fierce and proud and with talons that could slice your belly open.

"What is it?" he asked in no very welcoming tone.

"Hello," she said, emphatically deciding not to tell him about the hippogriffs. She didn't want to be responsible for Dumbledore needing to hire a new Potions professor—or one for Care of Magical Creatures. "Why'm I not eating in your room anymore?"

"Your shirt is buttoned incorrectly," Snape said, instead of answering. "And you're wearing odd socks."

Harriet looked down at herself. She'd buttoned off by two, and one sock was green-and-red striped like Christmas, the other bright blue. Dobby had sent them to her for her birthday.

During her sock inspection, Snape had shut the door. Harriet put her hands on her hips, and knocked again. Another long silence ensued while she glared at the woodgrain and he did not do what any normal person did when they heard a knock, which was answer the door.

Then he did, jerking it open. "What?" he said, glaring like she was the one being rude.

"I was thinking about something else while I was getting dressed," she told him.

"Perhaps you shouldn't do that next time," he said, as if he didn't care one way or the other, and made to shut the door again.

"I tried casting the Patronus Charm."

Snape's left eyelid flickered. Or maybe it was just one of the torches guttering in its bracket.

"How do you just not think about unhappy things?" she persisted. "Is there a trick?"

"No," he said, after a brief something that was not quite a pause. "You just do it. It's something you will have to learn for yourself."

He started to shut the door for a third time, so she said quickly, "I need to learn how to cast it! Else I won't be able to get past them to Hogsmeade."

Snape stopped with one inch left between the jamb and the door. After a long, definite pause, he pulled the door back enough to look down at her, or at least at her shoulder, which he seemed to be staring at rather than at her face. "Then Professor McGonagall hasn't told you."

Her stomach started sinking as fast as if it had rocks tied to its feet. "Told me what?" she asked, trying to control her voice.

"Your aunt returned the form denying you permission to go," he said, after another almost-not-there pause. She might have imagined it—her heart seemed to be beating double-time, waiting for him to bloody get it out—and then he did—and she wished he hadn't.

She heard a faint ringing in her ears.

"I dare say it's for the best," he said.

" _Stuff_ that," Harriet said, her voice shaking, and she spun on her heel and ran into her room, slamming her door behind her. She jammed the lock home, grabbed a pillow off her bed and screamed into it.

She hated this year already.

\--

" _Wretched_ Muggles." Minerva jabbed her wand fiercely at the teapot, like a fencer lunging for a final strike. "The worst sort imaginable—if I had my way—"

Tea exploded from the spout at the force of her temper. She made a noise like an angry cat, her spectacles flashing.

"Harriet will be so disappointed," Remus murmured, rescuing the plate of biscuits before they, too, could perish in the face of Minerva's wrath. "I don't suppose there's any way . . . ?"

"No." Minerva sighed and let her wand fall into her lap. "It's the law that it must be a parent or guardian. Though I wouldn't be surprised if, under other circumstances, someone could be prevailed upon to override it—all those wretched anti-Muggle laws might be good for something, at least—but with Sirius Black's escape— it _is_ better that we keep her close. But the poor girl. Everyone else will skip off, merry as grigs, and she'll be left here. I can't remember the last time a student wasn't permitted to go to Hogsmeade. Thank you," she said as he handed her a cup of tea, having decided it was less dangerous if he served it.

"She came to me this morning asking if I could sign the permission form for her," Minerva said, her mouth twisting as she glared into her tea. "I'm sure I've had a harder time telling someone no, but you shan't catch me remembering it anytime soon. Wretched, _worthless_ Muggles. . ."

As Remus poured himself some tea, he couldn't help thinking of Lily's reaction if she knew what Petunia had done—not just this time, but all the others he'd been hearing about. Rumors of Harriet's Muggle family had whispered through the wizarding world for years, from witches and wizards who'd glimpsed her. Six years ago, learning her relative location from Dedalus Diggle, he'd gone to see for himself, and he'd found a near-starved slip of a girl, much too quiet for a child so young, with a haunting air of loneliness. It had broken his heart, and she wasn't even his daughter. He couldn't imagine what James and Lily would have felt.

He'd given her some chocolate he'd had in his pocket, and she'd at least got to swallow a couple of bites before her aunt had seen and come to hustle her away. He'd only once met Petunia—she'd come to Lily and James's funeral, with the baby, with Harriet—but he was sure she hadn't recognized him. Plain even in his unlined youth, he'd spent the years since then wasting away.

Harriet wasn't a baby anymore; or at least, she was a baby twelve years older. She looked healthier now, though it was relative: she still couldn't be called really healthy-looking, in spite of being regularly fed. But she looked more like James and Lily, more like the child they'd all loved and envisioned, and less like a corporeal ghost. In fact, his first sight of her at Hogwarts had suckerpunched him, James's hair and the owl-like glasses and the glint of Lily's vivid eyes throwing him out of time.

"And after being left with Severus for the past month," Minerva sighed. "I really don't know what Albus was thinking."

"I'm surprised Severus agreed to it," Remus said honestly. "I would never have thought of him as someone who, er, enjoyed looking after children."

Certainly not James's. And Harriet looked enough like James that that would be the first thing anyone who'd known him would think. Snape had loathed James. In fact, "loathing" was probably too clean a word. Remus would probably have hated James, too, if James had treated him the way he'd treated Snape, if he'd muscled in on a girl he'd fancied. 

"Oh, he despises it," Minerva said dryly. "He's a dreadful teacher, though if you repeat that, Remus Lupin, I shall transfigure your ears into leeks. In all fairness, he's more even-handed than Horace was with the Slytherin students as a whole, and he does keep them more in line, but in other ways he's equally and abysmally partisan. He'll turn the most dreadful blind eye to the most underhand tactics from his own House and dock points from the rest for the most ridiculous . . . _rubbish_. . . "

"Let me guess," Remus murmured, "from Gryffindor most of all?"

"I can see Albus hired you for your analytical mind," Minerva said tartly, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Remus raised his teacup in acknowledgment. "I'd say that's good for the Slytherins, though—to have a Head of House who's not interested in them only if they're well-connected."

"Yes. They're quite devoted to him, honestly," Minerva admitted. "I shall never humble myself by asking, but I'd almost like to know how he does it. If I could see even a third of that spirit from Fred and George Weasley, I'd shed tears of joy."

"Troublemakers?" Remus said, amused.

"That doesn't even begin to cover it. It's good you're here—they'll be your comeuppance."

"Mine?"

"Yes." Both corners of her mouth twitched that time. "You Marauders—oh, don't think we didn't know how you styled yourselves. Teachers gossip dreadfully. You'll find this out. For all the mischief the four of you wreaked, Fred and George will afford you a small slice of contrition."

"I look forward to it," Remus said, laughing. "I've made a study of mischief over the years; new specimens are always welcome."

"We'll see if you say that once you've had to try and teach them something," Minerva said, with smug wisdom that implied she knew what he would say later, and it would be mostly expletive-filled.

"Does Harriet cause trouble? I thought from Severus's behavior that she had, but it's hard to tell with Severus."

Minerva tapped her nails on the side of her teacup. "Miss Potter—and her friends—have a more . . . unique way of causing trouble. Since she's been a student here, there have been two instances of . . . I suppose you would call them evil. And both times, Miss Potter was actively in the thick of it."

Remus felt his eyebrows rising of their own accord.

"Many of my Gryffindors have sought out trouble over the years," Minerva said dryly. "Seeking to battle evil." Remus remembered his own reminiscences as he'd walked Snape's dungeons and smiled in self-deprecation. "Miss Potter manages to find it, however. So far she's come out on top. . . "

The but lingered in the air, unspoken but not unheard.

 _And this year_. . . Remus thought, but did not say that either. They both knew.

They finished their tea in silence, the windows tinting with mist from the Dementors that haunted the gates. They both knew you couldn't fight evil with evil, but sometimes fighting it with goodness was just as hard.


	22. Another Year at Hogwarts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I included two new POVs in this chapter, to set us up for things that will develop later. Unlike Millicent's POV, which was really more of an experiment (my wanting to write about Slytherin girls), these new POVs will play larger roles throughout the Hogwarts' years and beyond.
> 
> -Last I checked there was still some confusion about Asteria/Astoria's name. JKR wrote "Asteria" on the Weasley family tree but says "Astoria." I chose "Asteria" because, like Daphne, that name comes from Greek myths.

Everyone knew the Greengrass girls were from Cornwall, and it was said they had a very pretty house overlooking the sea. Everyone also knew they were so poor that the girls had to make up all their clothes themselves, and that each of them would have to marry quite well, and at least one of them very well, to provide for all the rest.

They had all been named from Greek mythology, as part of an old-fashioned trend their Mama had ascribed to, in order to make them appear to be desirable, traditional brides. Leto was eldest; then Daphne; then Asteria; and finally Callisto. It was widely said that each daughter was more beautiful than the last, but of course it was hard to tell with the youngest, who was only nine.

Daphne had come home from Hogwarts in June with a letter in her pocket from Tracey, written to her on the train while Pansy talked endlessly. Mama had fetched her at King's Cross and Apparated them to the rocky beach in the hamlet below their cottage, and chatted about Leto's prospects while Daphne fingered the letter in the pocket of her cloak and said, "Yes, Mama," in all the proper places. She'd long ago learned to listen, really listen, with half an ear, while thinking about something else entirely. She was never without practice: either Mama or Pansy was always talking.

The summer had gone by, full of the sound of the ocean, the isolation of the countryside, the joyful antics of her two sisters at home, letters from Leto abroad, and Tiffany, always Tiffany, her ink on parchment. And now, the day before they were to leave, back to school. . .

"I don't want you to go," sobbed Callisto.

"I know, Callie." Daphne stroked her youngest sister's flaxen hair, feeling the front of her dress grow damp and stick to her skin.

Across the tiny parlor, Asteria was crying too, although silently. Tears dripped down her miserable face. Her stoic silence was even more wretched to witness than Callisto's wild fits.

Their Mama and Leto (home again, at last) had escaped the house. "I can't handle all the weeping and sobbing and moaning," Leto had said in a low voice to Daphne. "Damn this miserable place. It's not that I blame Callie, and Aster cries at every little thing, it's to be expected from her, but all-powerful Merlin it gives one such a headache. If I'm not engaged by next summer I'll throw myself into the sea."

Leto probably would be engaged by then, with no need for the sea that crashed and churned against the cliffs of north Cornwall. Her summer with their cousins in Vienna had been full of social success and diversions (though not an offer of marriage, not yet).

Daphne envied Leto. She would have liked to have been the eldest. She knew she would have been better at it than Leto. Daphne was better at it even though she was the second daughter.

Since she was six years old, Daphne had been aware that she was more responsible than her older sister and their Mama, too. Her sisters were hers to look after. It was going to be hard, leaving little Callie all on her own while the rest of them were at Hogwarts. She would be lonely, on her own for the first time without any of them, now that Asteria was going into her first year. On her own with nobody but their Mama.

It wasn't that Mama was—well, bad. She didn't keep bottles stashed around the house or in her apron pocket, like Mrs. Greary on the moor. She didn't make her girls get jobs and then take all their pay the moment in came in, like Mrs. Wharton. Mama had brought them up very well, in fact: teaching them how to speak elegantly so they wouldn't have half-blood accents; how to be proper wives of a large household; how to entertain guests and be always a gracious hostess. Mama meant for them all to make excellent matches, but she had also seen their individual strengths. Leto knew how to win friends and admirers in the highest places. Daphne, collected and poised, could have spoken elegantly to diplomats and princes from the time she was ten. Asteria's music and art lessons had been more difficult, for they required masters and those required payment, but one of Mama's strengths was collecting favors from useful people. Callie was a little young yet, but one day she would probably rival Leto for vivacity and charm. Daphne knew that Callie had been a little overlooked, but she didn't blame Mama; her first and most important job was to see Leto married well. Callie, the youngest of four girls, two years away from Hogwarts, was the least of Mama's worries.

Daphne had asked Mrs. Martindale, a witch who ran a small, informal school in her home two mile's walk away, to keep Callie and teach her a few things, if she could. Callie would surely make friends there. She was good at that, unlike Asteria, who was so shy and resistant to new things and faces. In fact, Daphne was equally worried about Asteria coming to Hogwarts. The sudden change, the newness of everything, would upset her very much. It hurt Asteria quite as much to be leaving Callie as it hurt Callie to be left.

The front door clattered open and Leto came in, her curly yellow hair wild from the wind, her face flushed. She was clutching a mailing-tube, the sort used for international owl post.

"They wrote back!" she announced with fierce pride.

"Our cousins in Vienna?" asked Daphne, her arm tightening around Callie as her heart beat more quickly. What if it's an offer? she thought, hardly daring to hope.

"Of course—as if I'd care about anyone else." Leto avoided the chair whose seat still had not been repaired and threw herself onto the window-seat, knocking a basket of knitting to the floor. "Listen to this—oh, Callie, please do stop wailing, I can't hear myself think—'Dearest Leto'—they ask how we all are, dull stuff, but you're all fine, aren't you? Listen to this, here's the juice: 'You were such a hit this summer, we've been besieged with requests to have to back with us. So as not to disappoint the whole of our society here in Vienna, we beg you to spend your Christmas holidays with us.'" As she read, her face glowed bright with triumph, and when she looked up from the letter, her eyes were glittering.

Callie's mood, ever mercurial, had already shifted from bitter weeping to breathless excitement while tears were still trembling on her blonde lashes. "Oh, Leto! Does this mean you'll be married soon? Please let me be a bridesmaid!"

"Of course you'll be my bridesmaid," Leto said, laughing in the sparkling way that everyone loved. "You'll all be my bridesmaids, and my husband will feel the luckiest man in the world, marrying into such a gorgeous family of sisters."

Asteria burst into tears.

"Oh, Aster," said Leto in exasperation, getting up from the window to go to her. "You needn't do that, you silly goose."

"I'm s-sorry," Asteria sobbed. "I know it's wonderful—but it makes me so sad—if you go away—"

"Just for Christmas, you goosey goose," said Leto, rubbing her shoulders. "You'll be at Hogwarts with me all year! You'll get quite sick of me and be glad I'm going."

"Never!" Asteria gasped, white-faced.

Leto caught Daphne's eye, her face clearly saying Why are our sisters such gooses?

"We should all be thinking about dinner," Daphne said calmly, while Callie ran over to read Leto's letter. "What shall we make?"

"What have we got in the box?" asked Leto cynically. "It'll be potatoes and water again."

"Walter Matthias brought us a rabbit this morning," said Daphne. "I thought it would make a good stew. I'll make you a potato and leek soup, Aster," she added, for Asteria couldn't bear to eat meat. "Your favorite."

"You'll have to get the Hogwarts' house-elves the recipe," muttered Leto. "Or she won't eat a thing. And you know what Mama would say." She tilted her chin back and put on a prim, nasally voice that made her look and sound exactly like Mama. "Nobody wants a wife that's too fat or too thin, girls."

"Are you going to tell Mama?" Daphne asked, quietly so their younger sisters wouldn't hear. Callie, fully recovered, was now sitting next to Asteria, poring over the letter.

Leto shrugged. "I suppose. It should buoy her up a bit, at least—get her off my case. But I'll do it just before we leave. I don't want her lecturing me on what'll happen if I don't get an offer this time, either." Her voice said she paid little attention to Mama's lectures, but Daphne knew how much Leto had been disappointed to come back home without a single offer. In truth, they had all been surprised. At seventeen, she was quite old enough to be married, and her beauty was only matched by her charm and the purity of her blood. They were poor, but it shouldn't have mattered. Only Asteria had been relieved, and her happiness had made her feel so guilty that she'd cried more bitterly than she would have done if Leto was already married and living on the Continent.

"In that case you probably shouldn't have told Callie," Daphne said practically.

Leto scowled. "Sod it all if you aren't right. Well, there's no point in telling her to keep mum. The sky will fall in on our heads before Callie can keep her mouth shut. I've put up with Mama for years, I can do it for another week.

"Speak of the devil," she said under her breath as Mama's voice sounded down the hall to the kitchen.

"Did I see the post?" Mama asked as she bustled into the room carrying a basket of rosemary and rue over one arm. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright and eager. Mama was no longer as slender as she once had been, but she was still recognizable wherever they went as a former beauty. "Was it something for you, Leto my love?"

"Cousins want her to spend Christmas with them!" Callie said rapturously.

Mama's eager brightness dimmed. "Is that all? I thought surely it would be something of more . . . substance."

"Yes," Leto said, attempting casual; but it was brittle, almost challenging. "That's all. Just another boring old invitation from Vienna."

"But Lee, you said—"

"Callie," Daphne interrupted, "will you pick up that knitting for me? It's all over the floor, such a mess, and I need to be starting on dinner."

"Well, that's quite the shame," said Mama slowly. "Still, it's better than nothing, I suppose."

Leto said nothing. Daphne tidied her sewing as if nothing was wrong, but she saw Asteria absorbing everything as she piled the knitting back into the basket Leto had knocked to the floor.

"Which of you is helping me with dinner?" Daphne asked her younger sisters.

"I will," Asteria said, still grave, and followed Daphne down the tiny hall to the kitchen at the back of the house.

"You will have to work extra hard this trip, my love," Mama was saying to Leto as they left. "You can't waste all your time as you did this summer. The Christmas holidays will be shorter, but still a vital chance . . . "

Daphne shut the kitchen door, shutting off Mama's voice. She moved about the kitchen quite calmly, fetching the potatoes and leeks, of which there weren't many, from the store box, reaching for the rabbit—but then stopping, because Asteria was standing beside the table and the sight of blood made her faint.

"You won't want to help me with this stage, Aster," Daphne said.

"I can fix the soup," Asteria said quietly.

"Aster . . . "

Asteria took the potatoes and leeks and turned her back on Daphne, clearly intending to work at the sink. When Daphne passed around the end of the table, kissed Asteria's hair. She had to lean up a little for it. Even though Asteria was two years younger, she had always been half a head taller.

Asteria turned her head and smiled just a little. She did not smile broadly often, which was quite a sad thing for the world. Her joy was the quiet, heart-swelling sort, but if it ever burst into euphoria, she could probably light Muggle London.

Daphne strapped a leather apron over her shabby dress and leather gloves up to her elbow, neatly tied up her hair, and skinned the rabbit. She watched Asteria's back as she worked, but her sister faced the sink the whole time.

"Close your eyes, Aster," Daphne said once she was done.

Asteria obediently shut her eyes, allowing Daphne to wash the bloody knife in the sink.

"Why is it such a bad thing that Leto didn't get an offer?" Asteria asked with her eyes still shut.

Daphne kept rinsing the knife clean. She sluiced the water all around the sink, running all traces of blood away, while Asteria stood patiently with her eyes closed, breathing through her mouth to avoid the smell.

Daphne shut off the water. "I think you know why, Aster."

"I don't care if Leto gets married," Asteria said, opening her eyes again. "No—I do, only I would rather she didn't. I don't want her to go away at all, but going away for money is the worst thing she could do."

"It isn't just for money, Aster."

"I know." Daphne had always thought of herself as quite grown-up for her age, but Asteria looked equally grown up then, if not moreso. "It's for all of us. But I don't want her to do it for me. I don't want her to be unhappy so that I can be happy. I couldn't be happy like that."

Daphne slid the knife back into the block. "You would make that sacrifice for Leto?"

"Of course," Asteria said quietly, and Daphne knew she would.

"And Leto would make this sacrifice for us," she said gently. "So would I." She kissed Asteria's cheek. "I'm going to finish cooking the rabbit now."

It's true, Daphne thought. We're not children anymore.

\--

"I hope you enjoyed your summer, darling," Mother said.

"It was all right," Draco said negligently.

He was lying crosswise on the bed, toying with a gold-plate and crystal Sneakoscope his cousins had given him for his birthday. He'd put all his cousins in stitches telling really outrageous lies with a straight face while the Sneakoscope screamed louder and louder in his hand. He'd had loads of fun in Lombardy, but it didn't do to appear too excited. And his mum always got into this mood at the end of August, where she grew quiet and asked him simple questions that seemed to be something else entirely.

She was folding his robes and packing his trunk by hand. It was something she'd done all three summers before Hogwarts, even before Potter had stolen Dobby from them. Draco didn't know why she didn't just use a spell.

"You're going to be careful at Hogwarts this year, my love," Mother said, piling all his school shirts into one neat stack and placing them inside the trunk. "Aren't you?"

"'Course," Draco said, and the Sneakoscope stayed dark and silent. "I'll keep Crabbe and Goyle around and throw them in front of the Dementors if we cross any."

The Sneakoscope flickered but then went dark again. Draco supposed it was because he wasn't sure if he was being serious or not.

"Never give a Dementor any opportunity to notice you," Father had said last night at dinner. "Travel always with others, and keep alert. Dementors do not understand pity, and they have no mercy."

"Do you really think he's broken out of prison to kill Potter?" Draco asked Mother as she packed in his trousers.

(Rita Skeeter certainly did. Reading her stuff, you'd think Sirius Black had really escaped from Azkaban to sit for a series of interviews with her. Either that or she'd smuggled him out herself so she could have uninterrupted access to his personal history.)

Father had said Black's motives were not to be guessed at, since after twelve years in Azkaban, he was certainly mad. Mother had only stared at the flames on the candleabra, the light shining in pinpricks in her wide pupils. But on her own, Mother was more communicative than Father, more indulgent. She used to let Draco hide underneath the tables when she had witches over for tea, and he'd spy on their conversations for her and only tell her what they said if she bribed him properly. (Of course, he'd had to learn to take bribes: he used to be quite easy to win over, Mother said, before she taught him how to hold out for more than a single truffle.)

"Mother?" he said when she didn't answer him. He lay the Sneakoscope down, tired it of it for now.

"Darling, why did you opt to take this ridiculous course?" She took out her wand to levitate his snarling Monster Book of Monsters into his trunk. He'd had to belt it shut to stop it from eating all his other books—and clothes, and shoes, and bedding. . .

"Sirius Black, Mum," he said, pushing up against his pillows so he could fold his arms properly. Father would have said Do Malfoys talk like that, Draco? and Do we slouch? "Is he really that dangerous?"

Mother didn't answer at first. "Sirius Black is our cousin," she said as she packed the rest of his books into his trunk. "Related to your father, too, of course, though much more distantly. But he and I are first cousins, which makes him your first cousin once removed."

Draco knew this. Mother and Father had taught him to read by tracing the silver thread on the family tapestry in the gallery through all the years, from the first Malfoi to himself, Draco, at the end, all alone. The names of dead family members were pewter, the living ones still shining bright. Regulus was dark, but Sirius was somewhere in between, dull, like nickel.

"He went to Gryffindor," said Mother. "He was friends with James Potter."

Draco sat up all the way. "What?" That definitely hadn't been in the paper.

"Mmm." Mother was looking out the window now.

"Does Potter know?"

"I couldn't tell you, darling. It was general knowledge to those who knew him. They were quite inseparable, even after Potter married that Mudblood harridan. But many of their contemporaries died in the war, after all. . ."

This was turning out to be a great deal more interesting than he'd thought it would be. "Did you know him well?"

"We met often as children—he was quite spoilt, in some ways, but in others dreadfully neglected. Uncle Orion was . . . not the warmest of men. And once Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor . . . he left home when he was sixteen and never spoke to any of us again—except on fighting terms, of course. He was quite quarrelsome whenever we'd cross paths."

She fell silent then, still looking out the window, across the broad green lawn.

"Had you asked me," she said quietly, "if Sirius followed the Dark Lord—if he would follow him for any reason—I would have staked my life on the negative."

She turned to look at Draco then, with a serenity as deep and vast as a lake whose opposite shore disappeared over the horizon. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

"It has taught me how little we can be certain of, in this life," Mother said.

\--

The next day Mother and Father brought him to the train, as ever, and he permitted Mother to kiss him in front of everyone. He was surprised to still miss her whenever he had to go away. Zabini said he should've outgrown that by now, but how could you possibly not miss someone who stood and watched the train until it pulled away, standing there after it had shrunken to the size of a toy, and then a dot, and still imagined they could see you long after you'd disappeared?

He'd never seen Mother do that, of course. She'd be too far away. But he had no trouble imagining it. And if he could imagine it, then surely she was thinking these things about him.

Pansy was easier to find than a Gryffindor in a fireworks factory. In fact, all he had to do was turn around and he almost plowed into her. She oozed into his personal space, her eyes ringed in black makeup, her dark hair falling soft and pretty around her face; much prettier, honestly, than her face.

"Draco," she said breathlessly, looking at him the way Goyle looked at Christmas pudding. "How was your holiday?"

"All right," he said, drawling. He thought about slinging his arm around her waist to see how it worked, but he didn't really want her plastered to him all day.

It was easy to find Crabbe and Goyle, who sat in the same compartment every year. This year the car had developed a growth of Hufflepuffs. Draco and Pansy kicked them out, and the four of them settled down with the candy Crabbe and Goyle had bought, the hamper Mum had sent along with him, and some really vile cookies Pansy had baked for Draco. (All he had to do was "accidentally" move them near Goyle and they disappeared.) Millicent joined them before they'd passed Peterborough, but she just sat near the door and didn't say anything, like usual. After a time Zabini showed up, but went away again after Daphne turned up with her two sisters. Leto was in her final year, husband-hunting (Mum said), but the other was new and the prettiest one yet. Draco thought there was another Greengrass girl out there, a little kid. If it was true what everyone said, that each girl was better-looking than the one before, it was almost incomprehensible how good-looking the next one would be.

Pansy's hatred was instantaneous, but New Sister was so dead silent that after fifteen minutes everyone forgot she was there. Around Doncaster, Tracey slipped in, cool-faced, wearing her curly dark hair in a knot on her head and black rings like Pansy's around her eyes, looking much hotter than Pansy did. Was this a new habit with them, or had he just started noticing? Would Potter take it up, too? She'd have to get rid of those wretched glasses and fix her hair before she'd look halfway decent, no matter how she made up her eyes.

After a time Draco grew bored of talking about the summer—the upcoming classes—Sirius Black—and decided he wanted to go find Potter and taunt her mercilessly. Pansy was locking claws in some obscure argument with Tracey, seemingly having to do with how rich and beautiful his cousins were, so Draco collected Crabbe and Goyle and muscled up and down the train, looking for the Gryffindorks.

They found Granger first, coming out of the loo. She'd already pulled on her school robes, like she belonged here. He couldn't see any makeup on her face at all, and her teeth looked bigger than ever.

"If it isn't the long-molared Mudblood sidekick," he drawled. "Where's your famous pal?"

Granger looked at him like he was a half-dead squirrel someone had thrown on her lap. "Do you really not have anything better to do than taunt me and Harriet?" she asked, reminding him, for a second, of his gorgon grandmother.

"Loads of things to do that are better," he said. "But few things so fun."

Granger's look of disgust was really impressive, not that he would ever tell her that. He wanted to knock it off her big-toothed face. She tried to push past them, but Goyle blocked her.

"Excuse me," she said coldly, not looking the least bit intimidated. Honestly, Gryffindors were so bloody annoying. They were no fun to scare because they were too senseless to be scared of anything.

"Yeah," said a familiar voice behind Crabbe. "Excuse you gents. The lady wants through."

The Weasley twins, hard-faced and already armed. Eurgh. Unlike Granger, they'd hex first and ask questions later.

"Come on," Draco muttered to Crabbe and Goyle, and collecting them, he left.

He didn't see Potter's horrible hair or even-more-horrible glasses anywhere on the train. Dumbledore had probably given her some special escort. His mood soured, the way it did so often with Potter. If he saw her smug git face, he had to taunt her just to wipe that smile off it, the one that made his wand-hand itch. Even when her smug git face wasn't around he thought about it, itching to hex, until he had to go find her and bother her for that split-second where she stopped looking so smug and satisfied. He'd had to put up with not being able to rile her all summer and now she wasn't on the train.

It was just like her. Even when he did get to wrinkle that stuck-up Gryffindor-ness, she usually managed to win somehow.

Stupid Potter.

As they wound closer to Hogwarts, more and more rain rolled in, with a cold mist that frosted the windows all along the train. Looking out, all you could see was that mist. Draco changed into his school robes and pulled on his thick cloak and gloves when he estimated they still had an hour left to go. Lamps flickered up and down the train, shaking and shivering the light when the track got bumpy.

When they stepped off the train, the air outside was biting cold. Somehow Draco lost Crabbe and Goyle and wound up in a carriage with Daphne, New Sister, and Tracey. He wondered if Pansy was lying dead somewhere, because he couldn't see any other way she would have left him alone with three girls all much better-looking than she was.

But when the carriage lurched into motion, it was still Pansy-less, so he shrugged and settled back against the squabs that smelled like wet hay, wondering how much the Sorting Feast would bore him after a month spent with his cousins, who'd thrown him a goodbye feast with a full-feathered swan pie. Hogwarts would never have anything like that.

Out of nowhere, Daphne's sister—Asteria? Astoria?—gasped, like someone had poured cold water on her.

"Aster?" Daphne said.

And Draco felt it . . . a piercing, drowning cold, like the whole carriage was filling with water . . . he couldn't see what was going on around him, even though he knew his eyes were open. . . and then he forgot about even that as he heard voices, the voices of his parents arguing . . .

But Mother and Father never argue, he thought.

_"—take him from you, forever and good, Narcissa, by Merlin and Salazar I will—"_

_"You will take him from me? You think you have the strength?"_

_"You know very well I have the power to make sure you never see my son again in your life—"_

_"Threaten me with lawyers, Lucius, with your contracts forged in blood, with all the power of your wealth, and still it will not be enough. I am his mother, and I would die once, twice, a thousand times before I will be parted from him so much as a day, even if it's his father who takes him from me. . ."_

He couldn't see; he was someplace dark, and Mother and Father were near him, shouting, glass was breaking, magic was curdling his skin—he knew all this, even though he knew he was in the carriage with Tracey and Daphne and her sister and he knew Mother and Father had never fought. He struggled, trying to get out of it, the nightmare of his parents fighting, over him, over taking him away from each other.

Something heavy landed on his feet. With a gasp, he pulled free of the cold, drowning darkness. The rattle of the carriage was so loud around him. Tracey was gasping, like she was trying not to be sick. Daphne moaned weakly. Asteria—

Was the thing that had landed on Draco's feet. She'd passed out cold on the floor.

He scrubbed a hand over his clammy face. Icy sweat rubbed onto his palm. "Oy," he muttered, twitching his foot. Asteria stirred but didn't sit up. He leaned down and shook her shoulder. "Here, wake up."

"Oh," Daphne gasped again, differently this time. "Aster!" She slid to the floor and pulled her sister's head and shoulders onto her lap, pushing Asteria's heavy blonde hair off her face. "Aster, wake up, Aster."

"Dementors," Tracey muttered. "I read about them in the Prophet, but I thought Skeeter was just full of shit. . ."

Asteria was coming round. She was shivering in Daphne's lap in that threadbare coat. Somewhere amongst all the shittiness, Draco had the thought that it was a shame for someone so pretty to be cold.

"Here." He slung his cloak down onto her. "Your coat's pathetic."

"Thank you, Draco," Daphne said with real gratitude, or at least what sounded real. She was the Nice One, though, of the Slytherin girls in his year, so maybe she did mean it. "Wasn't that kind, Aster? Draco is such a gentleman."

This masterful study of his character made Draco feel a bit less shitty, and when he climbed down from the carriage into the damp cold, with mist crawling around his knees over the Hogwarts steps, he almost didn't mind that he was the one now shivering. Asteria looked so pathetic and so beautiful at the same time that he couldn't even hint for his cloak back, so he simply shoved his way through the swarm of Gryffindorks and Dufferpuffs, heading for where it was warm.

\--

Harriet raced down the Grand Staircase to the Entrance Hall as soon as she saw the lamps on the carriages glinting in the gloom on the track far below. She took a spot a few stairs up so she could clearly see everyone who came in, searching for the riot of Hermione's hair. When Hermione appeared in the swarm, she was already scanning the Entrance Hall for Harriet, who stretched up her hands and waved. Hermione's face lit up, and they ran at each other at the same time, Harriet knocking a couple of Ravenclaws twice her size out of her way.

They jumped at each other, hugging fiercely, and for a few moments didn't say anything, just hugged. Then Hermione said, "I was so worried!"

"So worried you could only finish twenty-two of your twenty-three books?" Harriet asked, grinning.

"Oh, shut up," Hermione said, squeezing her. "I have no idea what any of them were about since you left."

Harriet felt a warmth glow around her heart. Hermione had missed so much she couldn't concentrate on her reading. (Well, she probably had concentrated at least half of the time, but considering she usually concentrated one hundred and ten percent, this was evidence of the strongest emotion.)

They turned to head into the Great Hall and almost plowed right into Professor McGonagall.

"We're sorry!" Hermione squeaked, like she was afraid Professor McGonagall would give them detention for almost walking into her. Well, Snape might have. . .

"There's no need, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall, "though I do need you to come with me."

Hermione went white. Professor McGonagall didn't speak any faster, but she said immediately, "It's about your schedule for this year. Miss Potter, you can proceed into the Hall."

Harriet was put out by this cruel sadism that robbed her of her best friend just when they'd been reunited after the threat of a mass murderer had separated them for a month. She'd have expected better from Professor McGonagall. But Hermione didn't seem to feel the same: as soon she heard "schedule," her face lit up. Harriet was resigned to sharing Hermione's heart with schoolwork again.

"See you in a bit, then," Harriet said, and watched Hermione trot off after Professor McGonagall.

"So here you are, Potty," drawled a voice as unwelcome as it was familiar. "Too good to ride the train with the rest of us this year, I heard."

Ugh: Malfoy. Harriet turned around and found herself staring at his chest. He'd got taller. It was very unpleasant to have to scowl up at him.

"Your head may have got bigger," he said, looking gleeful, "but the rest of you had best work overtime to catch up."

"And still it'll never match the size of yours," she retorted. "Asteroids are smaller. Piss off, Malfoy."

She turned her back on him, and almost had a heart attack when two new voices suddenly bellowed in her ears: "Harry old girl!"

"So long it's been!" Fred grabbed her by the shoulders from behind and lifted her up in a hug. No sooner had he put her down than George did the same.

"Though one couldn't tell," he said, "by how much you haven't grown."

"Oh, sod off," Harriet said, trying to kick one or the other of them in the kneecaps.

"Maybe she just doesn't seem like she's grown because you two are becoming even bigger gits," Ginny said, coming up as Harriet tried to squirm free of George's grip. "Who could keep up?"

"Your words wound, little sister," said Fred as George adjusted his grip to trap Harriet in a headlock.

"You'll get more than that once I learn that Bat Bogey hex," Ginny threatened.

"You let Harry go, George Weasley," said Angelina, "or you'll find out if I know the Bat Bogey hex."

George released Harriet, holding his hands up. "When women get tough, the tough get going."

"Not too soon for anyone," Harriet growled. Fred and George pretended to cower, and Angelina drove them into the Great Hall, jabbing her wand at them, which they fake-fled from.

"Gits," Ginny said, shaking her head.

When she and Harriet hugged hello, Harriet couldn't help noticing that Ginny had also grown several inches on top of the couple she remembered her already having. She didn't mind so much Hermione's being taller, since Hermione was almost a year older, and Malfoy was a boy, so it was inevitable he'd outgrow her; but Ginny was more than a year younger. It was deeply bloody disheartening.

"Where's Ron?" she asked, scanning the crowds for his bright Weasley hair and only seeing Percy, who was trying to boss everyone nearby and having success with no one.

"Catching a ride with the boys in your year, I think," Ginny said. "They were all being very blokey on the train. By the way, you won't believe it when you see Neville—he must've grown a foot at least and lost forty pounds. Where's Hermione got to? She was dying to find you."

"Professor McGonagall's talking with her about her schedule," Harriet said as they walked together into the Great Hall. People seemed to be whispering and pointing at her as she passed, but she was used to it. Not that this made it any less bloody annoying.

"That should cheer her up," Ginny said. Harriet laughed.

Finally Hogwarts looked like it should, full of people and noise and light. The thousand candles floated over the tables, which were slowly packing themselves with students; the ceiling-sky overhead was churning and roiling, a Dementor-mist gray, but with all the people and the light it was so warm below that Harriet stuck out her tongue at it. The teachers lined the High Table in their best robes that glinted like jewels, looking like teachers ought: distant and unknowable, a bit inhuman.

And there was Snape.

He was the only one all in black. He sat with his elbows propped on the arms of his chair, his hands linked in front of him, staring darkly into space. The robes did seem to be different than the sort he taught in; they sort of glimmered, even across the hall, like light was falling into them. But his hair was as greasy as ever, hanging around his deep-set eyes and gaunt face, and his expression was one of deep displeasure.

She'd spent a month with hardly anyone else for company, but she couldn't say she knew him even a little bit. She'd wondered more than once these past few weeks if anyone knew him at all. He seemed to live a lonesome life. He didn't have a single picture around his rooms of any friends or family, which even the vile Dursleys did. Even now, all the teachers she could see were chatting with each other while Snape sat by himself, staring into space.

A weird impulse rose in her to go up and say hello, which probably signaled a severe mental problem, because Snape would surely rather suffer food poisoning than want her saying hello to him. Anyway, she'd seen him just a couple of hours ago. But the feeling wouldn't go away, as she sat and watched everyone in the room greet each other and laugh, except for Snape, who didn't once smile or have anyone wave to him. Not even Professor Dumbledore did, but at least he had the excuse of being deep in conversation with Professor Flitwick.

Professor Lupin came in through the teachers' entrance behind the High Table, wearing robes just as patched and shabby as all his others and looking exhausted. But he was smiling as he looked across the Hall, and when he was looking in Harriet's direction he smiled even more broadly. Harriet waved on reflex, at the same time that Snape, who'd been treating Professor Lupin to a look of more-than-usually potent loathing, turned to look at her. Her hand froze in mid-wave, especially when he sent her a look of scathing disgust. Then he looked away to glare at the Hufflepuff table, before Harriet could do anything more than stare at him with her hand half-raised and her mouth hanging open.

"There you are, Harry," said Ron's voice. Still deep in Snape-inspired bewilderment, Harriet turned to see Ron sitting down across from her, with Dean and Seamus and—was that Neville? She did a literal double-take. Ginny was right: he didn't look at all like the Neville she remembered. This Neville was tall and lanky and hunch-shouldered, probably from growing so much so suddenly—but the expression on his face, the never-ending worry, was the exact same.

"H-hi, Harriet," he warbled, clutching Trevor, who hung resignedly in his grip.

"And she's still in one piece," Seamus said, making a show of looking her over. "Not a very big one, though."

Before Harriet could reply, the noise level in the Hall rose. Glancing around, she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary; but she did see the doors behind the High Table open and Hermione squeeze through the gap. She ducked her head down as Professor Sinistra looked haughtily at her and ran along the Gryffindor table bent almost double.

"Hi," she whispered as she squeezed into the space Harriet and Ginny had left her between them.

"What did Professor McGonagall want?" Harriet asked, but Hermione just shook her head and motioned shh: the main doors to the Hall were opening and Professor McGonagall swept in, carrying her scroll of names and leading the newest crowd of first years.

Harriet couldn't recall ever being so annoyed with Professor McGonagall, whom she'd always liked very much. But twice now tonight Professor McGonagall had interrupted her reunion with Hermione, first with her ruddy talk of schedules and now with her ruddy Sorting, which was the exact same every year. Of course, last year Harriet had missed it because she'd been busy flying a car into the Whomping Willow, and the year before that she'd been too terrified of being thrown out of Hogwarts or Sorted into Slytherin to pay much attention. But really, it was just watching a bunch of queasy-faced kids try on a hat, and this year there was no one particular to even cheer for.

She fell back into Snape-watching without really realizing it at first. He clapped only for the kids Sorted into Slytherin, and even then not very much: just hitting his hands together a couple of times and letting them drop again. In the intertim, he glared death and loathing at Professor Lupin, who, like all the other teachers, was watching the Sorting. If he noticed Snape's skewering looks, you couldn't tell. But that was typical of Lupin. Every time she'd run across him and Snape together, Snape was discovering new forms of blistering rudeness and Lupin was just smiling pleasantly through them all.

Grown-ups never stopped being strange.

With the last student (Yarrow, Emmanuelle) joining the Ravenclaw tables, Professor McGonagall magicked the Sorting Hat and its three-legged stool into her arms and strode away, and Professor Dumbledore stood up, the candlelight glinting on his beard.

"Welcome!" he said, his voice rippling across the Hall, washing all the students' voices to silence. "Welcome to another year at Hogwarts. I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious, I thought it best to get it out of the way before you become beffudled by our excellent feast. . . "

Dementors, I bet, Harriet thought, repressing a shiver.

"As you may be aware, our school is presently playing host to some of the Dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business."

Hundreds of heads swiveled to look at Harriet, who flushed bright red. Now she understood all the pointing and whispering.

"They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds," Dumbledore continued, "and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises—or even Invisibility Cloaks," he added blandly (Harriet blushed again). "It is not in the nature of a Dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the Prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs foul of the Dementors."

Percy, sitting a few seats down, puffed out his chest, looking immensely proud and important. Ginny leaned into Harriet, muttering, "Fred and George charmed his badge to read 'Bighead Boy.' Get a look later."

Harriet turned her laugh into a cough, but Percy gave her a scandalized frown anyway. Knowing it would've been much worse if he'd known what she was laughing about, she put her head down so he wouldn't see her grinning.

"On a happier note," Dumbledore was saying, "I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year. . . "

At Professor Lupin's introduction, Snape renewed his glare of undying disgust and refused to clap. The applause from everyone else was pretty unenthusiastic, and Harriet's guilt at once thinking, like everyone else was clearly doing, that Professor Lupin didn't look like much made her clap harder than everyone else. He looked as unruffled by this lukewarm reception as he'd done whenever Snape had insulted him over the summer.

"As to our second new appointment," Dumbledore continued when everyone had clapped as long as was polite, "well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties."

Hagrid got a much better reception: applause thundered across the Hall, deafening at the Gryffindor table in particular. The strip of skin visible between Hagrid's beard and wild hair went bright red.

"Well, I think that's everything of importance," Dumbledore said when the applause finally died away and Hagrid was mopping his eyes on the tablecloth. "Let the feast begin!"

"What did Professor McGonagall want?" Harriet asked Hermione immediately, as food bloomed on the golden plates all along the table and the smell of dinner rose like steam.

"Oh, just to have a word about my schedule," Hermione said, with an uncharacteristic airiness that pinged Harriet's internal alarm system. Hermione was never airy about schoolwork. Even schoolwork-related airiness in others wounded her soul.

"I was there for that part," Harriet said. "What about it?"

"Well—" Hermione paused to ladle buttered potatoes onto her plate. "You know how I'm taking a few extra courses this year—"

"You signed up for all the courses," Ron put in from across the table.

"Yes, well, my schedule was a bit full because of it," Hermione said briskly, "so Professor McGonagall and I had to talk about how I would be getting to all the classes."

"How are you?" Ron asked before Harriet could say anything. "Going to split yourself into two?"

"I'm sure it wouldn't interest you," Hermione said loftily. As she piled baked chicken onto her plate, her eyes got a familiar sparkle in them, and Harriet relaxed. "I can't wait to start Arithmancy—and Ancient Runes—and Muggle studies—"

"Your parents are Muggles," Ron interrupted yet again, and Harriet experienced a new annoyance with him, too. Would no one bloody let her talk to her own bloody best friend? "You grew up with Muggles. What do you need to learn about Muggles for?"

"It'll be fascinating to study them from a wizarding point of view," Hermione said earnestly. Ron shook his head, incredulous, and stuffed some yams into his mouth. Unfortunately, this didn't mean he would stop talking.

"I can't believe Hagrid's a teacher," Hermione said to Harriet. "In a good way, obviously," she added hurriedly. "It'll mean so much to him."

"He's really going all out," Harriet said. "Wait till you see what he's got for our first lesson."

"Whaff?" Ron asked immediately, spraying flecks of parsley across the table. Seamus and Dean repeated the question, though happily not the rain of half-chewed food. Harriet raised her eyebrows at them.

"You'll soon find out," she said loftily, which made them scowl and glower.

"You'll tell me, though, right?" Ginny asked, leaning in and smirking at the boys. "Since I'm not in your class?"

Harriet made a show of whispering it in her ear while the boys pretended not to care, but they clearly did, and Ginny gasped and said, "Really? I'm so jealous!" so well that they didn't stop pestering Harriet until the last of the desserts had disappeared and everyone started leaving for bed. By then Harriet was wishing she hadn't done such a good job of interesting them. She almost, almost told them, just so they'd bugger off, but she had her pride.

"I want to tell Hagrid congratulations," Hermione said, and they broke away from the crowd to rush the High Table. Harriet would have expected Ron to come with them, but oddly he stayed with Seamus and Dean, who were heading out the door.

"Congratulations, Hagrid!" Hermione squealed as they reached his chair.

"All down ter you two, really," said Hagrid, wiping his shining face on his napkin. "Clearin' up that business with the Chamber—clearin' my name, so everyone knows it weren't me killed that poor girl. . . "

Hermione patted him consolingly on the arm. Harriet felt a renewed surge of anger at Voldemort, one-time Tom Riddle, who'd framed Hagrid for killing Myrtle when he was the one who'd done it. She almost wished there was another diary full of him, so she could stab it and watch him dissolve all over again.

"Dumbledore came straight to me hut after Professor Kettleburn said he'd had enough," Hagrid said. "It's what I always wanted . . . great man, Dumbledore . . . "

The emotion became too much to handle, and he buried his face in his napkin. Harriet joined Hermione in patting his arm.

"Go on, you two," Professor McGonagall said, shooing them away.

Neville jogged up to them, clutching Trevor, who must have tried to escape again during dinner. His no-longer-round face was shining with worry. "We've got to hurry!" he said anxiously. "What if we miss the password?"

But the Tower was so far away, and as a House the Gryffindors rambled so much, that Harriet, Hermione and Neville were able to join the crowd hobnobbing outside the Fat Lady in time to hear Percy saying self-importantly, "Excuse me, let me through, I'm Head Boy! The password's Fortuna Major!"

"Oh, no," Neville said sadly. Harriet decided that, like Hagrid, he needed an arm pat, and gave him one. It made him go about as red as Hagrid had been when the entire Hall was applauding him.

Harriet had moved back into the Tower that morning, so she'd already had a chance to unpack her things and make the holiday-barren space homey again. Hermione's, Lavender's and Parvati's locked trunks were parked at the foot of their beds, and while Hermione immediately started pulling out her books (there were even more than usual, owing to all her new subjects), Lavender and Parvati were dumping cosmetics onto their dressers.

But they stopped in the middle of doing this, suddenly, and turned around to stare at Harriet.

"Harry." Lavender's eyes looked large and liquid, and she stared at Harriet as if just noticing she was still alive. "It's so good you're well."

"We heard what was in the paper," Parvati said, staring at Harriet with much the same expression as Lavender: a kind of soulful, morbid curiosity, like they were expecting Sirius Black to jump out from behind the curtains and murder her there on the carpet.

"Usually you read what's in the paper," Hermione said waspishly.

"That's what we mean," Lavender said, stopping her soulful—and frankly creepy—gazing to give Hermione a dirty look.

"About Sirius Black, you know," Parvati said, abandoning the airy-fairy manner too. "Is he really after you, Harry?"

Harriet didn't want to talk about this at all. "If they say it in the paper, it must be true."

Lavender and Parvati didn't notice the sarcasm, however. They gave her, and each other, looks of mingled excitement and horror.

"My God. I can't believe it. He's a mass murderer, you know," Parvati said in a low voice.

"I heard," Harriet said shortly.

Now Lavender and Parvati had joined the ranks of people Harriet wasn't usually annoyed with but sure was now. She turned away from them—and let out an un-Gryffindor shriek when something enormous and furry landed on her shoulders. When she screamed, Lavender and Parvati did, too; the huge furry thing on Harriet's shoulders let out a displeased hiss and, after jabbing its claws into her neck, launched off her back.

"What the fucking hell!" Harriet spun around, clapping a hand over the bleeding cuts on her neck.

"Harriet!" Hermione admonished. "When did you start talking like that?"

Hermione was cradling to her chest the biggest, furriest, gingerest cat Harriet had ever seen. It had a squashed face and malevolent yellow eyes, which it used to watch her with gross self-satisfaction.

"I do when that cat lands on my head and shreds my neck!" She pulled her hand away and showed Hermione her red fingers. "Bloody hell, that hurt."

"Bad Crookshanks!" Hermione scolded the cat, lifting him up so they were face to flattened face. "You don't scratch Harriet!"

"That's your cat?" said Lavender and Harriet at the same time.

"Since when did you get a cat?" Harriet asked, feeling weirdly betrayed. What was wrong with her this year? So what if Hermione got a cat and didn't tell her—why did it matter?

"And why did you choose one so ugly?" asked Parvati, making a face.

"Excuse you," Hermione said, while Crookshanks lashed his thick, fluffy tail and watched them all with smug feline menace. "Crookshanks isn't ugly, he's beautiful."

For the first time since meeting them, Harriet shared a thought with Lavender and Parvati. They looked at each other, all thinking: She's gone mad.

In all fairness, though, Harriet supposed Crookshanks did have a beautiful coat. It would look amazing on a throw pillow.

"Here." Hermione fumbled in her trunk and came out with a Muggle First Aid kit. "Come here so I can disinfect those cuts—"

And after that, Harriet couldn't even be put out with her. How many people had best friends who carried First Aid Kits?

What will all the unpacking (spreading all their things across the room and creating a gigantic mess), catching up (Lavender squealed over Harriet's small stash of romance novels and immediately started swapping them for her Fifi La Folles; Parvati was really looking forward to Divinations, because her mother ran a Psychic's for Muggles and she knew a lot already), and gossiping (were Malfoy and Pansy Pug-faced Parkinson really dating or was he just stringing her along? and Neville was so tall! but still hopeless), it took them all ages to get ready for bed. Crookshanks didn't help by winding beneath their feet whenever he could. But finally they all climbed into bed, and gradually their talking to each other in the dark faded away into sleep.

In the silence of her four-poster, as she drifted off, Harriet felt a brief pang of loss for her room in the dungeons. It had really felt like a room of her own, in the end. But it was good to be back in Gryffindor, with everyone else, where she belonged.

Now, finally, things could get back to normal.


	23. Talons, Tea Leaves, and Boggarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New classes meet with new challenges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The line: "...fall off the Astronomy Tower and land on a bicycle with no seat" was adapted from a similar line (with "the Empire State Building") said by Ross in NBC's Friends.
> 
> -I considered halving this (very long!) chapter, but in the end I decided to leave it as-is, because most of the material in it comes straight from the books. The scenes for Divinations, Potions, and Lupin's DADA lesson are almost photocopies of canon, particularly in their dialogue, with minor deviations. I even considered cutting them out entirely, but decided they were too central to Harry's experience to dispense with. Any changes I made, I planned very carefully.

Harriet might have had hedgehog hair and a pair of ugly glasses and be half the size of some of the girls in her year, but she wasn't going to wear an unflattering bandage around her neck on her first day of classes. At least her hair was long enough to cover the scratches on her neck.

She also changed into her school robes behind her curtains, because she didn't want Lavender or Parvati seeing that she was still wearing the same training bra she'd worn all of last year, one that had (of course) come from Oxfam and had Winnie the Pooh on it. It was bloody embarrassing, but it was even worse not to need anything more grown-up because she had as many curves as a broomstick. People talked about young girls blossoming into womanhood, but Harriet had apparently been sold a packet of empty seeds.

Moodily, she supposed that if these things bothered her so much now, it must mean she was growing up—only figuratively, of course. And without the "figure" part.

When she pulled open her hangings, she found that Hermione had also been dressing behind hers. She kept smoothing a hand down the front of her robes, like it wasn't lying as perfectly flat as she wanted.

"What have you got to hide?" Harriet teased her. "You at least wear a real bra."

Hermione blushed. "An A cup, is all," she said, rolling her eyes.

More than I've got, Harriet thought, but she didn't say it because she was afraid it would sound too self-pitying.

Even though Harriet and Hermione's morning routine involved nothing more than pulling a brush through their hair and exchanging their pajamas for uniforms, it still somehow took them longer to get ready than any of the boys. But when they got to the common room, there was no long-suffering Ron waiting and complaining about being so hungry he was ready to eat the sofa cushions.

"Have you seen Ron?" Harriet asked Neville, who was stuck half under the sofa.

He pulled his head out. A spider dangled precariously from a lone thread hanging off his left ear. "He went down with Seamus and Dean. You haven't seen my Monster Book of Monsters, have you?" he asked anxiously. "It seems to have run off. . ."

"Mine did that, too," Harriet said. "Lay out a piece of meat for it, it'll come."

He hurried off, looking more worried than before.

"It shouldn't surprise me that Hagrid assigned us a book that has to be fed or is willing to take it out of our own skin," Hermione said as they climbed out the portrait hole. "Do I want to know what his first lesson is? Or am I really better off not knowing until I have to deal with it?"

"I heard he's got a colony of giant, man-eating spiders somewhere in the Forbidden Forest," said Fred, manifesting out of thin air and leering over their shoulders. "Acromantulas, as they're called, that love to eat titchy little third years. . . "

Harriet rolled her eyes. "Ron's the one with a spider phobia, not me."

"Ah, yes. Where is our little brother?" George asked, manifesting on Harriet's other side. "Thought he was joined at your hips."

"Apparently he went down to breakfast with Dean and Seamus."

"The lure of bacon being too strong to resist." After wiggling his fingers in front of his mouth to imitate pincers, Fred left, George taking off with him.

"D'you think Ron's avoiding us?" Harriet asked Hermione.

"I suppose he wants to have boys for friends now," Hermione said as they stepped into the hall of staircases, passing a portrait of ladies in crinolines who were playing cards with a group of Benedictine monks. "I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they teased him about being friends with us. Fred and George, too."

Harriet frowned. "But Fred and George are friends with all us girls on the Quidditch team."

"Well, that's different, isn't it? You're teammates—and you're not Fred and George's closest friends. If it isn't pressure, Ron might simply want boys for friends now more than girls."

But if Ron was preparing to ditch them, he wasn't going all the way today: when they finally made it to the Great Hall, they found he'd saved their timetables for them.

"Loads of new subjects today," he said as Hermione eagerly snatched hers up. "You and me, Harry, we've just got Care of Magical Creatures and Divination, but Hermione's schedule's a madhouse."

Harriet peered over Hermione's shoulder and saw:

Divination, 9 o'clock

Arithmancy, 9 o'clock

Muggle Studies, 9 o'clock

She glanced at Hermione's face, expecting to see a sheen of scholarly terror at Professor McGonagall's booking her into three simultaneous subjects: since she couldn't possibly be in three places at once, it would deprive her of prime learning opportunities. But instead of the sheen of scholarly terror, Hermione was wearing the sheen of excitement.

"Told you," Ron said, shaking his head.

"Um, Hermione?" Harriet said.

"Yes, Harry?" Hermione tucked her sacred schedule safely into her day planner, making sure it lay entirely flat so it wouldn't get wrinkled.

"You don't see a problem with your schedule?"

"No," Hermione said, now digging a knife briskly in the marmalade. "I fixed it last night with Professor McGonagall, like I told you."

"But—" Harriet said.

"Oh, Harriet, don't worry," Hermione said, biting impatiently into her toast. "Professor McGonagall and I have it all straight."

Harriet shared a look with Ron, who shrugged and started shoveling fried eggs off a nearby platter and straight into his mouth. Harriet helped herself to sausages and fried tomatoes, wondering if everyone's friends were so odd.

"If Divination's first, we'd better get going," she said as Ron mauled a fourth helping of kippers. "It's in the North Tower, it'll take ages to get there."

"Sinf ennaroo deggsperd?" Ron asked, his mouth bulging. Hermione looked revolted.

"Since all I had to do for the past month was wander round the castle," Harriet said. "I can't believe I understood that," she marveled.

"I can't believe you'd try to talk with that much food in your mouth," Hermione said to Ron, who helped himself to three more fried tomatoes.

\--

Everyone in Gryffindor had opted to take Divination, probably because it was a soft option. Due to Harriet's holiday explorations, she, Ron and Hermione (picking up Neville as they left, because they knew he'd get hopelessly lost) were first to the tiny landing on the top floor of the North Tower. Under the circumstances, though, being first was hardly welcome. It made them all worry they were in the wrong place.

"D'you think this is the right place?" Hermione asked anxiously, peering through the lone window, a narrow arch that looked out on the mountains.

"Harry, you got us lost, didn't you?" Ron asked.

Something shiny flashed off the edge of Harriet's lenses. She twisted her head to get rid of it—and then she saw what they were looking for.

"See for yourself." She pointed above their heads.

"Sibyll Trelawney, Divinations teacher," Hermione read, craning her neck back.

"No one told us to bring brooms," Ron said as Lavender and Parvati clattered onto the landing, clutching their textbooks and looking excited about a lesson for the first time in Harriet's memory. "Shortsighted of 'em."

"How are we supposed to get up there?" Seamus asked.

As if his words were the signal, the trap door unlatched and a spindly ladder unfolded like the legs of a giraffe, its bottom rung landing at Harriet's feet.

"Ladies first," Ron said, eying the ladder. Rolling her eyes, Harriet slung her bag across her body and climbed up.

The room at the top of the ladder was, well, like a fortune-teller's attic. Velvet and tassels seemed to cover everything; the lamps all had dark shades, dimming the light; and the thick smell of too many different flavors of incense crawled inside her nose and mouth like smoky worms.

"Harry!" Hermione prompted her from below, and Harriet edged out of the way, groping through the smoky darkness for stray pieces of furniture, so Hermione could climb into the room. The rest of the class followed, and they all stood clumped near the hole in the floor, peering round for the teacher.

Neville saw her first, with a trembling squeak. Harriet was badly started, too, until she realized their teacher couldn't possibly be a human-sized insect: it was just the effect of a huge pair of spectacles and a glittery shawl.

"Welcome," she said in a dreamy voice as she shimmered out of the shadows. "How nice to see you all in the physical word at last."

Nobody had any idea what to say to something so extraordinary, so they clumped together nervously instead.

"Sit, my children, sit," she said. They all managed as best they could, Ron stubbing his toe on an ottoman and swearing in a muffled voice, and Neville tripping over a stool and falling flat on his nose. Harriet collapsed into an armchair that sucked her into its seat like quicksand.

"Welcome to Divination." Professor Trelawney had seated herself near the fire. It lit her face on one side, dropping the rest into shadow, glinting off her left lens. It gave her an almost sinister appearance that was rather undone by her misty voice. "My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye."

As with Professor Trelawney's previous pronouncement, nobody had any idea what to say to this. If she was worried that she'd got a whole class of lumps, however, it didn't show on the side of her face exposed by the firelight. She continued as if their stunned silence was all the reply she wanted.

"So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field. . ."

Ron turned from his seat next to Seamus to grin at Hermione, who was looking taken aback.

"Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future," Professor Trelawney continued, her voice reminding Harriet of the incense. "It is a Gift granted to a few. You, boy," she said suddenly to Neville, who almost fell backwards off his pouffe in alarm, "is your grandmother well?"

"I think so," Neville said in a trembly voice.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dear," said Professor Trelawney. Then she continued placidly, "We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. . . "

She went on, describing the sort of fortune-telling they'd be doing, but Harriet only half-listened. Wasn't she going to say more about Neville's grandmother? If she knew something, she certainly ought to say more than that. Neville was now looking extremely worried—well, more than usual.

". . . unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice. And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever."

Tense silence fell on the room, almost as thick as the incense. Professor Trelawney didn't seem to notice.

"I wonder, dear," she said to Lavender, who shrank back from her, "if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?"

Lavender, looking relieved, got up to get it; but when she'd set it down in front of Professor Trelawney, she said, "Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading—it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October."

Lavender went white—at least, a shade of gray in the dimness. Harriet looked at Hermione, and as one they frowned.

"Now I want you to divide into pairs. . . "

Harriet expected Hermione to say something as everyone started moving to collect their teacups, but she remained so intensely silent that Harriet knew she was thinking harder than usual about something. They both fetched their teacups without speaking, hearing Professor Trelawney say to Neville, "Oh, and dear, after you've broken your first cup, would you be so kind as to select one of the blue-patterned ones? I'm rather attached to the pink."

And as Harriet turned away, she heard breaking china behind her, and Neville giving a squeak of dismay.

"Right," Harriet said once she and Hermione were back at their table, trying to weigh down the bulging pages of her book with her saucer so they'd stay propped open, "what can you see in mine?"

"I'm sure I can't see anything," Hermione said in a whisper.

Harriet twisted Hermione's cup around, trying to make out a shape in the soggy leaves. The incense was making her eyes water and her head feel thick and stupid. "Maybe this is a hippo . . . could be a sheep. . ."

Hermione turned a page in her book, deeply silent.

"How are you doing, my dears?" Professor Trelawney had shimmered up next to their table. Both of them jumped.

"Um," Harriet said, trying not to wince as Professor Trelawney's beads refracted light off her own lenses. "Fine, Professor."

"Let me see. . . Is this your cup, dear?" She scooped it out of Hermione's grip even before Harriet nodded. "Let me see. . . Ah." Her eyes seemed to grow even larger behind her spectacles. "The falcon—my dear, you have a deadly enemy."

"Well, obviously," Hermione said in a normal speaking voice. The whole class stared at her, including Harriet, who'd never imagined she could talk to a teacher like that. "Everyone knows that. You-Know-Who?"

Choosing not to reply, Professor Trelawney continued to turn Harriet's cup in her hands.

"The club . . . an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup. . . The skull—danger in your path, my dear. . . And. . . what is this here?" Professor Trelawney held the cup closer to her enormous eyes while the whole class stared and Harriet wasn't sure whether to be afraid or mortified.

"No. . ." Trelawney murmured, staring at the cup as if transfixed, "this cannot be. . ." Then she screamed, making everyone jump. Neville smashed his second cup. Harriet's cup landed on the table, slopping tea dregs across the crimson table cloth, and rolled to the floor. Harriet's heart was thumping very hard.

"No—do not ask me—it is too dreadful," Professor Trelawney said feebly, teetering backward until she found her chair, which she sank into.

"What, Professor?" everyone asked. "What is it?"

"My dear. . ." Trelawney gazed soulfully at Harriet, her hand pressed to her throat. "You have the Grim."

A couple of people looked confused, but most of them gasped. "Oh, Harriet!" Parvati said in a tortured voice. Hermione, however, was watching Trelawney through narrowed eyes.

"The Grim!" Professor Trelawney repeated, perhaps because Harriet did not scream like the others and fall backwards off her chair like Neville. "The spectral dog that haunts the churchyard, the harbinger of death—there, in your cup! A great darkness is reaching out for you, my dear, as if you stand upon the brink of the abyss. . . "

Everyone sat frozen, having no idea what this dark pronouncement meant, but certain it was something very bad. Harriet's face was on fire and her hands felt like ice.

"I . . . I think that is all for today," Trelawney said, tilting weakly in her chair. "Yes. . . until next we meet, children. . . "

They all rose in silence and clambered down the ladder. Harriet could feel everyone looking at her. Hermione grabbed her arm and pulled her briskly along with her, and by the time they reached the Transfigurations hall, the bell had rung and a mass of students swarmed between Harriet, Hermione and the rest of their class.

"I don't believe a word of it," Hermione said under her breath as she marched Harriet toward Professor McGonagall's classroom. "Not a word."

"Which part?" Harriet's voice came out so sharp it surprised her. "The part where I have two mass murderers after me? You said yourself—"

"Oh, Harriet, everyone knows about You-Know-Who and Sirius Black—I don't at all believe she saw anything in your cup except a load of soggy tea leaves. She was just playing off what she knew—there was no Grim in that cup, if such a thing as a Grim even exists and she wasn't just, just making it up to scare everyone—"

"What about Neville's cup?" Harriet persisted. "She said he'd break two and he did—"

"Of course he did, because she told him he would. It's not fortune-telling, it's psychology!"

They were at the door to the Transfiguration classroom, though it wasn't open yet. All they could do was stand in the hall and wait for the rest of the class to turn up. Even though this wasn't a mixed class, Harriet felt like she was waiting outside of Potions for the Slytherins: she'd just rather they bugger off. When the other Gryffindors trickled up, staring at her again the way they'd done last night, only more, she grit her teeth and looked away, out the window.

Her eyes fell on the forest, and she remembered, for the first time in days, about the giant black dog. But that had been a real dog: she'd petted it, got its dirt under her fingernails. It wasn't an omen, just a dog.

It was much more likely that Sirius Black breaking out of Azkaban was the death omen Trelawney was really looking for.

\--

Severus knew why Dumbledore always scheduled their start-of-term meeting on the first very long day of classes: it was so they could all get together and belt out their grievances. After two months spent without having to endure the little pustules, they were more sensitive to student antics than they'd been at the end of the term, when ten months of hardheaded stupidity had worn calluses on their hearts. But wounds opened fresh on the first day of term, when complaints were verbal and lengthy. By the end of the year, they'd be sitting in silence, trading weary looks of resigned disgust. Of course, Severus preferred to communicate through looks of disgust at any time.

Before all the teachers had dropped in, when it was just the four heads and (ugh) Lupin, Minerva started them off with a different sort of complaint than the usual.

"That wretched, pea-brained, chicken-hearted, gapeseed Sibyl Trelawney," she raged.

"What's she done?" Sprout asked kindly.

"What does she always do?" Minerva flashed back. "She's told her new crop of third years that one of them is going to pop their clogs—"

"Does that every year," Sprout commiserated, shaking her head; Flitwick nodded and sighed his assent.

"She what?" Lupin asked, curious. Sprout started to explain, but Minerva snapped:

"This year she told it to Miss Potter!"

A beat of cold, bright silence followed this pronouncement. Flitwick's mouth fell open, and Sprout's eyebrows flew into her hair. An odd expression flitted over Lupin's face, one that was almost like anger. For the first time, Severus was glad to attend a staff meeting: he could drop something into Trelawney's tea later to give her the runs.

"Yes," Minerva said into the silence, two spots of bright red in her cheeks.

"That insensitive, grandstanding old wart," Sprout said, shaking her head again.

"Why in God's name would she do something like that?" Lupin asked. He even sounded almost angry. Twat.

"Every year Sibyl makes an impression on her newest crop of third years by predicting that one of them will be dead by the end of the year." Minerva's eyes flashed like claws unsheathing. "It's nothing new—they all take it quite seriously, they're only children—but when they first walked into my class this morning, I thought someone really must have died. The look on Miss Potter's face—oh, I could wring Sibyl's neck. Terrorizing that poor child to impress the others—!"

"Did you talk to her?" Lupin asked, while Sprout continued to shake her head (which she'd been doing all throughout Minerva's speech).

"I told them that Sibyl Trelawney always does this and that no one has ever died. But no one looked really convinced, except Miss Granger, who seemed to have thought it rubbish from the start. You'll like Miss Granger," Minerva said to Lupin. "Very enthusiastic student. Almost a little too enthusiastic at times, but. . . "

"She is Miss Potter's closest friend," Flitwick added to Lupin, who looked interested. Severus wished the werewolf would go die. Preferably by falling off the top of the Astronomy Tower and landing on a bicycle with no seat.

The staff room door opened and Burbage came in, with that vapid look of silly good nature on her face, meaning that Minerva could no longer abuse Trelawney with impunity. She seated herself next to the werewolf, and they bent their heads together, continuing to whisper sharply (Minerva) and murmur (Lupin).

When Trelawney glided in, Severus wondered if it could be counted as evidence of how clairvoyant she wasn't, that she shimmered over to a seat and arranged her shawls without once seeming to detect Minerva's glares of murder.

Less than a minute later, Dumbledore joined them, beaming round as if he'd missed them all terribly.

"Good evening to you all," he said, managing to sound, every year, as if this staff meeting already held a place in his heart that outranked all the rest. "Thank you for taking the time out of your hectic evenings to meet with me—just a few announcements, and then we can all adjourn to cozier firesides. . . "

He always said this, or some variation of it, and yet the meetings went on forever. Severus had taken to walking out of them when he was done, since the others abused the opportunity to vent until his only option was to leave before his temper frayed and he started abusing them.

Trelawney had taken a seat near Dumbledore's, which she always did. Under the pretense of changing his, Severus moved round the table and sat next to her. It gave him an excellent view of the spikes in Minerva's eyes—but unfortunately left him sitting directly across from Lupin. Ugh.

Dumbledore called up the tea. Minerva stirred hers so hard she cracked the cup. Dumbledore appeared not to notice. Lupin looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"In the interests of not keeping you too long, we'll move on to our first order of business. . . " Dumbledore said.

And so the meeting went. Or rather, it started, and dragged. Severus said almost nothing, even foregoing the opportunity to twit Minerva about the Gryffindors, so he could concentrate on the right moment to douse Trelawney's tea. When it occurred—Dumbledore had turned to give Minerva, who was seated directly on his right, his full attention, and Trelawney was nodding off—it went off without a hitch; but he'd had practice.

After that, he gave his report of the day. "Students annoying, as usual."

Dumbledore twinkled, of course. "Anything unusual at all?"

"It's certainly astounding that they manage to dress and feed themselves, but not unusual."

The others clearly felt this level of repudiation was in bad taste. They always did. Lupin looked almost amused, though. Probably laughing at him.

"If that's all," Severus said, pushing his teacup away, "I have better things to be going on with."

"That's all I need," Dumbledore said cheerfully, while Minerva pursed her lips.

"I have a question, before Severus goes," Lupin said as Severus stood up. "What about—Asteria? Was that her name? Asteria Greengrass."

Severus bristled, the way he always did whenever a non-Slytherin mentioned one of his. "What about her?"

"When students have panic attacks in my classroom, I generally worry about them," Lupin said calmly, making Severus want to punch him in the teeth.

"Is that what happened?" Sprout asked interestedly. "I heard someone fainted—one of the first years, was it?"

"Severus?" asked Dumbledore, cutting cleanly through the rising murmurs of curiosity. "What of Miss Greengrass?"

Severus hadn't thought it was possible to despise Lupin more than he already did, but there his loathing went up a notch. He sent him a look of pure, poisonous hatred. The werewolf had the bloody gall to look confused.

"Asteria Greengrass is from a pure-blood family of limited means," Severus said in his most quelling voice. He hated discussing his Slytherins with any non. They always acted as if being from That Sort of Family was in bad taste. "She was raised near an isolated hamlet in North Cornwall. Her attachments to everything familiar are exceedingly strong. Her fear of the unfamiliar is so trenchant it approaches terror. Lupin's class was the last in her day. She overloaded."

Minerva's lips were pressed together in disapproval of some fucking thing-or-other; Severus, the Greengrass family, Slytherins, pure-bloods, who knew. Trelawney seemed to have nodded off next to him. If she slept through the meeting and left without drinking her tea, he would really be pissed.

"Do you think she can adjust?" Lupin asked, looking worried, as if this was any of his goddamn business. "Is this common?"

"We have had children who couldn't cope with boarding school life," Minerva said. "But rarely. She may have to be sent home."

"Asteria Greengrass is mine to deal with," Severus told them, You bloody stay out of it implicit in his tone. Minerva's phantom tail bristled. Lupin gave him a look he couldn't interpret but which he was sure wasn't complimentary.

"Do you think it feasible for her to remain at Hogwarts?" Dumbledore asked calmly, as if none of these silent spats were lancing across his staff table.

"I think it's much too soon to tell," he said impatiently. "She might adjust or she might not. I can't tell you after I've only met her in person for the first time last night—after she's only been in classes for a single day."

Dumbledore tapped his fingers against each other, considering. "You will keep me abreast?" But it wasn't really a question.

Severus just nodded once, curtly. Keeping Dumbledore—or any of the staff—informed about the lives and movements of his Slytherins was never of paramount importance. His House always operated best with the least said to outsiders. He'd had a more fruitful discussion about Asteria Greengrass's probable future with her thirteen-year-old sister than at this table.

"If that is truly all," Dumbledore said, "you may go."

Severus left them, despising the lot.

\--

"I'm sorry," Asteria keep saying tremulously. "I'm so sorry."

"Shh, Aster." Daphne cleaned her face with a warm flannel. It was more to make Asteria feel better than from any real need; she was one of those few, fortunate people whom tears didn't disfigure. In fact, tears would surely only make her look more captivating to males, rousing their protective instincts. It would have been fortunate had she been more like any of her other sisters. Daphne knew that she and Leto both needed to make excellent marriages, because Asteria certainly wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it, not even for them.

"I really am—"

"Shh." She dried Asteria's face and then dropped both damp flannel and towel into the hamper for the house-elves to launder. "It isn't your fault, Aster. It was too much."

Asteria looked miserable. "Other people don't have panic attacks on their first day of classes."

"Now, how do you know? I'm sure they certainly do. Anyway, it doesn't matter what other people do and don't have. I think you were very brave today."

Asteria looked deeply skeptical but said nothing. Daphne knew she was tired, too tired even to speak to her dearest sister. If it weren't for the burning need to apologize, she probably wouldn't have said anything until some time tomorrow.

"Well, Professor Snape has said you may sleep with me, in my dorm," Daphne said. "Wasn't that kind of him?" Asteria nodded gravely. "Shall we go, then? Would you like to rest now?"

Another grave nod. Putting her arm around Asteria's waist—she couldn't comfortably reach her shoulders any longer; she was just a touch too tall—Daphne led her sister to the third year girls' dorm.

The only person inside it was Millicent. Daphne was grateful: Millicent wasn't likely to talk.

"Hello, Millicent," she said anyway.

Millicent just looked at her. She was chewing on a licorice wand. Daphne had always suspected Millicent didn't like her very much, but then she didn't know who Millicent did like.

"This is my sister, Asteria. She'll be staying in our dorm for a while."

Millicent's eyes traveled to Asteria, who was flinching at the prospect that she might be spoken to and have to suffer the agony of knowing she ought to reply while being too afraid to. But Millicent only kept chewing on the wand. Anyone else would have found this off-putting (Daphne included) but Asteria relaxed. Only a tiny bit, since in the presence of a stranger, the threat of a stray remark was always imminent, but even that tiny bit was welcome.

Pansy was probably in the hospital wing, attending Draco after the hippogriff had slashed him. She'd dictated a furious, tear-filled letter to Daphne, to be sent to Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy. Daphne was quite sure that Draco was all healed, but he'd tossed and moaned that he was in agony, and Pansy had hung over him, shedding tears and crying for Hagrid's resignation.

Draco had snogged (as the vulgar girls said) Pansy at the end of last year, which had turned her even more insufferable than usual; but if she was now Draco's not-quite-official girlfriend, then she was less likely to be in the dorm, tormenting Asteria. Daphne might ask Professor Snape if she could share Asteria's dorm instead; Pansy could be as cruel as a scorpion, and Asteria could be reduced to tears by the thought of a baby bird fallen out of a tree.

So she got Asteria ready for bed very quickly and hid her trunk under the bed. Then she bundled her into the four-poster, but Asteria was relieved to go. She closed her eyes, looking exhausted. Daphne paused in pulling the hangings shut, thinking that perhaps she ought to stay with her until she fell asleep—but then she heard Pansy's voice ringing in the hall and jerked the hangings shut instead.

"Millicent," she said quickly, "if you could say nothing to Pansy about my sister—it would be a great favor—"

"Don't like Pansy near enough to tell her anything," Millicent said around her wand.

Before Asteria could thank her, Pansy threw open the door and came into the room. It was obvious had been crying for some time, but unlike Asteria, she did not cry well. In fact, she looked so terrible, and so oblivious to it, that Daphne was really taken aback. She had always assumed that Pansy hungered after Draco for reasons of status, but it was impossible to think that she'd be this distraught unless she honestly had feelings for him.

"Oh, Pansy," said Daphne, because Pansy would know they weren't truly friends if she ignored her now. (Millicent just stared at them, chewing on a new licorice wand.) "Have you been with Draco all this time?"

"He's in agony," Pansy choked as more tears leaked out her eyes. "That useless hag Pomfrey couldn't do anything for him!"

This made Daphne even more certain that Draco was faking, but she said, "How horrid. Do you think he'll have to be sent to St. Mungo's?"

"How should I know?" Pansy snapped. "I only came back here because Pomfrey threw me out, the stupid old bitch." Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror. "I'm taking a shower," she snapped, and grabbing her bath things out of her dresser, she slammed out of the room so hard pieces of stone plaster dusted down from the ceiling.

Millicent snorted. "Cow," she said round her licorice wand. "If I was Draco, I'd fake being a hundred percent just so she wouldn't be blubbering all over me."

\--

Draco was relieved Pansy was finally gone. He'd almost been regretting that he hadn't just let Pomfrey fix his arm and left, because having Pansy around for that long was exhausting. He didn't know why, but her habit of fussing constantly and agreeing with everything he said, and snapping at Daphne, who'd come to see how he was doing, had got on his nerves. It shouldn't have—she was only doing what any good sycophant would do—but it had become really quite boring and he'd wished she'd have gone to the loo or something so he could have had five minutes of normal conversation with Daphne, or even with Goyle, who came with her, and brought him an empty napkin from the dinner table that had once contained a bit of pudding Goyle thought he might like (only he wound up liking it more and ate it on the way to the infirmary).

Pansy was gone for the evening, at least. He'd decided he was going to go back to class tomorrow, because being an invalid was really amazingly dull, especially when everyone thought you were faking it. Well, he was, but he thought being clawed by a hippogriff would've entitled him to a bit more sympathy from Pomfrey, at least. Until she'd healed him, it had hurt a whole bally lot—felt like he was bleeding to death. After healing his cut, though, she'd clearly expected him to go, and given him such a look when he couldn't describe where it still hurt (because it didn't really), that only his pride had kept him from fleeing the hospital wing.

At least Mother and Father would be suitably angry. They might even try to get that oaf Hagrid sacked. What was Dumbledore thinking, making him a teacher? And those Nons said Snape took favoritism too far. . .

Deep inside, a tiny part of him wished he hadn't been slashed because he'd really been enjoying the lesson. Hippogriffs were terrifying and impressive. Father kept peacocks, but imagine having hippogriffs for pets. . . And then the thing had clawed him, and he'd looked like a total ass. The whole experience had been humiliating, and he knew all those Gryffindors would be saying he deserved it. . . the only thing to do was milk the negative part of the experience for all it was worth. A Slytherin had to save face.

He lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, both bored and something more unpleasant. It was times like this that you knew who your real friends were. The only people who'd come to visit him were Pansy, Daphne, and Goyle. He'd actually been surprised to receive them, even. He didn't expect to have friends. His parents had always been quite clear that people at the top had very few friends, true friends, and Malfoys were certainly at the very top. They had many things that other people didn't, but they didn't really make friends, only allies and enemies. It was just part of being who they were.

Sometimes, he wished it wasn't.

\--

The next morning, Malfoy swaggered into Potions with his arm in a sling, acting as if failing to follow directions was some sort of heroic feat. Pansy Parkison immediately started fawning over him.

"Just to warn you," Harriet muttered to Hermione, "I might barf in my cauldron."

Hermione sent Malfoy and Pansy a scathing glance. "A waste of perfectly good bile," she said primly.

Harriet snorted trying to swallow her giggle. She had the odd sense that Snape heard her. But he didn't look up from what he was doing, except to say, "Settle down," to Draco, who for some reason was setting up his cauldron on Harriet and Hermione's table.

"Sir," Draco called to Snape, "I'll need some help cutting up my ingredients—what with my arm—"

Snape did look up then. His eyes flicked over Harriet and Hermione, and he said, "Weasley, cut up Malfoy's roots for him."

Harriet heard Ron make a choking noise behind her. She felt very bad for Ron, and extremely guilty because her first thought had been, Thank God he didn't send Pansy over here.

To make up for this selfishness, she said, "I can do it, sir—"

This attempt at soothing her guilt earned her a quelling sneer. "Miss Potter, do you think I'm so mentally feeble that I can't tell the difference between you and Mr. Weasley?"

Harriet blushed, but she knew when she'd been beaten. Or at least when she ought to shut up. This one time, that was.

Behind her, Ron was chuntering under his breath over the thwack thwack twonnng of his knife hacking savagely at Malfoy's daisy roots. He was probably imagining them to be Malfoy's neck, arms and legs.

"If you're dying to help me, Potter," Malfoy said, his gray eyes glinting, "you could skin my shrivelfig."

"You could stop being a git, too, but that's not likely to happen," she snapped. By accident she said it a little too loudly—Snape must have heard her that time, especially since he was sweeping past their table as she said it—but he only continued sweeping past without saying a word.

When he stopped at Neville's cauldron, Harriet would rather he stopped to sneer at her some more.

"Orange, Longbottom," Snape said, ladling some of Neville's Shrinking Solution into the air and letting it splash back into the cauldron. "Orange. What color should it be?"

Neville was so terrified of Snape he couldn't speak. Snape looked even more disgusted, which was impressive considering how disgusted he always looked during their class.

"Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours?" he asked Neville. "Didn't you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn't I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?"

Neville looked like he was about to cry. Harriet felt much more horrible than she would have if Snape had bullied her like this.

"Please, sir," said Hermione, raising her hand, "please, I could help Neville put it right—"

Snape turned enough to fix Hermione with a special blend of cold disgust. "I don't remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger," he said, and Hermione went as pink as Neville.

Hot in the face, Harriet glared at Snape. She would almost have sworn his expression flickered, but she knew she'd have to be as mad as Sirius Black to have really seen such a thing.

"Longbottom." Snape turned away from Harriet to curdle Neville with a look. "Unless you wish me to feed this rancid swill to you and find out what it will do to your insides, you will fix this travesty of a potion by the end of class."

He swept away, leaving Neville white and trembling.

"Help me!" he moaned to Hermione.

"Your pals aren't as stalwart as you, Potter," Malfoy drawled, unpleasantly close to Harriet's ear.

"You won't be so stalwart either if you don't watch out," Harriet retorted. She was intensely displeased to see that Malfoy had shifted round in his chair to lounge on the side closer to her. Eurgh. The dead caterpillars she was supposed to add next to her potion were more appealing.

"Aren't you worried about your oafish friend, Hagrid?" he asked, and Harriet seriously considered throwing leech juice in his face. "He was a teacher for a day or so, wasn't he?"

"How would you like to be permanently skinning your shrivelfig one-handed?" she ground out. She wasn't going to ask What do you mean "was," Malfoy? She wouldn't sink so low as to fall for that.

No one else was paying them any attention. Hermione was muttering instructions to Neville out of the corner of her mouth; Ron had taken advantage of Malfoy's distraction to return to his own potion.

"Father's not too happy about my injury, you see," Malfoy said in a mock-mournful voice. "He's complained to the school governors. And to the Ministry of Magic. Father's got a lot of influence, you know. And a lasting injury like this"—he heaved a long, fake sigh—"who knows if my arm'll ever been the same again?"

"You're putting this on to get Hagrid fired?" Harriet hissed.

"Well," said Malfoy, lowering his voice and leaning toward her; she leaned away. "Partly, Potter. But it has other uses, too. Weasley, slice my caterpillars for me."

At the end of class, Snape loomed over Neville again and examined his potion. His profile was facing Harriet—she could see only one of his eyes, and the great, scimitar-like curve of his nose. She thought again of the hippogriffs, how they'd slash at you without warning. Neville looked ready to faint.

"Miss Granger," Snape said, letting the ladle clang back into the cauldron, "I was under the impression that this is Longbottom's cauldron, and Longbottom's potion, not yours. I was under the impression that your cauldron is over there in front of you, not here in front of me. Five points for doing another student's work for him."

Hermione went bright red, looking mortified.

Bloody sick of Slytherins, Harriet grabbed her bag and Hermione's hand when the bell rang and shoved past the other students out the door.

As they gained the stairs, Ron came storming up to them, pushing between them so that Harriet had to let go of Hermione's hand. "Can you believe that arsehole?" he demanded. "Five points because the potion was all right! Hermione, you should've told him Neville did it by himself—"

Hermione didn't answer. Harriet looked around Ron, but Hermione was gone. Bewildered, they stopped and stared down the stairs, ignoring their classmates who streamed around them, heading to lunch.

"Where did she go?" Ron asked, turning, baffled, to Harriet.

Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, climbed past them, smirking malice all over his git face. Harriet wondered she would achieve Snape-levels of disgust soon.

"There you are," Ron said as Hermione ran up the stairs toward them, staggering under a load of her books that seemed bigger than usual, and tucking something down the front of her robes.

"Where did you go?" Harriet asked as Hermione joined them, panting a little.

"What?" Hermione said, looking confused.

"You were right here with us—"

"Then you were gone," Ron said. Harriet wished he'd stop doing that. It made her feel like she was constantly talking to Fred and George.

"Oh." Hermione pushed her hair out of her face, which was red, perhaps from running, which had also got her out of breath. "I forgot something and had to go back—oh no—" she squeaked as a seam on her bag split and several books the size of small refrigerators thumped to the floor.

"Surely you don't need all those," Harriet said, bending to help her gather them up.

"You know how many subjects I'm taking—hang on, if you could hold those, I can re-sew the seam—"

"But you don't have any of these today," Harriet said, frowning at Rudimentary Runology. "Today's just Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Mm." Hermione beamed at her bag as she got the seam to re-knit itself. "Thank you, Harriet. I wonder what's for lunch? I'm starving."

"D'you get the feeling Hermione's not telling us something?" Ron asked slowly as they watched Hermione march off toward the Great Hall.

Harriet didn't say anything: she knew Hermione wasn't telling her something.

\--

Everyone was curious about DADA, considering that their history with it had gone from bad to worse. Professor Lupin's turning up to class only to lead them out again got them even more curious, and after he blithely hexed chewing gum up Peeves's nose, most of them (especially the boys) were impressed; and then, when he led them at last to the staff room, they were mystified. Already this was loads more interesting than Lockhart's "All About Magical Me" quiz.

Harriet had never been to the staff room before. It was a long room paneled in dark wood and scattered with furniture so mismatched it had all probably come from different centuries. The fireplace was enormous and carved on either side with a set of oak trees, stained with soot after all the fires. Snape was sitting next to it in a low armchair, reading the sad book about the woman who killed herself. He looked up when they entered, his eyes glittering.

"Leave it open, Lupin," he said as Professor Lupin made to shut the door. "I'd rather not witness this."

He stalked away, taking his book with him. But at the door he suddenly turned back, a vicious sneer gathering on his face.

"Possibly no one has warned you, Lupin, that this class contains Neville Longbottom. I wouldn't trust him with anything important, if I were you—not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear."

Neville went a bright, humiliated red. Harriet felt her face grow hot, too, and she glared at Snape harder than ever. It was bad enough he bullied Neville in his class, but in front of a new teacher, in their first class?

But Professor Lupin only raised his eyebrows. "Actually I was hoping Neville would assist me with the first stage of my lesson," he said. "I'm sure he'll perform it admirably."

Snape's lip curled in a sneer more impressive than possibly any he'd ever done before, and he shut the door behind him with a snap.

"Down this way." Professor Lupin beckoned them toward an ancient, towering wardrobe, the kind with curlicues carved on every edge. When he stood next to it, the wardrobe jerked, banging off the wall and making several people, including Hermione and Neville, jump.

"Nothing to worry about," said Professor Lupin calmly. "There's a Boggart in there."

Harriet had no idea what this meant, but judging by the looks on most faces, this was something to be worried about. Neville went the shade of curdled milk, and Parvati edged behind Ron.

"Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces," Professor Lupin explained. "Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, cupboards under sinks—I once met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. This one moved in at the end of last week and I asked the teachers to leave it for us to take care of.

"So the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a Boggart?"

Hermione's hand shot up. "It's a shape-shifter," she said when Professor Lupin nodded at her. "It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us the most."

"Couldn't have put it better myself," said Professor Lupin, and Hermione glowed. "So the Boggart sitting in the darkness within hasn't, at this moment, assumed a form. He doesn't yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.

"This means," he went on, ignoring Neville's small splutter of terror, "that we have a huge advantage over the Boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harriet?"

Harriet was taken aback, not only because she'd been called on without warning, but also because she'd never had to try and answer a question with Hermione bobbing up and down on the balls of her feet next to her. "Er," she stammered, "because there are so many of us, it won't know what it should become?"

"Precisely," Professor Lupin said. Hermione put her hand down, looking a little disappointed. "It's always best to have company when dealing with a Boggart. He becomes confused. Which should be become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug? I once saw a Boggart make that very mistake—tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening.

"The charm to repel a Boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.

"We'll practice the charm without wands first. After me, please . . . riddikulus!"

"Riddikulus!" said the class.

"Good," said Professor Lupin, smiling slightly. "Very good. But that was the easy part, I'm afraid. You see, the word alone isn't enough. And this is where you come in, Neville."

The wardrobe shook again, though not as much as Neville, who walked forward as though he was heading for the gallows.

"Right, Neville," said Professor Lupin, beckoning him closer. "First things first: what would you say is the thing that frightens you most in the world?"

Neville's lips moved but no noise came out.

"Didn't catch that, Neville, sorry," said Professor Lupin cheerfully.

Neville looked wildly around, as though begging someone to help him, then stammered, in hardly more than a whisper, "P-professor Snape."

Nearly everyone laughed. Even Neville grinned apologetically. Something about his reply bothered Harriet, though she couldn't put her finger on why it should. What with the way Snape treated Neville, it made sense. . .

Professor Lupin was looking thoughtful.

"Professor Snape . . . hmmm . . . Neville, I believe you live with your grandmother?"

"Er—yes," said Neville nervously, "but—I don't want the Boggart to turn into her, either."

"No, no, you misunderstand me," said Professor Lupin, smiling again. "I wonder, could you tell us what sort of clothes your grandmother usually wears?"

Neville looked startled but said, "Well . . . always the same hat, a tall one, with a stuffed vulture on top. And a long dress . . . green, normally . . . and sometimes a fox-fur scarf."

"And a handbag?"

"A big red one."

"Right, then," said Professor Lupin. "Can you picture those clothes very clearly, Neville? Can you see them in your mind's eye?"

"Yes," said Neville uncertainly, plainly wondering what was coming next.

"When the Boggart bursts out of the wardrobe, Neville, and sees you, it will assume the form of Professor Snape," said Lupin calmly, while Neville gulped. "And you will raise your wand—thus—and cry 'Riddikulus'—and concentrate hard on your grandmother's clothes. If all goes well, Professor Boggart Snape will be forced into that vulture-topped hat, that green dress, that big red handbag."

There was a great shout of laughter from the class, and the wardrobe wobbled more violently. But Harriet, instead of laughing, felt a gathering wave of something . . . unpleasant. . .

"If Neville is successful, the Boggart is likely to turn his attention to each of us in turn," said Professor Lupin. "I would like all of you to take a moment to think of the thing that scares you most, and imagine how you might force it to look comical . . . "

The room went quiet. Harriet tried to push aside her confusion and weird feelings and think: What scared her most?

Her first thought was of Voldemort—a Voldemort returned to full power, a Voldemort who had made her mother scream like that, in the dark places in her mind . . . but before she could possibly think of a way to make him funny, while she was thinking of that—something quite different pushed that thought aside.

She remembered a feeling of cold so strong it drowned you, so surrounding it blinded you, and saw the streaming black cloak, ink on old parchment, and the words, The Dementor is one of the most dangerous creatures that haunts this world . . .

She shivered, looking round to distract herself. Next to her, Ron was muttering to himself, his eyes shut tight, "Take its legs off. . . "

"Everyone ready?" Professor Lupin asked, glancing round at them all.

Harriet felt a lurch of fear. She wasn't ready. How could you make a Dementor less frightening? Would it really become a Dementor, dredging up her worst memories, making her fall dead into a faint? But she didn't want to ask for more time, because everyone else was nodding and brandishing their wands.

"Neville, we're going to back away," said Professor Lupin, motioning them all to step back against the walls. "Let you have a clear field, all right? I'll call the next person forward . . . everyone back now, so Neville can have a clear shot—"

They all retreated, backing into the walls, leaving Neville alone in front of the wardrobe, looking pale and frightened. But he'd pushed up the sleeves of his robes and was holding his wand ready.

"On the count of three, Neville," said Professor Lupin, his own wand aimed at the wardrobe's door handle. "One—two—three—now!"

Sparks shot from the tip of Lupin's wand, hitting the doorknob like a small explosion of fireworks. With a clunk, the latch turned, and the wardrobe door banged open. Snape stepped out, and Harriet was really shocked—not only did it look exactly like Snape, but it looked exactly like the Snape she'd seen last summer at the Dursleys, when he'd broken open her bedroom door.

Neville was backing away, his wand held shaking out in front of him, his mouth opening and closing. Snape was bearing down on him, reaching inside his robes, the look in his eyes so menacing anyone would have quailed—was that what the Dursleys had seen, before he'd Immobilized them?

"R-r-riddikulus!" Neville squeaked.

A noise like a whip-crack shattered the tense silence. Snape stumbled: instead of his usual black robes, he was now wearing a long, lace-trimmed dress and a towering hat topped with a stuffed vulture. Harriet's stomach was filled with a hot queasiness like mortification, which was incredibly confusing.

The class let out a roar of laughter and the Boggart paused, confused. Professor Lupin shouted, "Parvati! Forward!"

Parvati walked forward, her face set. Snape rounded on her. With another whip-crack, he was gone, replaced with a mummy, one covered in bloody bandages stretched across its face, except for the remains of its rotting teeth and skin decaying around its over-wide mouth. It raised its arms, lurching toward her—she cried, "Riddikulus!"—and it tripped over its bandages, its head rolling off and tumbling across the floor, to excited screams and yells.

"Seamus!" Professor Lupin called.

A banshee—Seamus robbed her of her voice. Then Dean's Boggart turned into a severed hand and he snapped it in a mousetrap. Ron was next, transforming the Boggart into a giant spider, twice as tall as a grown man, that made Lavender shriek. Ron's roar of "RIDDIKULUS!" vanished its legs, sending it lurching wildly across the floor, scattering everyone—but Harriet stayed planted as it rolled thundering toward her, her heart hammering as she raised her wand—

"Here!" Professor Lupin darted just enough in front of her that the spider vanished with a crack, turning into a glowing silver orb that simply hung in the air, neither moving nor making any noise.

"Riddikulus," he said, almost lazily, like this was something he'd seen a hundred thousand times, and with a crack the silver ball disappeared, falling to the floor as a cockroach.

"Forward, Neville, and finish him off!" he said, and Neville charged forward, looking determined.

"Ridikulus!" he shouted, and they had a split second view of Snape in the lacy dress again before Neville cried, "Ha!" and the Boggart exploded, like the smoke left after a firework, and was gone.

"Excellent!" Professor Lupin said, as the class broke into applause. "Excellent, Neville. Well done, everyone. Let me see . . . five points to Gryffindor for every person to tackle the Boggart—ten for Neville because he did it twice—and five each to Hermione and Harriet."

"But I didn't do anything," Harriet protested, still feeling slightly shaken.

"You and Hermione answered my questions correctly at the start of class," Lupin said lightly, but again Harriet sensed he was holding something back. "Very well, everyone, an excellent lesson. Homework—kindly read the chapter on Boggarts and summarize it for me . . . to be handed in on Monday. That will be all."

Chattering excitedly, the class streamed out of the staff room. Harriet, however, felt somehow unpleasant, like a greasy hand had smeared itself over her heart. She wasn't shaken like she'd been after Trelawney's lesson, or alarmed as she'd been after Hagrid's, or even angry, the way she'd been after Snape's. Snape-in-the dress had bothered her, though, was still bothering her, and she didn't know why—nor did she know why Professor Lupin had jumped in front of the Boggart rather than let her have at it. Part of her was relieved that she hadn't had to hear her mum screaming, or fainted in front of the entire class . . . and yet, if she couldn't deal with a Dementor or a Boggart, how was she supposed to defend herself if she met one on her own?

No one else seemed to have noticed anything. They were all talking about their Boggarts and how they'd vanquished them.

"Did you see me take that banshee!"

"And the hand!"

"And Snape in that hat!"

"That was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson we've ever had, wasn't it?" Ron said excitedly.

"He seems a very good teacher," Hermione said. "I only wish I could have had a turn with that Boggart—"

"I wonder why Professor Lupin's frightened of crystal balls?" Lavender wondered to Parvati.

Maybe he met Professor Trelawney, Harriet thought.

\--

"I really shouldn't have done it," Remus said, for at least the fifth time.

"Officially," Minerva said, "no, you shouldn't have." Her lips thinned. "But unofficially—speaking far, far off the record—it will do them both a bit of good. Severus to have Longbottom standing up to him, and Longbottom to learn to be less frightened of him."

Thunder rumbled outside the windows of Minerva's parlor, thrumming the glass, down which the rain streamed, glowing golden-orange in the reflected firelight. Minerva's fire was cheerful and bright, but Remus felt a weariness that it couldn't touch. It owed itself at least in part to the moon that grew fuller by the day, somewhere beyond the screen of the storm, but also to his own lapse back into adolescence: his retaliation, plus its target.

"I shouldn't have done it," he repeated. "But when Neville said he was the thing he feared most—and the way Severus belittled him as he walked out, in front of the whole class and me—"

"He's always like that," Minerva said simply. "Though he's rather worse with Longbottom than with the rest."

"And Albus doesn't step in?" Remus asked, even though he knew the answer, however hard it was to believe.

"Albus thinks the children ought to learn from certain unpleasant experiences." Her lips pressed together again. "Such as unfair teachers. I don't like it, and I certainly don't like how Severus takes it as license to run rampant in that way . . . but—oh, who can know? Albus has wisdom that I do not, but all the same, I've never approved."

"It wasn't professional of me to retaliate," Remus sighed. "And having experience with this sort of thing—particularly with Severus and this sort of thing—I'm afraid I'll have only made things worse for Neville."

"Well," said Minerva. "At the risk of sounding like Albus—the things we do often have more consequences than we can ever foresee, and it's rarely only to the good or to the bad. You never know what might come of it."


	24. Snuffles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The demands and privations of friendship plague Harriet, and neither her oldest friend nor her newest is free to speak as they wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -lol Short chapter! I don't write in chapters, so I don't notice how ill-suited my fics are to chapters until I go to upload them. But I felt these bits didn't go with the next part, so I've put them on their own. They're kind of set-uppy. Filler-ish?
> 
> -Harriet says something very similar to a quote by Khalil Gibran: "Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof."

And so third year was off to a rocky start.

Professor Lupin may have got a lukewarm reception at the start of term feast, but by the end of the second week of class his popularity was soaring (as long as you discounted the Slytherins in Malfoy's pack, who whispered loudly about his wardrobe whenever Lupin was within earshot). Everyone else was agreed that his Defense lessons were the best they'd ever had. He brought them interesting creatures they'd never seen before and devised ways of teaching about them that was exciting without being terrifying. Even Neville managed to smile when they were learning about Kappas, before one of them reached out of the tank and grabbed his ear.

Poor Neville—he was having an even worse term than Harriet. She might have had a mass murderer after her, but Neville had Snape.

The story about the Boggart-Snape in Mrs. Longbottom's clothes had rocketed through the school, moving even faster than Professor Lupin's popularity (and probably having something to do with it). It put Snape in a fouler mood than anyone could ever remember seeing, and he was bullying Neville worse than ever.

Harriet spent Potions classes feeling miserable, angry and confused. She was angry because Snape was tormenting Neville for something that hadn't even been his idea in the first place, not really; it had been Professor Lupin's idea. But she was also miserable for the same reason, without any idea of why she should be; and she also felt confused, because every time she thought about it—every time someone brought it up—she felt just as uncomfortable as she had when Professor Lupin had first come up with the idea. She had no idea why, or what it meant, or how to make it go away. Really no idea how to make it go away, since everyone kept talking about bloody Snape-in-a-dress, especially Ron and Seamus and Dean, and congratulating Neville (who was also looking like he wished they'd stop). Dean even drew a couple of obscene pictures.

Then, just before the start of October, Sirius Black was spotted "not too far" from Hogwarts, according to an article by Rita Skeeter, whom Harriet was really beginning to despise. She didn't know how the horrid cow did it, but while the articles always said it would be a terrible thing if Black got what he was after, they suggested that Skeeter would like nothing better than to see him to blow up Harriet in the street, like he'd done those thirteen other people, so she could write the most amazing piece on it.

Rita Skeeter's rubbish appeared only weekly in the Daily Prophet, but Harriet's classmates goggled at her every day—and three times a week she had to put up with Professor Trelawney gazing at her with tear-filled eyes that swam alarmingly behind her magnified spectacles. Harriet couldn't like her, even though most of the class was in complete awe of her. Neville was quite frightened of her now, almost as frightened as he was of Snape, and trembled constantly throughout the class. Harriet could tell because his teacup rattled in its saucer for an hour and a half, from his leg jiggling his table.

Lavender and Parvati adored Professor Trelawney. They'd taken to haunting her Tower at lunchtimes and speaking to Harriet in hushed voices, like she was on her deathbed. Harriet had never minded sharing a dorm with them before, even when they were building their Lockhart shrine, but by the end of that first fortnight she was so sick of them she wished Crookshanks would claw their ankles.

What with Ron, Seamus and Dean chortling about Snape, and Lavender and Parvati whispering about her certain death, and Neville on the verge of a nervous collapse, Harriet was pretty well isolated to her friendship with Hermione. This would have suited her just fine, except she was also having problems with Hermione, because Hermione was hiding something from her.

She was taking three extra classes, two of which were scheduled at the same time as Divinations, and one of which was at the same time as Care of Magical Creatures. Harriet had known something was fishy from the start, but when Hannah Abbot asked her, as they waited in line for the loo, how Hermione was making it to Magical Creatures since she'd never once missed an Ancient Runes class, and didn't she have Charms with the rest of the Gryffindors on Wednesday afternoons, she knew something stranger than usual was going on.

"Hermione," she said that night as they were doing homework in the library. It was a perfect opening, since Hermione had three textbooks spread out in front of her, one from Transfigurations, which Harriet was also working on, and two from classes that Hermione couldn't conceivably be attending, because they were each at the same time as the other and both at the same time as Divinations.

"Yes, Harry?" Hermione asked, not looking up from her parchment, where she was feverishly writing about Muggles and electricity. "Is it really important? Because I need to get all these done for Monday—"

Right, then; Harriet wouldn't knock around the bush. "How are you getting to your classes?" she asked bluntly.

Hermione's quill paused, but then she started writing even faster than before. "We talked about this before. I explained it then—if you didn't understand then, I don't see why now would be any different, and I really need to—"

"You didn't explain it," Harriet said. "You said you fixed it with Professor McGonagall, but you didn't say how. How can you be in three places at once? You've never missed Divinations or Care of Magical Creatures, or Ancient Runes or—"

"Honestly, Harry, I know my own schedule." Hermione splattered ink across her textbook when she jerked her quill too hard out of her ink-well. "What does it matter how I'm getting to my classes? I still—"

This was a fair question, and Harriet knew that. And yet she couldn't see why Hermione would refuse to tell her what was going on. The fact that Hermione was keeping a secret and wouldn't even admit it was a secret was hurtful. Maybe it shouldn't have been, but it was. Of all the people who kept secrets from her, she'd never have expected Hermione to be one of them.

"It matters when you're keeping something from me," she said quietly, accusingly. "I know you are. I just don't know why."

Hermione's quill faltered. Her eyes flickered up to meet Harriet's, held them for a moment, and then dropped back to her paper.

"I promised Professor McGonagall," she said in a low voice, starting to write again, but more slowly than before. "I'm not to tell anyone."

"I'm your best friend," Harriet said. "I'm not 'anyone.'"

Hermione bent further over her parchment until all Harriet could see was the crown of her head. "I promised, Harriet."

"Fine." Harriet closed up her books and stuffed them in her bag.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked, like she was surprised.

"To the Common Room," Harriet said shortly, slinging her bag on her shoulder. "Since you're not going to talk to me."

"Harriet," Hermione said as she walked off, sounding hurt and bewildered. But Harriet didn't look round, and Hermione didn't try to stop her. The further Harriet walked, the worse she felt; but she also knew that if she went back and sat at the table she would feel just as bad.

So she kept on walking, down the corridors which were growing chillier as autumn set in, feeling more and more miserable with every step.

\--

The next morning, Harriet didn't have a chance to speak (or avoid speaking) to Hermione because she had a very, very early Quidditch practice to drag herself to. Oliver Wood, spurred by their taking the Quidditch Cup at the end of last year—and taking it from Slytherin, who had won it seven years in a row—was now more desperate than ever to close his Hogwarts career with another win. The entire team was convinced that anything less than a sweeping victory would kill him.

"We can't let the Cup out of our hands," was how he greeted them on that painfully early Saturday morning, when mist rose blue and silver across the wet grass. His eyes were burning with the light of determination, or maybe madness.

"It's not in our hands," Fred said, blinking tiredly at him.

"It's in McGonagall's office," George said with his eyes shut as he pretended to fall sideways asleep onto Harriet.

"It's got our names on it," Oliver said, his eyes burning so brightly that Harriet was afraid her broom was going to catch on fire. "Our names will stay on it. This is our year!"

"Of c-c-ourse it is, Oliver," Angelina yawned.

He dragged them out onto the field and put them through drills. Harriet had been half-asleep all the way out of her bed, down the stairs, into the changing rooms and across the lawn—the cold seemed to make her sleepier, rather than waking her up—but when she kicked off the ground and the icy air streamed around her, and that feeling of flying up, up, up soared through her stomach and all through her body, she felt her tiredness stripping away, piece by piece. By the time she was up above the goal posts, high enough to have a view of the whole pitch, she was wide awake.

She looked toward the gates for Dementors. Hermione had said they'd felt them, riding the carriages up the track: a wave of cold, like sinking into a river, and dreadful things had risen over her head like black water, closing her in, so she couldn't get out.

Harriet hadn't told her about hearing her mum. She hadn't told anyone. She still didn't really know if that's who it had been, not with any proof . . . but she did know, deep inside, where the memory had come from. It was like a knowledge in the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

Sometimes at night, when the dorm was dark and silent except for the sound of Crookshanks scritching about, she saw it in her mind: Voldemort coming into the room, her mum holding her, screaming—wordless in the memory, just a scream, a sound of terror. And then a flash of green light—

Harriet jerked as a Bludger went whistling past her face. "Wake up, Runty-ette Potter!" Fred called, pelting after it. "Don't go to sleep and fall off your broom!"

Harriet was shaking, though not from the Bludger. The green light—she'd dreamt about the green light a hundred thousand times, but she'd never thought, until then, to wonder if it hadn't been a spell. . .

"Harry!" Wood bellowed from the goalposts. "Get looking for the Snitch!"

George belted another Bludger at her for fun, sending her rolling into a dive; and after that, between the twins' Bludgers and Oliver's shouting at all of them, she didn't have time to dwell on any of what kept her awake at night.

But when practice was over and all the others were headed back to the castle, she found herself lagging behind. Hermione would just be doing schoolwork, pretending nothing weird was going on. Ron had gone almost entirely over to the Boy Side, and Ginny had her own circle of friends now that she wasn't possessed by the spirit of Tom Riddle. This was the first year Harriet had realized that although she was famous, she couldn't really say she was popular, not at all.

If she hadn't been at odds with Hermione and if Ron weren't too old now to have girls for friends, she probably wouldn't have even noticed.

Maybe she'd go and see Hagrid. He could always use some cheering up these days (like Harriet wringing Malfoy's git neck).

Mindful of the ever-present threat of Sirius Black, she climbed back onto her broom and flew along, only about three feet above the ground. The mist was still so high, even past ten in the morning, that it brushed her toes.

When something moved off in the gloom, she almost fell off her broom. Jerking it up, she shot into the air, up, up, until she thought she was a safe distance from a hex, and looked down.

It was the dog—the shaggy, zombie-like one she'd seen back before term started. He was watching her, wagging his tail. He trotted out of the shadow of the trees and whined.

She let her broom drop back toward the ground, cautiously, and then, when no spells came rocketing out of the trees, she dismounted.

"Hey, boy." She put out her hand, and he licked it, wagging his tail. "You don't look much better. Nobody's feeding you?"

He whined, wagging the tail some more. She scratched behind his still-filthy ears, thinking. She could ask Hagrid for some food . . . Surely he wouldn't snitch on her looking after a stray, not when he'd hatched a dragon.

"Come on," she said, slinging her broom over her shoulder. "Let's see if Hagrid's got anything for you to eat—"

But the dog whuffed and backed away, shaking his head from side to side. Nonplussed, Harriet said, "You don't want food?"

He stared at her and chuffed once, shortly. "You don't want to see Hagrid?" she said.

He barked, and tucked head against her hip.

"I guess that's a yes." She scratched behind his ears again, though she wasn't sure if he felt it through all the layers of dirt. "I s'pose I'll have to get you something to eat another way."

He wagged his tail.

\--

"How was practice?" Hermione asked timidly at lunch.

"Fine," Harriet said, only half-listening and eying the baked chicken sitting regally on a bed of parsley. It was within reach of Seamus and Ron, so it was unlikely to survive for very much longer. She reached over and pulled off both legs and wings, piling them on her plate.

"Do—do you want to study together later?" Hermione asked, even more timidly.

Harriet looked at her. For the first time she noticed dark smudges under Hermione's eyes. She looked apprehensive and unhappy, like that hurt feeling that had been on her face last night and in her voice as Harriet had walked off was still lingering there like a shadow.

Harriet felt like a total jerk, so hard and sudden it was like Fred had really hit her with his Bludger.

"Sure, maybe," she said, not because she wanted to, but because she didn't and didn't want to say so. "Or we could do something else?"

Hermione's expression fell further. "I've too much homework."

It occurred to Harriet that something strange was going on—well, something else. Hermione shouldn't look this upset about having homework. Normally she thrived on it. She invented work for herself.

"What's the matter?" Harriet asked.

Hermione's eyes darted down the table to where Ron was sitting, but then quickly away again. "Nothing," she said, staring into her shepherd's pie.

"Did Professor McGonagall tell me you couldn't tell me that, either?" Harriet asked before she could stop herself.

Hermione's eyes filled with tears, making Harriet hate herself.

"Shit," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm being an arsehole."

"Harry. When did you start talking like that?" Hermione dried her eyes.

Harriet shrugged. She didn't know when or why, just that she liked the way it sounded. "Did Ron do something?"

"He . . . oh, it's stupid." Hermione mashed her fork into her pie crust, destroying it but not eating it. "Crookshanks attacked Scabbers this morning. Ron's convinced that's the reason Scabbers is looking so ill, but it isn't. When I met him in Diagon Alley, he was going to buy rat tonic for Scabbers, because he's old, or he'd got sick in Egypt, or who knows, and athe pet store is where I bought Crookshanks, so Scabbers was ill first. And Ron thinks it's somehow my fault how Crookshanks is after Scabbers, but all cats chase rats! It's in his nature, Crookshanks doesn't know it's wrong—"

She said it all in a low, quick voice, mashing her shepherd's pie all the while, not raising her face—because she was on the verge of tears, Harriet could tell by the sound of her voice. It wasn't like Hermione to cry because she rowed with Ron. They did that all the time.

"What did he say?" Harriet asked. "I'll look up that Bat Bogey Hex Ginny's always going on about if he was being an arse—"

"Oh, he didn't say anything really, he was just so angry. . ." Hermione tried to wipe at her eyes without anyone seeing. "He's not talking to me right now. I asked him how Scabbers was doing and he said he's hiding at the bottom of his bed, shaking, and stormed off. . ."

Harriet's anger was hot and fierce, fueled by her own guilt because she had done the same thing to Hermione last night.

"Well, he's a git," she said. "All cats chase rats, like you said."

But a little voice inside her asked, if that were the case, why Scabbers had never been bothered by a cat before . . . there were plenty of cats in Gryffindor tower, on the boys' and girls' sides, and yet Harriet couldn't ever remember someone losing a familiar to any of those cats, or even having any trouble from them. . .

Hermione tried to blow her nose without anyone seeing or hearing. "Well. . . I'd better get back to studying. . . I'll see you later?"

"Yeah," Harriet said. "I think I'll go for a walk. When I'm done eating," she added as Hermione's eyes lingered on her plate piled with untouched chicken.

Hermione left the table. Ron made a very obvious show of not watching her go, but once she was gone he started mashing up his remaining potatoes, much as she'd done.

Harriet piled the chicken into her napkin and left the hall. Nobody tried to stop her.

\--

"Don't make yourself sick," she warned the dog as he tore at the first chicken leg she'd tossed down to him. It was like she blinked and the meat disappeared off the bone.

He whined, snuffling at the napkin she was holding. It struck her that he was very well trained; in hindsight, she was lucky he hadn't tackled her and tried to chew her hand off.

"Don't barf it up," she said, tossing the other leg down. "I don't know how to get into the kitchens to get you any more. I bet Fred and George do though. . . "

She dwelt on this as he snarfed the next leg, and then he looked so pitiful she gave him the wings, even though she knew it would probably make him sick.

"I'll have to think of a name for you. . . How about Snuffles?" she asked as he snuffled at the bones, gnawing on them.

He glanced at her, as if to say, If that's the best you've got.

Then he was promptly sick, all over the grass. Harriet sighed.

She stayed a little longer, playing a game of tug-of-war. Aunt Petunia hated dogs; the only ones Harriet had ever been around were Aunt Marge's horrible, evil bulldogs. Harriet decided she liked dogs. Snuffles had more energy in him than she'd have expected, given how starved he looked.

"Maybe you can be my guard dog," she said. "Protect me from Sirius Black."

Snuffles gave her a long, solemn look and licked her hand.

"Nah." Harriet toyed with his ears. "Too dangerous, I bet. He'd probably blow us both up. I don't want you getting hurt."

Snuffles whined, sounding long and sad. Harriet had never thought a dog could make such a mournful sound. It was almost like heartbreak.


	25. Hallowe'en

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than one damsel finds herself in distress on Hallowe'en.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This chapter has some canon dialogue and even a bit of canonish narration in it.

Ron and Hermione didn't make up over the Crookshanks vs. Scabbers debacle until the day of the first Hogsmeade weekend, when they reunited to feel sorry for Harriet.

"We'll bring you back loads of sweets from Honeydukes," Hermione said, squeezing her hand.

"Yeah, loads," Ron promised. He'd even abandoned Seamus and Dean to sit with Harriet and Hermione at breakfast. Although Harriet was thoroughly depressed, she knew this was a very powerful symbol of their old friendship: the mood among all three of them was quite gloomy, whereas Dean and Seamus were laughing and whooping at something Fred and George were doing that involved a cork, a string, and a basket of uncooked eggs.

"Don't worry about me," Harriet said in what she hoped was a content voice. "I'll see you at the feast."

She walked with them to the Entrance Hall, where Filch was checking off a long list the names of everyone who tried to get past him, glaring suspiciously into each face to make sure that no one was sneaking out who didn't have permission. Bundled into coats and thick scarves, Hermione and Ron filed into line while Harriet hung back where Filch (probably) couldn't accuse her of trying to sneak out.

"Aww, poor ickle Pottykins," said Pansy Parkinson, passing by on Malfoy's arm, a bright pink beret pulled down over her long, shiny hair. "Is oo staying here all by herself?"

Ears ringing with the sound of Pansy and Malfoy's laughter, Harriet waved one last goodbye to Hermione and set off alone up the marble staircase.

\--

"Poor Harry," Ron said as they trudged down the Hogsmeade road between two crowds of students (some Ravenclaw fifth-years up ahead and sixth year Hufflepuffs behind). "That bloody family of hers ought to be locked up."

"They're horrid," Hermione said in a low voice, not trusting herself to say it any more loudly with that knot pressed on her chest, hot and tearful. "They ruin everything for Harriet that they can. And if it isn't them, it's—it's You-Know-Who—"

Harriet had said it herself that summer, and she was right: if it wasn't the Dursleys, it was the shadow of Voldemort. Their summer together had been truncated by the threat of Sirius Black, and now Hogsmeade . . . and she couldn't even be properly honest with Harriet because Professor McGonagall had made her promise to keep the Time-Turner a secret, from anyone—everyone. "Don't even tell Miss Potter," she had said, as if reading Hermione's mind. And although Hermione had always trusted her teachers (even when it had been proven that some of them, she shouldn't), she had felt a twinge of dissatisfaction. Didn't Professor McGonagall understand how hard it was to keep secrets from one's friends? Not simply logistically, but emotionally?

Especially Harriet, who'd had so many things kept from her. And Hermione couldn't even properly be her friend this year because she'd signed up for so many classes that she didn't have time for anything but studying.

Perhaps she should tell her about the Time-Turner. Maybe she owed Harriet that.

But . . . what if Harriet asked to do something like . . . go back and see her parents? Or try to save them? What if . . .

Ron's elbow nudged her arm. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Harriet," she said automatically.

Ron nodded. They crunched on in silence, down the beaten mud track scoured with the passage of so many feet, scattered with puddles and the crushed remains of fallen leaves. It was a bleak, desolate day. The wind was biting sharp, the sky a hard and unforgiving gray. They were lucky it wasn't dumping icy rain all over them.

And yet the further Hermione walked from Hogwarts, the more excited she became. She would get to see Hogsmeade, the only wizarding village in Britain! Harriet had stayed with the Weasleys, an all-wizarding household, but Hermione had never been to a place (other than Hogwarts—and Diagon Alley, she supposed) that was all-magic before. She'd never seen the clock that told where you were, not when, or watched the dishes wash themselves, and the mirrors at Hogwarts didn't speak. She had tested Harriet's Sneakoscope, but Dervish and Banges would have a whole range of them, and Foe Glasses, Dark Detectors—

"Now you're thinking about learning things," Ron said, shaking his head. "I can tell."

Hermione smiled in spite of herself, and shoved at him with her elbow. It was . . . strange, being alone with Ron. She was sure she'd been before, but this was the first time she'd noticed. Strange but . . . good.

And even thinking that, with Harriet left alone at the castle, made Hermione feel like the greatest traitor alive.

\--

Harriet climbed listlessly to Gryffindor Tower, but when she got inside, she found no one except the first and second years and a few older students who must have visited Hogsmeade so many times the novelty had worn off. Ginny was sitting with a group of her friends, laughing, and Harriet retreated quietly before any of them could see her. She knew that Ginny would wave her over, but Harriet felt awkward around Ginny's friends, who clearly felt awkward around her, and she didn't feel like sitting with a bunch of people she didn't know.

"What was the point of waking me up?" the Fat Lady said grumpily as Harriet climbed out the portrait hole and set off again.

Not wanting to do work but having left the Tower without her broom, she drifted in the general direction of the Owlery, where she could at least visit with Hedwig, who was probably there at this time of the morning.

The Owlery was built detached from the rest of the school, perhaps to reduce the effect of the smell, and was reached by an isolated walkway that stretched over a dizzying drop filled with mist far, far below. When she stepped out onto it, the wind whipped her hair back from her face, sharp and cold. She climbed the winding stairs, shivering in the chill. It was almost November, and the Dementors made it colder than usual. Some dead leaves, tossed by the wind, lay crushed and broken to either side of the wall.

As she round the last curve in the staircase, she heard a burst of laughter. Boys—young ones, maybe first or second years, it sounded like. She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to continue if someone else was in there.

"Little snakes aren't supposed to be up this high," said one boy.

Harriet frowned. Snakes? How would a snake get into the Owlery, unless an owl brought back a dead one?

Something went BANG, like a paper bag bursting, making her jump.

"Too bad, little snake," said a second boy, and he and his friend, maybe even a third or fourth of them, laughed.

"Not a very good weapon, all this paper," said a third boy. "It sort of"—there was the sound of tearing paper—"just comes to pieces."

They're talking to a Slytherin, Harriet realized. She mounted the remaining stairs and stepped into the dimness of the Owlery. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but when they did, she saw she'd been right: three boys she didn't recognize had backed a girl with long blonde hair against the wall. She looked terrified: she was shaking all over and seemed to be having trouble breathing, and tears were pouring down her face.

Anger built in Harriet's stomach, mixing with her unhappy loneliness and rising up hot and fresh.

"What the fuck?" she said loudly, using one of Snape's words.

The boys had their backs to her when she came in, but they turned at the sound of her voice, looking surprised. Two of them immediately looked dismayed, although the third tried to play it cool.

"Just what d'you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"Oh, come off it, Potter," said the boy playing it cool, and Harriet thought he—all of them—might be in Gryffindor. "It's only a snake."

"I don't care." She stalked toward them. The girl had fallen to the floor and was wheezing jerkily, like she couldn't draw in her breath all the way, and her whole body jerked each time she tried. "You get off her!"

"Or what?" said Playing It Cool, though his friends, at least, looked like they'd have happily complied. "You'll really show me when you get bigger?" To Harriet's extreme frustration, he was taller than her. "When's that gonna be?"

"I'll show you what I did to that Basilisk right now," she growled, pulling her wand out of her pocket. But he just grinned.

"OoOooh," he said. "I'm really scared."

"Good," Harriet retorted, and punched him in the nose with the hand holding the wand.

It wasn't a hard punch, and it probably hurt her hand as much as it hurt him. He yowled, stumbling away, and blood spurted out his nose, while she grit her teeth against the desire to scream and cradle her hand.

"Morbius!" his friends yelped.

"Next time just piss off," Harriet said, shoving past them, going to the girl, who'd fallen onto her side and seemed to be having some sort of fit. Her eyes were open but she was staring at the ceiling with wide, terrified eyes, her breath coming very fast and high-pitched, her chest heaving and her hands curled into rigid claws. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," said one of the friends, starting to look scared. "That's just Asteria Greengrass—she's scared of everything, we were just having a laugh, that's all—"

"I'll have a laugh at you next," Harriet said furiously. "You help me get her to Madam Pomfrey or I'll tell Professor Snape what you did."

That put the fear into two of them, although Morbius just grumbled and held a handkerchief to his nose. Harriet was really worried about—Asteria? Astoria?—and ordered one of the boys to run ahead and bring Madam Pomfrey to meet them.

Madam Pomfrey found them about two floors up from the Hospital Wing with, of all things, a paper bag in her hand. "Here, Miss Greengrass," she said briskly, opening the bag and holding it over Asteria/Astoria's mouth. "Breathe into that now."

Asteria/Astoria did, at first still wheezing, and then gradually steadying as she leaned weakly against Harriet's shoulder. (She, also, was taller.)

"Miss Potter," said Madam Pomfrey, still brisk, "please find Professors McGonagall and Snape and bring them to the Hospital Wing. You three," she added to the boys, her voice going very cold, "will come with me."

The boys went ashen, even Morbius around his bloody handkerchief. But they trudged dejectedly alongside Madam Pomfrey as she swept away, her arm around Asteria/Astoria's shoulders.

Professor McGonagall was in her office, grading, when Harriet knocked. "They what?" she demanded, her eyes flashing. "Very well. Thank you, Miss Potter, I will deal with them."

She swept away, looking about as angry as last year, when Harriet and Ron had flown the car into the Whomping Willow. Feeling slightly more cheerful—if anyone deserved to have Professor McGonagall that angry with them, it was those three bullies—Harriet headed down the corridor for Snape's office.

But she hadn't gone even one floor down before she heard his voice, floating out of a half-open door.

". . . take another dose tomorrow," Snape was saying in that voice of especially strong hatred that she associated with Professor Lupin.

"Yes, of course," Lupin said, sounding quite serious. "Thank you, Severus."

Before Harriet could decide whether she should try and sneak closer to the door to find out more about this mysterious potion they'd been brewing together all summer, Snape threw open the office door and stalked out—or started to. When he saw her, he stopped so abruptly his boot soles squeaked.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Madam Pomfrey sent me to get you," she said, the close call of being caught snooping at the door making her heart thump. Behind him, Professor Lupin pulled the office door open the rest of the way and peered over Snape's shoulder.

"Asteria," Harriet said, "—or is it Astoria?—anyway, Greengrass, some boys were picking on her and she had some sort of fit. She's in the infirmary—"

Snape strode out the rest of the way into the hall and slammed the door in Professor Lupin's surprised face. He swept away without saying anything, but when Harriet followed, he didn't send her away.

When they got to the infirmary, Snape billowed inside. But the only person there was Madam Pomfrey, checking Asteria/Astoria's vitals.

"Where are they?" Snape demanded in a voice that made the hairs along the back of Harriet's neck rise.

"Professor McGonagall has taken them away to deal with. Don't make a fuss, Professor," Madam Pomfrey said sharply. "You'll only upset her more, and she's had quite enough of a fright as it is."

Asteria/Astoria was trembling, staring at her toes and still breathing into her bag. The multicolored web of spells in the air in front of her was flickering madly. The golden one for heartbeat was driving especially fast and furious.

"You rest, dear," said Madam Pomfrey, surprising Harriet, who had never heard her call anyone "dear" before. She stepped away from the bed and drew a mint-green curtain round it, blocking Asteria/Astoria off from the rest of the room.

"Has she said anything?" Snape asked Pomfrey, who shook her head.

"I haven't been able to get a response out of her," said Pomfrey. "Not even a shake or nod of the head. The boys weren't communicative either—"

"How many?" Snape asked in that bone-chilling voice.

"Three. Miss Potter, what did they do?"

Snape turned on her like he'd forgotten she was there, so suddenly that she almost jumped.

"Er—" she said, taken aback at being appealed to so suddenly, and having both of them staring at her so fixedly. "I don't know everything—I was going up to the Owlery, and I heard them pop something, it sounded like a paper bag—"

"She carries one for breathing into. That explains where it went," Madam Pomfrey added darkly to Snape, who was watching Harriet with a kind of burning ferocity. It was almost unnerving to be the focus of that much intensity. "And then, Miss Potter?"

"And—I guess she'd gone up there to mail a letter, since I heard them ripping something made of paper. That's when I realized they were—well—they'd been talking about snakes, but that was when I realized it wasn't really a snake, it was . . . "

An echo of the feeling that had gripped her during the Boggart lesson squirmed in her stomach. Snape had no visible reaction—he just kept staring at her—but Pomfrey's eyes flickered toward him.

"Anyway . . . that's when I went in and saw . . . them. I thought they'd done something to her, she was breathing funny—"

"She was hyperventilating," Madam Pomfrey said to Harriet. To Snape: "I couldn't find any evidence of spells, jinxes, or hexes."

"And then, Miss Potter?" Snape asked, still not reacting.

"Then I punched one of them in the no—" Harriet bit her tongue. But neither Snape nor Pomfrey reacted to this admission at all. It was as if their ears had chosen that exact moment to stop working.

"You didn't see them touch her or use magic in any way?" Madam Pomfrey said. Harriet shook her head. "It corresponds to my diagnosis," she told Snape. "All the same, I would like to keep her here for the time being."

"I will alert her sisters," Snape said.

For the first time, Harriet connected the name Greengrass. Was this Daphne's sister? She tried to picture Daphne Greengrass in her mind but couldn't come up with much more than a girl with long blonde hair who always stood slightly behind Pansy. She wasn't sure if they'd ever spoken in all two, starting-on-three, years.

"Will Asteria—Astoria?—be okay?" Harriet asked.

"Her name is Asteria," Madam Pomfrey said. "And yes, she will, Miss Potter. There's nothing more for you to do now. What she needs is her rest."

She said it briskly, but she laid her hand on Harriet's shoulder and didn't retract it. Harriet nodded silently. Madam Pomfrey's hand only withdrew when Harriet turned away.

She left, feeling very thoughtful.

\--

Daphne ran up the stairs, as fast as she could, past torches that had been lit for dusk. She would have taken them two at a time but her legs weren't quite long enough.

"Merlin, Daff," Tracey said, jogging after her. "Would you slow down?"

Daphne didn't bother replying, because it would have slowed her down.

"She's fine now," Tracey called after her. Though taller, she wasn't running as fast. It wasn't her little sister whom her own selfishness had abandoned to tears and childish cruelty. "Professor Snape said—"

Finally gaining the top of the stairs, Daphne put on a burst of speed. She had a stitch in her side and her breath was sore in her throat—she hadn't run this much in years, not since before Hogwarts, when she and Asteria used to race down to the beach, Asteria with her longer legs always winning—but she wasn't going to slow down, she wasn't going to listen to Tracey, not this time.

She hurled all her strength into the infirmary doors, but they only groaned and swung inward softly.

Madam Pomfrey came out of her office as Daphne staggered into the room. "Miss Greengrass," she said. "Your sister's in the last bed behind the curtian."

Daphne nodded, panting too hard to say thank you. Tracey came in behind her and grabbed her by the arm before she could rush down to the beds.

"Calm down, would you?" she said in a low voice as Madam Pomfrey retreated back to her office. "It isn't your fault."

"I don't expect you—to understand," Daphne panted, pulling her arm away.

"And it's not my fault," Tracey said, her voice still low but now a touch angry. "Don't try to make me feel bad because you're too guilty to—"

"Go," Daphne said. "Leave us."

Tracey stared at her, not looking as cool and collected as usual, but warm with anger. Then she turned on her heel and stalked out, shoving at the doors like she wanted to slam them. But they only drifted as softly shut as they'd opened.

Daphne spent a few moments composing herself, trying to even out her breathing, pushing the thought of tears away. This was her fault, no matter what Tracey said, and she should feel guilty, no matter what Tracey believed. Asteria was her responsibility, and she had left her, defenseless, to go have fun, to—

She smoothed her hands down her hair, then walked down the path between the hospital beds to the last one, and ducked behind the curtain. Asteria looked up as she entered. Her drawing pencils were scattered across the bed, and on a little tray on her knee she was sketching on a piece of parchment.

"I'm fine," she said before Daphne could trust herself to speak. "Madam Pomfrey says I'm quite well."

Asteria was wearing her nightgown (which had once been their mother's, then Leto's, but skipped Daphne because Asteria had been big enough to need it by the time it was Daphne's turn), and her hair was braided over one shoulder, like she was all ready for bed.

"Yet she's keeping you in here," Daphne said, gripping her hands into fists.

"Just to be sure." For once, Asteria looked more composed than herself. "I feel really quite well. It's quiet in here."

No dorm-mates, Daphne translated.

"It's all my fault," she said.

"No it isn't," said Asteria with uncharacteristic composure. "It's the fault of those dreadful boys. Did you have fun in Hogsmeade?"

Daphne shook her head, not because she hadn't—she had, it had been the most amazing morning, just her and Tracey, away from Pansy, from everyone watching; for a morning, just two people in a crowd—but because she didn't wish to talk about it.

"I shouldn't have left you. It was selfish—"

"All third years get to go," Asteria said. "It's not selfish. If I weren't—if I didn't get so—" She looked down at her drawing, the un-Asteria-like composure unraveling. "You wouldn't have to worry about me so much."

"I'm your sister," Daphne said. "I ought to worry, whether you're well or hale. You're my responsibility, Aster. Gladly," she added, sitting on the bed.

"But I feel so—so wretched when you're kept from things because of me," Asteria said, her eyes glinting with the start of tears. "Now I've ruined your day and you won't want to go again because of me—"

"Oh, Aster," Daphne said, because she didn't know what to say. This was their problem, had always been fated to be their problem: at Hogwarts Asteria couldn't be comfortable with Daphne or without her, and Daphne couldn't make Asteria comfortable whether she was with her or without her. They both loved each other too much to be anything but horridly, miserably guilty.

"What are you drawing?" she asked, shifting up the bed to lean around and see the sketch from the right side. "Pink and yellow roses?"

"Gratitude and friendship," Asteria said shyly, playing with a green pencil.

"It's for someone?" Daphne asked, surprised.

Asteria shrugged, still shy, and colored in a leaf with expert strokes.

Daphne thought she understood. "Aster, did someone help you with the boys?"

Asteria nodded, her eyes shining with something quite different from tears—and for a moment, although she knew it was terrible and felt quite ashamed, Daphne was both jealous and hurt. It was her job to protect Asteria—and she had failed because she had left, knowing she should stay and do what she ought, because who else did Asteria have if not herself?

But Asteria had found someone else. And wasn't that her right? If her dearest sister was to abandon her, she would do well to find someone much better.

"Who, Aster?"

But Asteria just blushed and sketched in the shadow falling from the vase, as if the sun behind it lay in the east. "Not important," she mumbled. She glanced up, smiling faintly. "I'm glad you had a good day. Mine wasn't so bad, really. So don't look so sad, Daffy."

\--

"There you go," said Ron. "We got as much as we could carry."

A shower of sweets in a rainbow of brilliant colors—sapphire blue and turquoise and aquamarine, butterscotch and pumpkin orange, emerald green and iridescent melon, strawberry red and amethyst purple—fell into Harriet's lap in shapes likes stars, nautiluses, spheres, and swirls. Dusk had drifted down from the highest point in the sky, all the lamps and fires were lit, and Ron and Hermione had just turned up in the common room, pink-faced from the cold and looking as though they'd had the most brilliant afternoon of their lives.

"Thanks," said Harriet, picking up a black packet sparkling with silver and red dots. Pepper Imps it read in bold red and silver letters. "What's Hogsmeade like? Where did you go?"

Everywhere, it sounded like. Deverish and Banges, the wizarding equipment shop, where they sold things like Sneakoscopes like the one Ron and Ginny had sent Harriet for her birthday; Zonko's Joke Shop, full of Dungbombs, Fanged Fisbees, and Fred and George; then into the Three Broomsticks for foaming mugs of hot Butterbeer, and—

"The post office, Harry! About two hundred owls, all sitting on shelves, all color-coded depending on how fast you want your letter to get there!"

"Honeydukes have got a new kind of fudge, they were giving out free samples, there's a bit, look—"

"We think we saw an ogre, honestly, they get all sorts at the Three Broomsticks—"

"Wish we could've brought you some Butterbeer, really warms you up—"

"What did you do?" said Hermione, switching off her excitement for a moment to switch on her anxiety. "Did you get any work done?"

"I rescued a damsel in distress," Harriet said lightly, breaking off a piece of the fudge. Ron's "a bit" was the size of a small boulder. The fudge was so light, it seemed to disappear the moment it hit her tongue, leaving behind flavors of chocolate cream and caramel.

"You already did that," Ron said. "Last summer, with Ginny. You can't recycle damsels, Harry."

"This was a whole new damsel, thanks very much."

When she'd finished telling them about the three Gryffindors and Asteria Greengrass, they sat staring at her for a few moments, their mouths slightly open. Then they looked at each other, as if they were thinking the same thing and were checking to make sure the other was, too. When they did that, Harriet felt a frission of something she didn't like at all—didn't like feeling, for too many reasons.

"So I can entertain myself, thanks," she said, pretending to be smug and lofty, and taking another heavenly light bite of fudge.

Ron was shaking his head. "Gryffindor's sword didn't fall out of the Owlery ceiling and hit you on the head again, did it? Because it bloody missed a great opportunity."

"Oh, bugger off," Harriet said, flicking a Pepper Imp at him.

"I'm serious!" he said, trying to block it and only hitting himself in the nose. "Only you would find some girl to rescue the minute we left you on your own—"

"We'd better go down," Hermione said, raising her voice slightly, "or we'll miss the start of the feast."

Harriet ran upstairs to dump her sweets in her trunk, where Crookshanks couldn't get into them, and then came back down to find Ron and Hermione clumped near the portrait hole. Ignoring the clench in her stomach at the sight of them standing with their elbows almost touching, Harriet put on a smile and they all climbed out the portrait hole and headed down the winding stairs.

The Great Hall was decorated for Hallowe'en with a countless number of candle-filled pumpkins, some leering on the tables, others grimacing in midair, the flame-light making their eye- and- teeth holes flicker as if they were blinking and breathing. Bats chittered high on the lightning-lashed ceiling, and flaming orange streamers coiled lazily through the air like water-snakes. Most everyone was already there, including the teachers, and the hall rang with noise. Harriet glanced at the Slytherin table for Asteria or the girl she thought was Daphne, but she didn't see either of them. Snape was seated at the High Table, isolated once again from the talk; he was staring into space and taking absent sips from a goblet. Harriet wondered what he was thinking about.

The food was delicious and came in courses—a range of thick soups and small game pies for starters; whole roast turkeys for the main, with sides of wild rice, potatoes, greens, and yams; and desserts so enticing that even Hermione, who'd become very choosy about how much sugar she ate, managed a second helping. The Hogwarts ghosts provided the entertainment, streaming through the walls and across the tables, the pumpkins and streamers floating out of the way to give them room. Nearly Headless Nick enjoyed school-wide success when he re-enacted the gruesome story of his own botched beheading. Even the Slytherins enjoyed it.

It was such a good feast that if Harriet didn't forget what an up-and-down day it had been, she at least was finally at peace with it. She, Ron and Hermione followed the rest of the Gryffindors back up to the tower in a sleepy, feast-induced haze, but when they got to the corridor ending in the Fat Lady, they found it crammed with babbling students.

"What's going on?" Harriet and Hermione asked Ron, who had much more hope of seeing anything.

"Can't really tell." He stretched up on his tip-toes, craning his neck. "Looks like no one's going in for some reason."

"Let me through, please," said Percy, bustling as well as he could through so many stationary people. "What's the hold-up here? You can't all have forgotten the password—excuse me, please, I'm Head Boy—"

And then a silence spread over the crowd, starting from the front and rippling toward the back in a soft, chilling wave. Harriet felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise for the second time that day, although in a much different way than before.

"Somebody get Professor Dumbledore," said Percy in a suddenly sharp voice, sounding much less like a self-important prig and much more like a grown-up. "Quick."

Hermione's fingers wrapped around Harriet's hand. People in the crowd around them were doing like Ron, standing on tip-toe to try and see the front of the crowd.

A little babble started at the back of the crowd: Professor Dumbledore had arrived and was wading into the morass of people. The Gryffindors shuffled and squeezed aside to let him through; Harriet edged into his wake as he passed, to push further to the front and see what was going on. Hermione held tight to her hand and Ron pushed after them, using his elbows.

"Oh—" Hermione gasped, her free hand grabbing Harriet's arm.

The Fat Lady's painting had been cut, as if from long slashes of a knife. Strips of canvas had torn free and littered the floor, and in some places the painting's back had been stabbed straight through.

Dumbledore took one quick look at it and then turned away. If he saw Harriet, Hermione and Ron standing so close by him, he gave no sign: he looked through the crowd at the teachers who had just come up to it: McGonagall, Lupin and Snape. As if through some homing signal, Snape's eyes fixed immediately on Harriet, glittering like moonlight on the lake on a clear black night. Was it her imagination, or did he look paler, stranger, than usual?

"We need to find her," Dumbledore said to them immediately. "Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr. Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."

"You'll be lucky!" an unpleasant voice cackled.

Peeves the poltergeist hung bobbing over the heads of the crowd, looking delighted, as he always did, at the sight of wreckage and worry.

"What do you mean, Peeves?" Dumbledore said calmly, gazing at him steadily, and Peeves's grin faded a little. He didn't dare taunt Dumbledore the way he did everyone else; instead, he pasted on an oily voice that was almost as bad.

"Ashamed, your Headship, sir. Doesn't want to be seen. She's a horribly mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, ir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful," he said happily. "Poor thing," he added, convincing no one.

"Did she say who did it?" Dumbledore asked quietly.

"Oh, yes, Professorhead," said Peeves with the air of someone cradling a large bombshell. "He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see." He flipped over and grinned at Dumbledore from between his own legs. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."

\--

Severus had to force himself, with all the willpower he possessed, not to grab the girl in the hall or to react at all, even when Dumbledore said, "Stay, Severus," as Minerva started herding the Gryffindors away and Lupin was sent to find the Fat Lady.

Dumbledore looked at him once all the children and the others were gone, with something like concern in his face. That was when Severus realized he was breathing very quick and shallow, his whole body vibrating with tension so harsh his muscles were already beginning to ache.

"I need you to think clearly, Severus," Dumbledore said in a calm, measured voice, as if he were speaking to someone standing on the edge of a tall building.

"I am thinking very, very clearly, Headmaster," Severus whispered, and it was the absolute truth. His mind felt as bright and clear as glass, filled with a light almost blindingly white, and yet dark on the edges, a deep blackness one couldn't quite see except on the periphery.

Dumbledore stared at him a moment, almost as if startled, and then a firmness of purpose came over him, a strength that would brook no opposition. "Our task is to find where Sirius Black went, Severus, and if he is still in the castle. That, and nothing more. Do you understand me?"

Severus looked at him. Now his breathing was long and drawn out, like he was preparing to jump off a very long drop into very deep water far below, so far it couldn't be seen, so far it might not even be there.

"Promise me that you will do no more than search for Black, Severus," Dumbledore said, his tone now commanding.

"I promise, Headmaster," Severus said after a long moment. He even meant it.

Because in his mind, anything he did until he found Black counted as part of that search.

He turned and strode away. He was sure to meet Lupin at some point, and when he did, he and the werewolf were going to have, perhaps not a long, but a very fruitful talk.

\--

"How did he get in?" everyone seemed to be asking as they streamed through the corridors. "How?"

One of many ways, perhaps, Remus's conscience thought. The one-eyed witch, the Whomping Willow, even the cellar at Honeydukes—if he's cunning enough to escape Azkaban, he's cunning enough to break into the sweetshop without anyone being any the wiser...

Remus had gone to Filch's office back in the summer, looking for the Map; but it was gone, someone had taken it. No one in the school could have done it or they would surely have turned it in, considering. . .

 _Or not_ , said Conscience coldly. _Look at you._

He closed his eyes, thankful the hallway was dark around him. The far-off echo of children's voices washed through his ears like the sound of the ocean.

He opened his eyes and started climbing again.

Snape found him as he was hunting for the Fat Lady.

The man moved as silent as a cat's shadow. In one moment Remus was scanning the many paintings on the walls for the landscape that Peeves had mentioned, and in another the shadows on the periphery had warped into Snape, moving so fast and viciously Remus almost hexed him out of reflex. But then he registered who it was, and in that moment's stupidity (as it turned out), he stayed the hex.

Snape grabbed him by the throat and shoved him into the wall, trying to choke off his airway. Remus elbowed him in the stomach, hard; Snape grunted but didn't fold, as Remus might have expected; instead he countered with a blow to Remus's temple that knocked him sprawling against a bust of an old headmaster.

Remus swiped his wand at Snape's abdomen, sending out a shower of golden sparks; Snape repelled it with a non-verbal shield and leapt away, moving like a cat. Panting, Remus hauled himself upright against the bust, his wand held in a defensive position across his chest. Snape was also panting, but in a way that seemed almost manic; his eyes were strangely wide, his face rigid with an emotion that made Remus's skin prickle all over with warning.

"I knew it," Snape whispered, his voice hoarse and whiplash sharp, his eyes glittering in a way that made the wolf part of Remus's brain raise its hackles with a long, drawn-out growl that only he could hear. "You're helping him. You let him in, told him when the feast would be, when the corridors would be empty—if he'd got into Gryffindor tower he'd only have found a lot of barely trained children when they returned—"

He took small steps forward with every word, his wand clenched so tightly in his hand it was shaking, his whole body shaking, with tension, Remus assumed, like it was taking all of Snape's willpower not to slice his head off his shoulders. His eyes never wavered from Remus's face, and that bright, mad glitter never left his eyes.

"Sirius Black got into the school without any help from me," Remus said in a low voice, while his conscience whispered _Liar liar liar—_

"Liar," Snape hissed piercingly from between his teeth, as if he could read Remus's mind. "If you were any real use to us, you'd have told us how to catch him. Don't think I don't know how things were between you— don't think I'm as stupidly trusting as Albus—"

Don't react, Remus willed himself, as something inside him, something left alone and denied for so long, twisted and tore, but not cleanly, don't react—

"I have not had any contact with Sirius Black since before James and Lily died," Remus said, keeping his voice low so that he could control it.

Emotion flashed in Snape's face like a lightning strike. Remus hadn't been expecting that, not at all, and he blocked the resulting spell just in time, squinting his eyes against the actinic flash of spell-light. But Snape didn't seem to have noticed; it was almost as if his control had slipped and he hadn't even seen, like someone not realizing they've lapsed into an old habit.

Snape was almost within arm's reach, now. Remus didn't want him coming any closer. The moon was filling and the wolf was pushing against the inside of his skin, and all his instincts were screaming at him to— "Severus, _please_ stay back—"

" _Leglimens_ ," Snape hissed, lunging that last step into Remus's personal space.

The mind-reading spell, Remus thought; he'd heard of it but had no idea how to block it, and Snape was going to see the truth about Sirius, the real truth, each and all of them, and a part of Remus wanted to fall to his knees with relief because if Snape tore the secret out of him it would at least be out, it would be over—

But nothing happened.

Remus blinked. Snape leaned in closer, looking feral and bewildered, and then he swore in the way he'd been especially known for at school, and raised his wand as if he was going to jab it into Remus's throat.

"Severus," Remus said hoarsely, "the moon is full in five days."

Snape froze, his breathing fast and audible, and then his eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth again. Remus rotated his wand in his palm, waiting. . .

And then, from down the corridor, he heard the wheezing breath and shuffle-thump gait of Argus Filch.

Snape heard it too. Cursing again, he drew back, and with one last scorching, half-mad look of pure hatred, he slipped away.

Filch came hobbling into the corridor, muttering, his jowls quivering. Remus tried to find a smile somewhere inside him, but he couldn't. Snape's mind-reading spell might have failed, but he had still taken something out of Remus, bared it to the light, and it would take him more than a few moments to find it again.

But he'd find it, eventually. He always had.

There was nothing else to be done.

\--

Severus slipped into the Great Hall, somewhere between three and four in the morning, with nothing to report but defeat.

The ceiling was dark with black clouds, but a few hundred candles dusted the room with light far above the sleeping bags spread across the floor. Dumbledore would want his report, but Severus didn't look for him first, or for any of his fellow teachers.

He stepped through the rows of sleeping bags, searching for the girl.

He found her lying next to Granger, the pair of them at least appearing to sleep. But when Dumbledore's voice called softly from nearby, "Severus," he saw the girl's eyelid flicker.

Before he could turn and walk away from her so she wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on the conversation—which, if awake, she would certainly do—Dumbledore had joined him.

"Anything?" he asked.

"No," said Severus. _Nothing, nothing, where is he, where has he gone_ "Astronomy Tower, dungeons, Owlery, Gryffindor—anywhere he could conceivably have got in a short period of time, and many places he couldn't have—all searched and found empty." _Empty gone where did he go_

"Very well," Dumbledore murmured. "I didn't expect him to linger."

The officious Weasley was prowling through the rows of sleeping bags, telling people off for talking. Dumbledore stared in his general direction, though he did not appear to be really watching him.

"Have you any theories as to how he got in?" Severus asked in a low voice. He was really saying, What is your explanation this time?

"Several," Dumbledore said, still staring vaguely toward Percy Weasley. "Each as unlikely as the last."

Severus knew that Dumbledore wouldn't hear him out—they'd had this conversation before the start of term, after all, and it would surely go the same way now as it had then—but he didn't fucking care, he'd say it anyway. "It seems impossible to believe he could have got in without help."

Dumbledore looked sharply at him, immediately understanding and knowing what he was going to say. Severus held his gaze, unflinching.

"The concern I expressed when you appointed—"

"I do not believe a single person in this school would have helped Black to enter it," Dumbledore said in a tone so final that Severus knew it was as useless as he'd always thought, as it had been the first time they'd argued over it. . .

_"You're placing your faith in a man who never stopped his_ friends _in any endeavor they wished to undertake, and you think, now that so much is at stake, he will suddenly_ stand up for what he believes in?" 

_"Remus has had a difficult life, Severus, full of discrimination and prejudice; he wishes so very much to be liked that it has in the past, it is true, compromised his judgment. But that does not mean that he has gone over to the Dark, that he wishes Harriet dead . . ."_

_And how will you feel,_ Severus thought as Dumbledore walked away, and the girl twitched in her pseudo-sleep, _when your precious faith in the wrong person, once again . . ._

But he couldn't bear to think it, even in the jagged depths of his own mind.


	26. Grim and Comfortless Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fateful Quidditch game, in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -There is more canon material in here, etc. etc. :)
> 
> -Chapter title is from Shakespeare. (The context doesn't work at all, but it _sounds_ good.)

After Sirius Black's attack on the Fat Lady, Harriet found it increasingly difficult to get food to Snuffles. Professor Snape had restarted last year's routine of snarling at her if he caught her wandering alone, and he just didn't seem like the type of person to approve of feeding stray dogs. He'd probably think the dog was Sirius Black in disguise or something. Professor McGonagall had also asked Madam Hooch to oversee Harriet's Quidditch lessons, since the team was now practicing well into the evening, which was deepening as November settled down around the castle like an angry dragon. With too many people watching her and the short afternoons eaten up with classes and Quidditch, Harriet couldn't sneak away.

She thought about writing to Hagrid to leave out some food, but Snuffles had seemed so alarmed by the idea that she didn't. Then she felt extemely silly for not doing something sensible because a dog didn't want her to do it.

Harriet had a great many things to preoccupy her—about sixteen things too many—but with the first Quidditch match of the season on the horizon, it took first importance, if only because Oliver was making it so. Then, just a couple of days before the match, a furious, anguished Wood delivered some very unwelcome news:

"We're not playing Slytherin," he said furiously. "Flint's just been to see me. We're playing Hufflepuff instead."

"Why?" the team asked.

"Flint's excuse is that his Seeker's arm's still injured," Wood said, burning with righteous fire. "They just don't want to play in this weather—think it'll damage their chances."

"Malfoy's faking it," Harriet said angrily, picturing his smug git face. "There's nothing wrong with his arm."

"I know that," Wood said bitterly, "but we can't prove it. But it causes us a major problem, which I suppose Slytherin has guessed, too. We've been basing all our practices on countering Slytherin moves, and now we'll be playing Hufflepuff, and their style is entirely different. Their captain, Cedric Diggory—"

Angelina, Katie and Alicia all giggled. Then they looked at Harriet expectantly, and when she blinked at them, nudged her.

"You know," Alicia said. "The Seeker—the really handsome one."

" _Really_ handsome—and tall," said Katie.

"Strong and silent," Angelina said, and they all giggled again. Harriet giggled too that time, not because she knew who they were talking about, but because the expression on Oliver's face—all the boys' really—was quite funny.

"He's only silent because he's too thick to string two words together," Fred said impatiently.

"Oooh," Harriet said. "Somebody sounds a teeeensy bit jealous." That made Angelina, Katie and Alicia giggle harder, all nudging each other and Harriet. Fred stared at them with a jaw slack from outrage.

The day before the match, the winds rose to howling point and the rain thrashed against the castle's walls and windows. It was so dark inside the castle that extra torches had to be lit, and everyone shuffled to classes in their cloaks. Mrs. Weasley had sent Harriet a pair of knitted green legwarmers that she pulled on over her stockings.

The Slytherin team were very smug, Malfoy most of all.

"Ah, if only my arm was a bit better!" he sighed as the windows rattled and whistled. Pansy Parkinson hung on his good arm and smirked across the hall at Harriet.

Ginny knew who Cedric Diggory was, and Katie had been right: he was very tall. The top of Harriet's head wouldn't even have come up to his chest if she stood next to him. In fair conditions, she'd have had the advantage of being smaller and speedier, but in wind that was blowing branches off the trees in the forest, she'd probably be hurtled into the Quidditch stands, while Diggory flew blithely around in the lashing rain.

And Oliver kept grabbing her between classes and heaping tips on her. The third time it happened, he talked for so long that Harriet realized she was ten minutes late for Defense Against the Dark Arts. She pelted off without a word of goodbye, Oliver shouting after her, "Diggory's got a very fast swerve, Harriet, so you might want to try looping him—"

She skidded to a halt outside the classroom, winded, and wrenched the door open. "Sorry, Professor Lupin, I—"

But it wasn't Professor Lupin who spun round to face her. It was Snape.

"So glad you decided to join us at last, Miss Potter." His face had that pale, strange look to it again and his eyes were glittering. "Sit," he snarled, jabbing his wand at a desk right up front in the room, which had been left empty. (In fact, the closest desk that had been taken was in the third row back. Clearly no one had wanted to sit near the teacher's desk if it had Snape in it.)

With his teeth bared slightly like that, Harriet didn't dare argue or even ask where Professor Lupin was. She hurried to the desk as silently as she could and sat down, feeling quite isolated and defenseless.

"As I was saying." Snape paused to give Harriet a glare so ferocious that she froze in the middle of pulling out her parchment and quills. "When Miss Potter finally decided to arrive—Professor Lupin has not left any record of what you have covered so far—"

"Please, sir, we've done Boggarts, Red Caps, Kappas and Grindylows," said Hermione quickly, "and we're just about to start—"

"Be quiet," Snape said in a voice so close to a snarl that Hermione cut off like a tape player whose cord had been pulled. "I did not ask for information, I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin's lack of organization."

"He's the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had," said Dean Thomas boldly, and the rest of the class murmured agreement. Menace flashed in Snape's face. Harriet tried to hide behind her book without being too obvious about it.

"You are easily satisfied. Lupin is hardly over-taxing you. I would expect first-years to be able to deal with Red Caps and Grindylows. Today we shall discuss—"

He grabbed Harriet's textbook right out of her hand, making her jump, and slammed it open on the desk. He ran one long finger down the table of contents, and then slammed to the back of the book, which he must know they hadn't covered.

"Werewolves," he said, eyes glittering now more menacingly than ever.

"But, sir," Hermione said, like she couldn't restrain herself, and Harriet closed her eyes, "we're not supposed to do werewolves yet, we're due to start Hinkypunks—"

"Miss Granger," said Snape in that voice that made Harriet's skin prickle, "I was under the impression that I was taking this lesson, not you. And I am telling you all to turn to page three hundred and ninety four." His glare cut a swathe across the room. "All of you! Now!"

Harriet didn't dare turn around and look at the rest of the class, but she could hear sullen muttering. Snape jerked her book back around and shoved it at her; it was already open to the right page. She stared down at the inky woodcut of a half-man, half-beast thing that didn't look much like a wolf at all. Its eyes were wild, its snout pulled back in a snarl, its open teeth dripping saliva. It looked, in fact, like a crazed monster.

Wizards sure liked their gruesome drawings.

"Which of you can tell me how to distinguish between the werewolf and the true wolf?" Snape demanded. Normally he would have prowled through the rows of desks, unnerving everyone, but this time he stuck right by Harriet's, practically vibrating with ferocious tension.

A vauge suspicion formed in her mind like smoke. Had he thought she was late to class because Sirius Black had jumped out from behind a suit of armor and slain her in the corridor?

Harriet glanced up at his face, which was deathly pale. His deep-set eyes were all shadow, and the lines on his face seemed harder. A smell, familiar but one she couldn't immediately name, hung around him . . . was it . . . cigarette smoke?

She boggled. Thinking of Snape smoking was like thinking of him fancying her mum (or anybody, really); it was realizing he had some other life that one of them knew about, some grown-up life.

"Are you telling me," he was saying, looking out over the class, not at Harriet, "that Professor Lupin hasn't even taught you the basic distinction between—"

"We told you," said Parvati. "We haven't got as far as werewolves yet, we're still on—"

"Silence," Snape snarled, so viciously a new, thicker kind of quiet fell across the room. "I never thought I'd meet a third year class who wouldn't even recognize a werewolf when they saw one—"

I'd _recognize this_ , Harriet thought, staring at the woodcut. _If that's not artistic license._

"Please, sir," said Hermione, and Harriet almost groaned. "The werewolf differs from the true wolf in several small ways. The snout of the werewolf—"

"That's the third time you've spoken out of turn, Miss Granger," Snape said in a voice that promised imminent suffering. "Five points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all."

Harriet glared up at him. A furious reply built in her throat—but then Ron burst out, "You asked a question and she knows the answer! Why ask if you don't want to be told?"

Harriet dropped her face in her hands. Snape finally left her desk-side, advancing on Ron so slowly and quietly you almost couldn't hear him moving.

"Detention, Weasley," he said in a soft, very dangerous voice. "And if I ever hear you criticize the way I teach a class again, you will be very. Sorry. Indeed."

Nobody dared make a sound for the rest of the lesson. They all made notes on werewolves out of the textbook while Snape twitched around in front of Harriet's desk. That was the only thing she could call it: he paced tightly back and forth, never going many feet to either side of her desk before turning back, with an almost rattled air.

When the bell rang for class, he held them back to snarl, "You will each write an essay, to be handed in to me, on the ways you recognize and kill werewolves. I want two rolls of parchment on the subject, and I want them by Monday morning. Weasley, stay behind, we need to arrange your detention."

Hermione caught up with Harriet at her desk and they left the room together, lagging behind the rest of the class, who'd trooped on ahead to rant about Snape.

"He was in a really foul mood today, wasn't he?" Hermione said. However she'd reacted when Snape called her an insufferable know-it-all, Harriet couldn't tell now; she looked more or less normal, if pale and tired. But she always looked like that these days.

Harriet started to say, "I think he's worried that—" But then Ron caught up with them in a towering fury and she broke off.

"Do you know what that _son of a bitch_ is making me do?" he demanded.

" _Ron_!" said Hermione reprovingly.

"He's making me clean out all the bedpans in the hospital—without magic!" His fists were clenched and he was shaking with anger. "Why couldn't Black have hid out in Snape's office, huh? He could've finished the bastard off for us!"

\--

When dawn struggled up from the horizon on Saturday morning, so much rain was falling that it was impossible to see anything beyond the windows. Severus hadn't interfered with Flint's decision to postpone the match—in fact, he'd approved it—but he found himself wishing that Gryffindor weren't such fucking martyrs. It figured that Hufflepuff had been the team to fill in the gap; the Ravenclaws, like his Slytherins, had better sense.

"I wonder how they'll even see anything in all this?" he heard Lupin saying to Minerva as they opened the front doors. The wind snatched it out of their grip and tried to slam it shut. Sprout lost her hat from the same gust of wind that knocked Flitwick clean off his feet.

"Hope they don't freeze to death," Sprout said, dredging both her hat and Flitwick out of an icy puddle.

So did Severus. The temperature outside would be below freezing with the wind-chill. If the girl contracted hypothermia, he would murder Oliver Wood.

If it weren't for keeping an eye on her, he would have stayed in his dungeon, which was, in relation to the miserable, icy, wailing storm, as dry and warm as the southern coast of France. But most of his Slytherins were heading outside, driven so hard by House-rivalry that they would cheer for Gryffindor's defeat even in conditions as shitty as these

He passed Daphne Greengrass, who was wearing a hood against the rain and pleading with her younger sister: ". . . stay inside, Aster? It's freezing and raining and it's Quidditch. . ."

"Please don't come if you don't want to," Asteria Greengrass said, struggling with a large umbrella. "I only have a strange fancy to go and see—I've never been to a Quidditch game before, you know. . ."

"They're terribly boring, Aster . . and I doubt we'll see a thing in all this wretched, freezing rain. . ."

Asteria Greengrass was likely going to observe her new heroine. Since Lily's daughter had pummeled a boy in the face for tormenting her, Asteria had . . . well, she hadn't changed. She was still timid enough to make Longbottom look as bold as a dragon-slayer in comparison. She still stared at Severus in white-faced fright if he stood within ten feet of her cauldron, and on Thursday Minerva had set her back quite a bit by asking a question of her desk partner which Asteria had thought was directed at her. Madam Pomfrey had advised the both of them to "be less scary."

Perhaps the staff ought to leave Asteria's well-being to Harriet Potter. If she could defeat Voldemort three times and slay his giant pet snake, the next insurmountable feat to tackle was surely the great timidity of Asteria Greengrass.

He'd found himself dwelling on it, ever since it had happened. He'd found himself thinking, Lily stood against Gryffindors for a Slytherin, and then, For a friend. And once you weren't her friend any longer, she never stood against them again.

He'd tried to think of some instance when Lily had protected, or even attempted to protect, a Slytherin who wasn't himself. He couldn't recall any. It hadn't mattered to him; he'd probably have been more put out if she had because he'd wanted her to care for only himself. It still didn't matter that she hadn't. But her daughter had. What was Asteria Greengrass to her? The girl hadn't even known who she was.

He had never really thought of her as being like Lily before. The eyes were the same, of course, at least in shape and color, if seldom ever in expression; but there, for him, had the similarity ended. This was the first instance where he could say that she had done something that made her appear to be Lily's daughter in more than name. . . and yet, at the same time, the action had been quite different. Asteria Greengrass was not the girl's friend. Lily might have done the same thing in the same situation, or she might not have.

He would never know.

And here went Asteria Greengrass and himself, through the icy wind and rain, to watch the girl fly circles around the Quidditch pitch.

Even with water-repelling charms, he was soaked straight through getting to the teacher's stands, and the only thing he could see clearly was his breath misting the air in front of him. The stands rang from the drumming rain and possibly the students' shouting, but the rain caused such a din it was impossible to make out any individual noises.

Lee Jordan was there, dripping, ready to commentate, and Minerva skidded across the wet stands to the seat beside him. Severus sat closer to the front than he usually did, ignoring the back-spray from the storm, trying to make out the girl on the sodden pitch down below. Some blurry shapes in crimson and yellow were barely visible, but he wasn't the only one having trouble seeing. "Are they going yet?" Jordan asked Minerva, and then he said into his microphone, "And they're off! I think . . . Gryffindor, I think it's Gryffindor, takes the Quaffle—"

One of the crimson figures detatched from the rest, struggling upward through the rain to a point overlooking the pitch from on high. He kept his eyes on it as the match wore on.

__

\--

Lightning forked the air, cracking so hard and near the sound was deafening. Harriet flinched in shock and her broom dropped a few feet. The wind buffeted her to the left, and she slipped a bit on her broom, her numb hands sliding on the wet handle.

"Harry!" yelled Wood in an anguished voice. "Harry, behind you!"

Whipping round, she saw Diggory streaking across the pitch toward the opposite end. Harriet didn't think; she wheeled her Nimbus a hundred and eighty degrees and shot off after him, lying flat on her broom. Rain lashed at her face and the wind tried to hurtle her off course.

"Come on!" she begged, flinching at the whipping rain but pushing the broom forward. "Faster!"

It was so, so cold . . . the further she flew, faster through the rain, the colder it seemed to get . . . and the wind was so loud that it was making a strange, hollow silence fall across the stadium, and it was getting darker, as the lightning rippled across the sky. . .

And then, as if from somewhere far away and growing slowly closer, she heard the screaming start: first a thread, then a swell, and finally. . .

She took her eyes off the Snitch, off of Diggory, and finally saw the Dementors.

Streaming through the air, blacker than the stormy sky, their rotting cloaks rippling out behind them—moving oddly, not like birds or bats, not like swimming watersnakes, not like anything she'd ever seen—trailing over the Quidditch stands, around the goal post rings, from far above, from below they came. . .

And as they flew closer, the screaming voice was turning into words.

_"Not Harriet, please not Harriet—"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now—"_

_"Take me, kill me instead—"_

Everything was going black. Harriet was so cold, so terrified, she couldn't move, couldn't think. 

_"Not Harriet! Please, have mercy, have mercy—"_

Then that scream again, the one she knew so well already, and this time a high, cold laugh, a flash of green light, and

Blackness.

\--

"Lucky the ground was so soft."

"I thought she was dead for sure."

"She didn't even break her glasses. . ."

Severus's eyes were shut but he could hear the children whispering. They didn't know he was there, concealed behind one of the dark dividers that partitioned the beds off from each other. Later, he could reflect on how it made him feel like a pedophiliac stalker, but at present he was having trouble controlling his breathing. He needed to keep it quiet, so they wouldn't hear him.

The sight of her slipping off her broom, boneless, and plummeting through the air—

The children all gasped. "Harry!" said one of the Weasley twins, sounding like a person who'd had a very bad fright and was struggling to act normal. "How're you feeling?"

The girl didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was hoarse and tremulous. "What h-happened?"

"You fell off," said a Weasley twin—the same one or a different one; they couldn't be told apart, even when Severus gave a shit. "Must've been—what—fifty feet?"

"We thought you'd died," said Spinnet, her voice shaking.

Someone squeaked—probably Granger.

The girl was silent again. There was some shuffling from the others, like they didn't know what to say.

"What happened . . . with the match?" the girl asked slowly, sounding, to Severus's ears at least, as if she were asking because she ought to, more than because she cared. But when no one said anything, she said, with much more real feeling, "We didn't lose?"

"Diggory got the Snitch," said A Weasley Twin. "Just after you fell. He didn't realize what had happened. . ."

The Twin went on blathering, but Severus tuned him out. The sight of the Dementors streaming through the rain, of the girl slipping off her broom, of Dumbledore running onto the field to slow her descent, of the girl landing softly in the grass, utterly motionless—it all played in a loop in his mind, a constant stream of cold horror, like the rain was pounding through him.

Madam Pomfrey rustled past his hiding place and began shooing out the children. When she passed on the way back to her office, she glanced at him, but said nothing, and pulled the door to her office half shut.

"Are you okay?" Granger asked the girl in a quaking voice. They seemed to be the only two left in the ward.

"I'm okay." She didn't remotely sound like she was.

Granger was silent a moment. "They're horrible things, Dementors," she half-whispered. "I looked them up, you know, at the start of term—they make you remember the worst things of your life."

The girl didn't reply. Severus wouldn't have either. Granger sounded like she had guessed which memory would be bad enough to reduce her friend to unconsciousness.

"This isn't the first time you . . . it isn't the first time this has happened to you. Is it?" Granger asked after a long silence.

Still the girl didn't reply. But whatever she'd done, or not done, it was confirmation enough for Granger.

"Oh, Harry," she said thickly.

They stayed in silence, all three of them, while rain poured down the windows outside.

\--

Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping Harriet in the hospital for the rest of the weekend. Harriet didn't argue or complain. In fact, she didn't do much of anything. She felt like all her emotions had been scooped out.

Hagrid visited and brought a bouquet of earwiggy yellow flowers that closed their buds at night but opened gradually throughout the day, exposing bright white and orange cores, and someone sent Harriet a hand-made card with a beautiful drawing of pink and yellow roses on it. Please get well soon, it said, in gorgeous calligraphy. There was no signature anywhere on it.

Hermione only left the Hospital wing when Madam Pomfrey shooed her out at curfew, and she was there waiting whenever Madam Pomfrey went to unlock the doors in the morning. She even took off from doing her homework to play Travel Scrabble with Harriet, and Ron set aside his growing boy-ness to stay with them. He didn't even suggest they play chess. Instead, he brought Harriet a broom catalogue, which he'd already read so many times he was able to tell her specs on any broom she was interested in, and even a few she wasn't.

Harriet's Nimbus had been smashed to pieces by the Whomping Willow. She supposed she was upset about this, but she didn't know where, in all the things distressing her, to find room for it. She kept the pieces by her bed, even though they were just rubbish now. She wouldn't let Madam Pomfrey throw them out.

The nights were the worst. Alone in the dark, she lay awake for hours, replaying the sound of her mother's voice, the last words she'd ever spoken, in her head on an infinite loop. They were the only words she could ever remember hearing her mother say: begging for Harriet's life in exchange for her own.

She wondered if the Patronus could find old, joyful memories, so deep inside you they couldn't be remembered without the help of magic. If Dementors and Patronus were the dark and bright mirrors of the soul, shouldn't it be possible? If her mother had loved her so much to die for her, shouldn't there be, in some long-ago memory, an inprint of that?

But that's also what that memory was, the one the Dementors brought out of her, wasn't it? It was the last thing her mum had done for love of her. Like the scar on her forehead and the protection in her skin, it was a dark reflection of something indescribable. Just like it said in the book . . . When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you will find you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

At night, it all became too much. She'd cry, pressing her pillow over her face in case Madam Pomfrey heard, wishing there was someone who knew what it was like to miss someone so much much you knew it would never go away, even though it had already been there for so long, because it was a part of you and always would be.

\--

By Monday morning, she'd made up her mind. She grabbed her things and left the hospital wing, marching down to the Entrance Hall. But instead of veering right into the Great Hall for breakfast, she strode across the foyer to the dungeon staircase.

Snape's office door was shut but there was a light under it. She knocked three times, hard, and then stood there, staring grimly at the wood-grain.

"Yes, what?" his voice called from inside.

She pushed the door open. He was sitting at his desk, marking, and didn't look up.

"Make it quick, whatever it is," he said curtly.

Fine, then, she would. "I need to learn the Patronus Charm."

He did look up then, jerking his quill so that ink splattered through the air. He stared at her as though he'd thought she was off in Nepal. She thought he looked even more exhausted than the last time she'd seen him, on Friday. His hair was so greasy it had a wet sheen to it, and his face looked twice as pale, which she wouldn't have thought possible if she hadn't seen for herself.

"I could have died," she said when he only continued to stare, not saying anything. "Falling off my broom, I mean. I need to be able to defend myself."

"And why are you telling me this?" he asked. She wasn't sure he'd blinked since she walked into the room.

She didn't actually know why, but she wasn't going to tell him that. She was even going to pretend _I don't know_ hadn't even crossed her mind. "You already know I'm trying to learn it. I don't want to have to explain to someone else. Besides, who else would I ask?"

He laid down his quill slowly, staring at it, now. Then he rubbed his fingers over his eyes. Harriet waited, her heart thumping.

"Do you imagine I'll be able to tell you anything that I haven't already?" he asked eventually. "You know what you need to do. The task is to do it."

"You can tell me more about the blocking stuff," Harriet said. "Blocking certain kinds of thoughts, I mean."

"I really don't think I can." Now that he'd looked away from her, he didn't seem to want to look back.

There was no other choice. She'd have to use her secret weapon.

"Please?" she said.

Snape's eyes fixed on her again, as suddenly as the strike of a snake. He stared at her for another long moment, as if time, not himself, had frozen.

"As you wish," he said when that long, long moment finally passed back into real time. "Next Hogsmeade weekend—that Saturday. I have too much to do before then."

Heart full, Harriet only nodded. She wasn't sure if she felt happy or apprehensive or a hundred things; she only knew she felt very much of something.

As she turned to go, she stopped and forced past that knot of emotion: "Thank you." Then she dashed out before he replied. But as she shut the door behind her, she glanced back, and saw him sitting perfectly still, staring at nothing at all.


	27. Broken Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harriet has finally won her Patronus lessons, but Snape will live to regret it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -More tweaked canon-ness in here.
> 
> -I forgot to mention last time that, although it's not an uncommon saying, whenever I use the phrase, "As you wish," I think of The Princess Bride; so I'd say it deserves a credit. :)

With the promise of Patronus lessons spurring her on, Harriet was able to get back to work on everything else. The next Hogsmeade visit was on the very last weekend of term, and although everyone else was excited for the day out and the chance for Christmas shopping, Harriet was hoping that soon she might never have to hear her mother's dying words ever again, except in the darkness of her own heart.

She didn't talk to anyone else about the Patronus. The only person she would have told was Hermione, and it was difficult to talk to Hermione at all these days with all the books and parchments trying to bury her alive. Harriet had long since given up hope of learning how she was making it to her classes; Hermione was being too careful to conceal it, even as she stressed and fretted black circles under her eyes. She was taking three more classes than everyone else and still managed to be the only person to finish Snape's werewolf essay, before Professor Lupin returned to class and told them they didn't have to do it.

But Harriet didn't want to share the Patronus, not even with Hermione. She wasn't sure why, but the Patronus felt like a very private thing. She wondered, sometimes, as she pored over the pages she'd copied from the books, whether Snape hadn't really not-answered her about the Patronus because he didn't want to talk to her about it.

On the morning of the last Hogsmeade weekend, Harriet woke up to a world covered in snow. For once the rain had stopped, the mist had pulled back, and left everything a glittering, opaline white beneath a pearly-gray sky. Hermione and Ron pulled on extra jumpers, their cloaks and scarves and hats, and crushed a path through the snow from the front doors to the road, while Harriet climbed back to the Tower to read over her Patronus material one more time.

But on the third floor:

"Psst! Harry!"

Looking round, she saw two identical freckled faces peering at her from behind a half-closed door, and two identical hands waving her over. Nonplussed, she let them drag her into the room with a lot of furtive glances up and down the hall, and shut the door with a great show of conspiracy.

"Shouldn't you be blowing things up in Zonko's?" she asked. "From what I hear."

"All in good time, Harriet, my lass," said George.

"Thought we'd give you a bit of festive cheer before we went," said Fred, reaching into his jacket. Harriet eyed him warily, but he only pulled out a piece of blank parchment.

"Early Christmas present," he said, and laid it on an empty desk with a flourish.

Harriet looked curiously at the parchment as best she could without getting any closer. It really did seem to be completely blank.

"What's that supposed to be?" she asked.

"This, dear Harriet, is the key to our success," George said with a fond look at the thing.

"It's a wrench, giving it to you," said Fred, "but we decided last night, your need's greater than ours."

"What do I need with a bit of old parchment?" Harriet asked.

"A bit of old parchment!" Fred grimaced like Harriet had dealt him a mortal offense. "Explain, George."

"Well . . . when we were in our first year, Harriet—young, carefree and innocent—"

Harriet snorted at the idea that Fred and George were ever innocent.

"Well, more innocent than we are now, anyway—we got into a spot of trouble with Filch. He hauled us into the office and started threatening us with all the usual—"

"—detention—"

"—disembowelment—"

"—flaying of limbs—"

"—and we couldn't help noticing a drawer in one of his filing cabinets marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous."

"Gosh, what did you do?" Harriet said, unsure whether she most wanted to grin or roll her eyes.

"What any self-respecting trouble-maker would have done," said George seriously.

"We dropped a dungbomb, whipped open the drawer, and grabbed this." Fred waved his hand at the bit of blank parchment.

"We don't reckon Filch ever found out how to work it," George said, "though he must've guessed what it was, or why else would he have confiscated it?"

"But you figured it out," Harriet guessed. "Naturally."

"Naturally," Fred said with a modesty so thick it couldn't have been faker, and he and George smirked identical smirks. "This little beauty's taught us more than all the teachers in the school."

Harriet folded her arms, raising her eyebrow. She'd finally got the trick of raising only one. "Go on, then," she said. "Impress a girl."

"She may be a titchy one," Fred said to George, "but what she lacks in inches, she makes up for with her demands."

George grinned at Harriet. Touching his wand to the parchment, he said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

A drop of ink welled up beneath the wand's tip and then started to spread outward, like a spill; but instead of running any-which-way, the inky lines crisscrossed, fanned out, intertwined, and as they darted to every corner of the parchment, a few spun together as words:

Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

are Proud to Present

THE MARAUDER'S MAP

It was a map—a map showing every detail of the Hogwarts castle and grounds, right to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There was the Owlery, Gryffindor Tower, even Hagrid's hut and the Whomping Willow . . . and through the inky corridors and in the sketched-in classrooms were tiny ink dots, labeled "Professor Dumbledore" (pacing in his study), "Mrs Norris" (prowling the second floor), and "Peeves" (wrecking the trophy room). As Harriet finally moved closer to the map to see, she noticed, set into the walls, passages she'd never known existed, and many of them seemed to lead—

"Right into Hogsmeade," said Fred, tracing one of them with his finger. "Now, Filch knows about these four, but we're sure we're the only ones who know about these. We don't reckon anyone's used this one, especially since the Whomping Willow's planted right over the entrance. But this one here, it leads right into the cellar of Honeydukes, we've used it loads of times. And as you might've noticed, the entrance is right outside this room."

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs," sighed George. "We owe them so much."

"Noble men, working tirelessly to help a new generation of rule-breakers," said Fred.

"Right." George pushed the map reverently across the desk at Harriet. "Don't forget to wipe it after you've used it, or anyone can read it."

"Just tap it again and say 'mischief managed,'" said Fred, "and it'll go blank." Then he smiled. "So, young Harriet," he said, suddenly sounding and looking almost exactly like Percy, "mind you behave yourself."

They left, smirking and winking.

Harriet stared at the map, tracing her fingers down the passages and across the dots. Hagrid was in his hut. Professor Lupin was walking round the grounds. Snape . . . wasn't anywhere on it.

She searched all over the map . . . and then she noticed something missing.

Except for the Potions classroom and Snape's office, the dungeons weren't on here. Then she remembered, from Hogwarts: a History: Salazar Slytherin had made the dungeons unmappable. If Snape was anywhere else in the dungeon, he'd be literally off the map.

And then, as she was watching Professor Sprout puttering in the greenhouse, a thought came to her. . .

She looked on the parchment for a dot labeled Sirius Black.

He wasn't anywhere that she could see. But if he were in the dungeons, or even in the forest, maybe—or off the map into Hogsmeade—she would be able to see him. . .

Unless he came back to Hogwarts.

She shivered.

It would have pleased Hermione very much to know that the next thing to occur to Harriet was that a teacher would surely like to see this. In fact, Snape would probably wring her neck for not thinking of it first thing.

But Fred and George gave it to me so I could go to Hogsmeade. They'd be upset if the first thing I did was hand it over to . . . to Snape.

They should have handed it over to an adult, said the brisk, Hermione-like voice of her common sense. The night Sirius Black attacked the Fat Lady. You should go turn it over right now.

She knew she really should.

But she thought Hogsmeade with an aching longing, and of the really very generous thing Fred and George had done, giving her this wonderful map. If she gave it to a teacher, she'd certainly never get it back. Fred and George might actually be angry.

Maybe . . . maybe she'd enjoy it . . . just for a little while. She'd been unhappy enough lately. It would be nice to have something. . .

She chewed her lip, thinking, battling with guilt and reluctance.

"Kitchens?" she whispered at it.

A little dot named Harriet Potter appeared right where she was standing, and then a path of tiny footprints, leading from that very room, back down the stairs, along to the Entrance Hall, and down the marble stairs. . .

She followed it, marveling, eating up her own footsteps. They stopped in front of a wall, and a little bubble popped up that read: Tickle the pear.

Harriet looked up, right at a giant still-life of a bowl of fruit. The pear was at least as big as she was. Reaching out, she cautiously tickled its side with her fingertip. It squirmed, giggling—like a pear might possibly giggle, at least—and the whole portrait groaned quietly and unlatched, swinging ponderously out.

Awed, Harriet whispered, "Mischief managed," and stuffed the map into her cardigan. She edged around the portrait and slipped through the gap as it started to swing shut again.

The kitchen was the size of a cavern, with rough-hewn walls and a high ceiling, warm and bright. The smell of food was so thick she could taste it on the air, which shimmered from the haze of so many cooking fires. And moving round the fires, their outlines flickering from the steam, were more house-elves than she'd ever seen in her life.

While she stood, amazed, several of them closest the door noticed her. Instead of looking shocked or displeased, they immediately dipped into low bows. One of them stepped forward, reminding her of a butler, and said in a high, squeaky voice, "How may Miss be served?"

"I. . . I wanted some food," Harriet stammered. A ripple was crossing the whole cavernous kitchen as the elves noticed her and all began to bow. "I—didn't mean to interrupt—"

"Whatever Miss wish—" said the elf, or started to say, but a squeal of "HARRIET POTTER!" cut him—her?—off.

"Oof!" Harriet grunted as something barreled into her waist and latched on. "Dobby?"

"Miss Harriet Potter, miss!" Dobby's eyes were leaking tears of joy. "Dobby has wished for this day!"

"I've missed you, too," she said, grinning. "Since you're not trying to kill me anymore. Are these your new clothes?"

He was wearing a child's football shorts, a lurid orange-and-green patterned tie over his bare chest, an all-black sock and another with yellow and purple polka dots, and tea cozy for a hat. The whole effect was pretty stunning.

The other elves were looking extremely disapproving, though Harriet didn't know why, and at the mention of "clothes" they all averted their eyes.

"What brings Miss Harriet Potter to the kitchens?" Dobby asked, vibrating with happiness and oblivious to the others.

Harriet looked around at the other elves, their dozens of simmering and steaming cauldrons, the knives chopping vegetables by magic, the bottles sprinkling herbs in midair.

"Well," she said, lowering her voice and bending down (at least she was taller than house-elves), "it's sort of a secret. . . You can keep a secret, right, Dobby?"

\--

She struggled out the front doors and into the snow carrying the basket in one hand and the map in the other, searching for a Sirius Black dot. None appeared. Several times she almost dumped the food in the snow, and when a gust of snow-laden wind ripped the map out of her hand, she said, "Oh, f—"

It blew into the trees. She lurched after it, but then stopped on the edge of the forest, because inside the shadows something had moved, eyes glinting—

"Snuffles!" Her heart somersaulted with relief. He shambled forward, his shaggy, matted coat dusted with snow, the map gripped in his mouth. "Good boy," she said, taking it from him and stuffing it in her pocket before she could lose it again. "Good, good boy . . . you hungry?"

He scarfed down the roast beef Dobby had packed. She wondered what he ate during the times she couldn't feed him. Rats? Squirrels? Whatever it was, he didn't seem to be getting enough of them; when she patted his flank, she could feel his ribs.

Checking her watch, she saw it was almost her lunchtime. Snape had told her to meet him right after. "I'll leave you the basket, Snuffles," she said. "But I've got to—yow!"

She jumped as a load of slushy snow landed on her head and dumped itself down the back of her neck. Wiping it furiously off, she looked up and got another load of snow right in the face. "Crookshanks!" she said angrily.

His yellow eyes glinted at her from the pink branch overhead, and he lashed his tufted tail with the same air that Malfoy might have sniggered.

Snuffles growled, a long, low, drawn-out sound. Crookshanks did not hiss or puff his tail; instead he casually washed his face, climbed up the tree, and disappeared into the branches overhead, leaving the rest of the snow where it was.

"You're tough stuff," she said to Snuffles. "That cat's the terror of Gryffindor Tower. All right—I've got to go." She scratched him once more behind the ears; he whined. "Enjoy your lunch."

She plowed away, back along the path she'd trudged through the snow. So much had fallen in the night, and she was, as Fred said—again—still so small that even without the basket it was hard going. The drifts on the path buried her up to her waist. She took out her frustration on the snow, kicking and pummeling it. Hermione said she was probably so undersized from being kept in a cupboard and not fed properly, that she'd grow eventually, but Harriet had been getting decent meals for a while now and still nothing was happening. She hadn't started—you know—it (although, as Hermione pointed out, this was a good thing until she grew upward some more), nothing was getting any bigger, and the other girls kept filling out like an artist sketching Greek goddesses.

Life could be so unfair. It probably wouldn't make her any less of a target for Dark wizards if she was taller and had real breasts and straight hair, but it'd still be nice to have those things.

"Harriet?"

She looked up, squinting in the snow dusting down from the clouds. Professor Lupin, wrapped in a tatty cloak that would've looked too threadbare in springtime, was wading through the snow to her right. He smiled.

"I thought that was you," he said. "I couldn't quite be sure under all the layers. How are you doing?"

Mrs. Weasley had also sent her a bobble hat and earmuffs, and she'd wrapped the lower half of her face in her Gryffindor scarf. She pulled it down to say, "'S'cold."

He smiled a little more widely. "Is it my imagination, or is it almost lunchtime?"

"Yeah. That's where I'm going."

"That's a relief," he said. "I was starting to see roast chickens everywhere. I was getting worried I'd come down with some hallucinatory disorder."

He walked in front of her up the path (or where she guessed the path was), carving a trench that made her going much easier. But it reminded her. . .

"Professor Lupin?" She pulled down her scarf again. "Why didn't you let me fight the Boggart?"

He turned to look at her with surprise. Snow flecked his hair, which the wind blew across his eyes. "I would have thought that was obvious, Harriet."

Harriet blinked, equally surprised. She'd expected him to deny it. "Why?"

"Well," he said slowly, "I assumed that if the Boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort."

Harriet stared—not only because this was the last thing she'd expected, but because Lupin had actually said Voldemort's name out loud.

"Clearly I was wrong," Lupin said, still looking at her curiously. "But I didn't think it was a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staff room. I imagined that people would panic."

"I did think of Voldemort first," Harriet admitted. "But then—then I thought of . . . of the Dementors."

"I see." Lupin sounded thoughtful. "Well . . . I'm impressed." He smiled down at her. "That suggests that what you fear most of all is—well, fear. Very wise, Harriet."

Harriet didn't know what to say to that, but as they reached the front doors to the Entrance Hall, she didn't have to. Professor Lupin dried the snow off their knees (or, in Harriet's case, from her waist down) with a spell like a hairdryer that left the air steaming around them as they headed into the Great Hall.

She sat by herself at the Gryffindor table, mulling over what Professor Lupin had said, and over the map (in her head—she didn't want anyone to see it just yet). Maybe if she talked to Fred and George and they all agreed to hand it in. . .

Snape wasn't at the High Table, even though it was past noon. Pushing her plates away (they cleaned themselves and vanished), she walked to the staircase that led to the dungeons and down several steps before pulling out the map and checking it.

 _Severus Snape_ said a tiny dot in his office.

Harriet headed toward it.

\--

"What in the name of fuck was I thinking?" Severus demanded of Lily's photograph. But she just gave him a chiding look for his language and brushed her hair back from her face.

"Patronus lessons," he said, for the fiftieth time since he'd agreed. "Jesus Christ."

He knew it was unreasonable to feel this. . . this panicked. If the girl asked to see his Patronus—which she probably would, the nosy little runt—he could simply refuse her. He was good at refusing people what they wanted.

But what if he couldn't refuse her? A nasty suspicion had formed inside him, had been forming for some time, that he was developing a weakness where she was concerned. When Lily had been alive—when she had still been speaking to him—all it had taken was a scolding from her to tie him into a miserable knot; he'd have done whatever she wanted just so she'd stop being angry with him. Anyone else's displeasure (except his mother's, because she'd terrified him), all their reasoned or impassioned pleas, had crashed ineffectually against the battlements of his indifference. Even Lucius's occasional ire had made him more angry than anything else. And since he was sixteen, there had been no more Lily to bar him from doing and saying whatever he wished.

Until now.

Goddamn it.

He'd first become aware of it during her first Potions class of the year. Abusing Longbottom's stupidity—he'd always done it, and it had always riled the Gryffindors, presumably the girl among them, though from his habit of ignoring her he had no real idea. But that day, he'd looked away from sniping at Granger (the aggravating little show-off) and seen the girl glaring at him, not simply in anger but with an edge of I expected better of you, and he'd . . . faltered.

He'd let Longbottom off the hook with a vague threat (though unable to restrain his swamping irritation with Granger), and when the girl had left in an obvious dudgeon he had felt—anxious. It had made him irate, and he'd skipped lunch to skulk in the staffroom, trying to read his book and failing miserably, his mind choosing to dwell masochistically on the girl's angry, disappointed face and his own perverse sense of injury. Why should he care if anyone's spawn was upset, period, let alone with himself, for being as he always was?

And then Lupin came trooping in with the pack of Gryffindors, the girl naturally among them, and by that time he'd worked himself into such a state of wounded resentment that he'd delivered that Parthian shot toward Longbottom and Granger. The girl's double-walled glare should have been satisfaction of a job well done, but instead he'd only felt worse.

Wretched brat.

After Lupin, the two-faced little shit, had pulled his stunt with the Boggart, Severus had returned to tormenting Longbottom with less restraint than he normally observed. He could feel the misery and unhappiness rolling off the girl in waves, but he'd kept on: to spite her, to spite himself, his own discomfort, because he shouldn't care.

He shouldn't.

"Please," she'd said. Please.

I could have died

In his office that morning she had looked like she was barely recovering from an illness. There had been so many Dementors on the field. Had she heard . . . more?

He lay awake at night, wondering what she'd heard.

So he'd agreed.

What were more lies and torments, after everything?

\--

Harriet found herself staring at Snape's wood-grain like she was trying to memorize it. And staring. And staring. And. . .

"This is stupid," she muttered to herself. "Just knock."

It had interesting curly-cue patterns set into double panels. . . that one looked like a seahorse. . .

Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand, and jumped when the door swung open of its own accord. Then she danced backward when Snape came walking out and almost tripped over her.

He ground to an abrupt halt, just like he had when he'd strode out of Professor Lupin's office on Hallowe'en. For a moment he stared down at her, almost blankly. Then he said:

"You're late" in no very welcoming voice—pure Snape.

"Erm." Harriet wasn't going to tell him she'd been on time, but had stood there for at least five minutes without knocking. "I'm sorry."

"If my time is of so little importance to you," he continued coldly, "I fail to see why I should give it up."

"I'm really sorry," Harriet said, her heart sinking. He was going to tell her to go away, wasn't he?

He glowered at her through narrowed eyes, and then he said, "Well? Don't just stand there," and stalked away from the door, back inside his office.

Harriet edged in after him and very carefully shut the door. She was reminded of her detention last year, the one she'd got for flying into the Whomping Willow, when she'd felt like she was shutting the door on light and life. Snape's office was just as creepy as she remembered, with those eerie, floating jars, only at least now a fire was lit in the hearth. A weak, feeble fire, it was true . . . and it really didn't do much to make the place more cheerful. . . in fact, it did even less.

"Well?" Snape said. "I have no idea what you want me to teach you, so you will have to tell me what you're looking for."

Harriet had prepared for this. In fact, she'd guessed this was how he would be. Just like in the summer, when his weird blandness had unnerved her and his return to sarcastic sniping had calmed her, she felt herself becoming less nervous. Snape was supposed to be scary and forbidding, in his creepy office with the light from the fire cutting the planes of his face into light and shadow.

"I've been practicing," she said. Taking out her wand, she pictured Ron, Hermione and herself playing Exploding Snap in the infirmary that weekend, and forced out of her mind the memory of why she'd been there. She was going to do this—she was going to show Snape she could, and she wasn't going to let those Dementors get to her ever again, she wasn't going to let Voldemort—

Focus, focus, concentrate—

"Expecto Patronum," she said fiercely, rather louder than she'd meant to, thinking hard about Hermione's face as she'd laughed when Ron had thought he'd got a Royal Straight Flush but mistook the Joker for the Jack—

—and when Ron had said Oh bugger, an expression had come over Hermione's face that Harriet had never seen before, certainly not while she was looking at Ron, and Harriet had felt a deep pang of—

Then she noticed that a slight, silver mist had risen from her wand, and she gasped in surprise—

But just like that, it was gone. She'd lost it.

She dropped her wand, feeling dejected.

The sound of Snape's voice made her jump. She'd nearly forgotten he was there.

"At your age," he said, like he was straining to say this, "even a Patronus that indistinct is . . . an achievement."

She looked up at him. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was glaring at her, as if daring her to say, Thank you, that's a very nice thing to say. Well, for Snape it was. For Snape it was practically a glowing compliment.

"But I'm trying really hard," she said. "I should be able to get it."

He looked at her a moment in silence. Then he said, in a voice she had difficulty interpreting (though it certainly didn't sound nice), "It does not have so much to do with ability—although that is certainly part of it. State of mind is also a factor. Certain cases have found that confidence affects their casting. You are allowing doubt to hinder you."

Harriet blinked. "You mean I have to believe I can do it?"

"You are letting too many negative emotions interfere with your recall of perfect happiness. This charm takes mental and magical discipline, and that is not learned overnight."

Harriet felt even more cast down than before, if that was possible. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Keep trying," Snape said flatly.

"But you're saying I can't do it."

"I am saying that you have not yet figured out how," he said impatiently, like she was failing to follow the directions spelled out cleanly on the board. "If you stop wallowing in your self-pity and failure, you might accomplish something."

Anger and hurt flared in Harriet's chest like a firework. You wouldn't say that if it was your mum you had to hear dying, over and over, until you passed out—

And then she remembered, as clear and bright as crystal, what Aunt Petunia had said. If it was true, if he had been—if he knew—he wouldn't say that, he would have to understand—

"Were you friends with my mum?" she asked.

Snape went so white she saw it, even in the dimness of his office.

"What did you say?" he asked in a voice so sharp and dangerous that several of her organs tried to collapse. It was like a whip cracking over her head and it made her legs actually feel like jelly. Neville probably would have fainted outright.

"Were you friends with my mum?" she repeated, willing her voice not to shake. She was glad the light in his office was so poor; then he might not see her wand-hand trembling.

"Where did you hear that?" His voice wasn't as loud as it had been, but it was no less dangerous. His eyes had a funny light in them. Her heart was going as fast as a rabbit's.

"Aunt Petunia told me. She knew who you were. She said you grew up in the same neighborhood."

Snape stared at her. She felt for some reason as if he was staring at her from very far away.

Long moments tangled in the air, not passing. Everything was completely silent, except for the faint crackle of the fire as it settled. Snape looked. . .

Harriet had no idea what to do. This was somehow her fault. If she'd been using her wand, she would have thought she'd Stunned him or something. He wasn't moving, and she wasn't even sure he was really present, not mentally. There was something hollow behind his eyes, like the part that was Snape been removed.

Why would asking about her mum have done this?

"I. . ." she said eventually, when Snape continued like a stone. "I'll . . . I'll just—go. . ."

When he didn't reply or even move, not so much as a blink, she turned and walked to his door on trembly legs. As she slipped out, she peeked over her shoulder. He'd turned his back to her and was looking down into the fire (she guessed; she couldn't see).

She shut the door behind her and walked slowly down the dark corridor and up the stairs, above ground, wondering why she felt almost as hollow as she had the first time she'd passed by the Dementors.

\--

Some time in the night, the sound of breaking glass finally stopped. Shards lay across the floor, gibbous moonlight refracting off their edges. All across the floor, to all four walls.

He'd broken even the glass in her picture frame.

Then he'd repaired it, and spent the night with it cradled in his hands.


	28. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas at Hogwarts, and Hermione dreads to be the bearer of terrible news. Dobby, however, brings socks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Moar canon-y biznez. Oh, and some lines quoted from The Hobbit (book), but I attribute them in-text.

Ron and all the Weasleys had gone home to spend Christmas at the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley had sent Harriet a very kind note saying they looked forward to having her to stay again in the summer, when Sirius Black would surely be back in prison. Harriet wasn't surprised she hadn't been allowed to go; if it was too dangerous for her to stay with the Grangers or go to Hogsmeade, the Burrow was right out, too.

In fact, she and Hermione were the only ones in the whole of Gryffindor Tower who had stayed behind. Professor McGonagall had actually come into the common room the night everyone left and been very brisk about telling them to call her if there was any trouble. She'd spent half an hour making spells that checked all over the tower, glittering up and down the staircases and on all the windows.

Even though it was the holiday, Hermione did not look any less stressed. She stared into space a lot, and at Harriet, and at her books without turning the pages, and seemed to be having trouble sleeping.

"I know I said I'd drop it," said Harriet on the second day of this even-stranger-than-usual behavior, "but this stuff with your classes—it's not dangerous, right?"

Hermione stared blankly at her.

"I know, Professor McGonagall okayed it," Harriet said. "But you don't look well."

"I'm all right," Hermione said quietly. "I just . . . have a lot to think about."

"Can I help?"

Hermione shook her head, her eyes strangely bright, like she wanted to cry. Harriet had no idea what to do.

"Want to build snowmen?" she offered feebly.

They did go outside and build snowmen, and made angels in the snow. It was bloody freezing. But Hermione laughed, and Harriet's heart lightened.

Harriet woke up on Christmas morning to Crookshanks' purring and kneading her back and a heap of presents lumped at the foot of the bed.

"Happy Christmas!" Hermione said, piling onto the bed next to her, shiveirng. "Can I please get in under your blanket? It's freezing in here, even with the fire. . . "

"That's because we live in a bloody tower," Harriet said, throwing the blankets over her.

Piled under blankets, they ripped into their gifts. Mrs. Weasley had sent Harriet a holly-green jumper; Ginny, a Fifi LaFolle novel (Magic at Midnight); Hermione's parents, an extremely fine leather-bound set of the Lord of the Rings books; and someone, an unsigned card with a painting of holly boughs on front. On the inside it read, in vaguely familiar handwriting, Merry Christmas, Harriet. PS. Write to the goblins of Gringott's Bank and ask them to send you the safety deposit box from the Potter vault.

"Lots of things could be in a safety deposit box," Hermione said when Hermione showed her the card. "Important documents, small valuables like jewelry and things—but what would Professor Lupin know about it?"

"Professor Lupin?" Harriet repeated in surprise.

"That's his handwriting. It looks a bit different printed smaller, but I'm quite certain it's his. I wonder why he didn't sign it?"

Harriet tucked the card into its envelope and put it carefully in her nightstand drawer for clarifying later. She could ask him at the Christmas feast what he meant about the safety deposit box—and why he hadn't signed his name. . .

"That one's from me," Hermione said when Harriet picked up a small but surprisingly heavy box that fit in her palm.

"Too small to be a book," Harriet said seriously; Hermione threw a ball of wrapping paper at her, laughing.

Harriet peeled the gold wrapping paper off a . . . red velvet box. Curiously, she prised it open and saw two gold necklaces, each with a pendant, each pendant half of a heart.

At first Harriet didn't realize what they were. Then, she did.

"We—we might be too old, I know," Hermione said, her voice gone high the way it did when she was nervous. "I mean, I considered—that we might be. Or that they're, I don't know, silly—they're silly, aren't they? It's, it's a Muggle thing, you know, I'm sure you know, I couldn't find them anywhere at Hogsmeade so I had Mum send them, but if you don't like them, I can return them—"

Harriet threw her arms around her. Hermione abruptly stopped talking.

"I love them," Harriet said, still hugging her.

Hermione squeezed back. When Harriet finally pulled away, Hermione looked happy and relieved (though still pale and tired).

"I was so afraid it was going to be stupid," she said.

"How could it be stupid? Here." Harriet pulled the necklaces out of the box and untangled the chains from each other (Crookshanks batted at the pendants as they spun in midair). "Put mine on me, then—quit it, Crookshanks, go on—then I'll do yours."

Harriet had never actually owned a necklace before. Aunt Petunia had certainly never bought her jewelry, and no one had ever given her any before this.

"You've got one present left," Hermione said, lifting up a large, shapeless package wrapped in plain packing paper and tied with twine.

They pulled open the paper and gasped as a magnificent, gleaming broomstick rolled free and onto the bed.

"I didn't know you'd ordered another—" Hermione said.

"I didn't," Harriet said, her voice shaking slightly from astonishment. "And certainly not that one. That's—that's a Firebolt."

Hermione looked blank.

"A Firebolt," Harriet said. "You must've heard the boys banging on about it—international standard broom, best on the market, so expensive its price is on bloody request?"

Hermione's mouth fell open.

"See if there's a card," Harriet said urgently, pawing through the remaining paper (Crookshanks copied her). Hermione scrabbled through the bits she'd torn off, but they found nothing, not even a mysterious card.

"I wonder if anyone else gets as many mysterious Christmas presents as me," Harriet said. She meant it as a joke, but Hermione was staring fixedly at the broom. Harriet would have expected this behavior of Ron—this was a Firebolt—but Hermione had once said that she didn't care if it sounded too Muggle or not, brooms were meant for sweeping floors, not for flying around on.

"Who would have spent this much money on you and not told you who they were?" Hermione asked slowly.

"I've got no idea. . ."

Harriet reached out for it in awe, but Hermione grabbed her hands as quickly as if she'd been about to touch an open fire.

"What?" Harriet asked, taken aback.

"Don't touch it!" Hermione said shrilly. "And whatever you do, don't ride it!"

"What?"

"Don't you see? You break your broom and a complete stranger sends you an astronomically expensive replacement, anonymously?"

"I know, that's what's—"

"Harriet, I think that broom was sent to you by Sirius Black!"

Harriet stared at her. Hermione stared back, eyes wide but determined, and she was gripping Harriet's hands so hard it hurt. Hermione's own hands were shaking, so Harriet's were trembling in her grip.

"Okay," Harriet said slowly. "It's okay. I won't touch it. Okay?"

"Promise me," Hermione said, voice shaking. "And you won't fly it."

"I promise," Harriet said.

Hermione stared at her a moment longer, and then she let go of Harriet's hands and started wringing her own. She jumped up from the bed and started pacing, while Crookshanks sniffed up and down the broom.

"I know it sounds mad," Hermione said, still pacing and hand-wringing. "I know—there's the question of how he could get the money—but it would be a perfect way to get to you, to hurt you without risking himself, and he's already tried to already, he's near Hogwarts, we know he is, so he could easily have found out about your broom—

"We have to tell someone," Hermione said, spinning round suddenly to face her. "Professor McGonagall. Let's go and get her right now—"

Her eyes were bright and her cheeks red, and her lips were pressed together in that way that meant she was barely controlling her emotions. Harriet wasn't convinced the broom had come from Sirius Black, but Hermione was. There was no talking her out of that.

"Okay," said Harriet. "Let's get dressed and find Professor McGonagall. Okay? It'll be fine."

\--

"This is it, then?" Professor McGonagall picked up the broom and turned it over in her hands, studying it. At least Harriet could now be sure that it wouldn't have blown up in her face; not even Professor McGonagall's eyebrows were singed.

"And you received no note?" she asked, looking at Harriet over the top of her square spectacles. "No message of any kind?"

"No, ma'am."

"Hmm." She gave the broom a stern look, like she could tell it was trying to hide something. "You were quite right to bring it to my attention. It will need to be tested for jinxes. I'm no expert, but Professor Flitwick and Madam Hooch can certainly strip it down—"

Harriet winced at the thought of a broom like that being stripped down. She decided it was good that Ron had gone home for the holidays; if he'd been here to hear this, he might have had a fit.

"Do you really think Sirius Black sent it, ma'am?" she asked, in part so Professor McGonagall would stop talking about broom-stripping.

"I cannot say, Miss Potter, but it does look suspicious. You may have it back if we are sure it's jinx-free."

She took the Firebolt with her when she left.

Harriet felt . . . odd. She didn't know what to think. It seemed impossible that Sirius Black would have gone to the trouble and expense of sending her a jinxed broom when he could simply have sent her a box that blew up in her face. But both Hermione and Professor McGonagall, who was certainly very clever, thought he might have been behind it. . .

It was disturbing to think they might be right.

"Are you mad at me?" Hermione asked in a tiny voice.

Harriet blinked at her. "No."

Hermione bit her lip.

"Of course not," Harriet said. "Why would I be mad at you for not wanting me to be killed?"

"Your Nimbus . . . I know how much it meant to you. . . And even I could tell that was a really good broom."

Harriet shrugged. She didn't feel much of anything, except a sort of numbness at the thought of someone trying to murder her on Christmas.

"That really put a damper on Christmas, didn't it," Hermione said a few moments later, not even trying to smile.

The sofa next to Harriet dipped as Crookshanks jumped up on it. He stepped imperiously into her lap and settled down with his feet tucked up under his body. Harriet blinked.

Pet him, Hermione mouthed, stroking her hand through the air. Cautiously, Harriet laid her hand on Crookshanks's fluffy head and scratched behind his ears. He purred, as if saying, That will do for starters.

Hermione smiled.

\--

They dressed up a little for lunch, in honor of Christmas. Harriet wore a green velvet top that the Dr. Grangers had given her for her birthday and tried to get her hair to behave. It had inched down to touch her shoulders, so there was more of it than she was used to. Hermione's theory was that if Harriet grew out her hair, the extra weight would help tame it, but to Harriet it seemed that the more hair she grew, the wilder it got.

In the Great Hall, they found a set-up much like last year's: the House tables had been moved against the walls, and one long table, lined with mismatched, flashy arm-chairs and set with crystal plates, stood in the center of the room for everyone. Professor Dumbledore presided at one end, his magnificent crimson robes trimmed with ermine, so that he resembled a slim Father Christmas.

The Heads of House were also there, wearing slightly more festive robes than usual, and even Filch had switched his musty robes for a mouldy-looking tailcoat. It was like Christmas dinner with the Mad Hatter.

Snape, of course, looked the same as ever. Harriet wondered if he had any clothes that weren't black.

But something was missing . . . no; someone: Where was Professor Lupin? Harriet had wanted to ask him about the card, but he wasn't here. There wasn't even a chair for him: only enough seats to sit her and Hermione.

"Merry Christmas!" Professor Dumbledore greeted them, beaming. "As there are so few of us, it seemed foolish to use the House tables. . . sit down, sit down!"

The only other students were Asteria Greengrass, her sister Daphne, and another first-year boy whom Harriet didn't know. He looked at Hermione and Harriet in pure terror, but Daphne did not seem to think them worth acknowledging, and although Asteria's face went deeply scarlet, she didn't look at Harriet or Hermione either.

"Crackers!" Dumbledore said happily, offering one end of a large silver one to Snape, who only gave it a look as cold and dirty as slushy mud. Chuckling, Dumbledore then appealed to Professor Sprout, who gave her end such an enthusiastic tug that she knocked her plate onto Professor Flitwick's lap.

With a startling BANG the cracker split and a large, pointed witch's hat, topped with a stuffed vulture, thudded to the table. Snape stared at it, and then his face went even harder than usual. Professor McGonagall coughed and took a drink out of her goblet. Harriet got the impression she was trying not to laugh, and wondered, for the millionth time, why everyone thought the Boggart-thing was funny but her. And Snape, obviously.

She hadn't spoken to him since leaving his office that day she'd asked about her mum. She hadn't had the nerve. He hadn't once looked at her since then, and he didn't today, either. She might as well not have existed. She'd kicked herself over and over for bolloxing up her chance at learning the Patronus, since she was quite sure he wasn't going to teach her after that disastrous lesson. "Please" surely wouldn't work twice, not after she'd said . . . whatever she'd said that had upset him.

No, that was wrong: she knew what had upset him; she just didn't know why.

Sometimes she felt the answer lurking there in her mind, like a shadow that stretched behind her at midday. If she turned to try and look at it, it would disappear. She couldn't get at it properly: just like when Aunt Petunia had told her about Snape and her mum (and been right, it seemed), and she'd felt an idea forming in her, and the next morning it had become clear.

So, she'd wait for it to clear up again.

(She just wished it would hurry up. She really wanted to figure out what was going on.)

"Tuck in!" Dumbledore advised the table, beaming around at them all.

As Harriet was serving herself and Hermione roast potatoes, she heard the doors to the Great Hall opening. She looked up, hoping it was Lupin—but it was only Professor Trelawney, wearing a long, green sequined dress that made her look more than ever like a human-sized dragonfly.

"Sybill, this is a pleasant surprise!" said Dumbledore, standing up for her and tucking his beard against his chest so it wouldn't trail into his gravy.

"I have been crystal-gazing, Headmaster," said Trelawney in a voice even mistier than usual, "and to my astonishment, I saw myself abandoning my solitary luncheon and joining you. Who am I to refuse the promptings of fate? At once I hastened from my tower, and I do beg you to forgive my lateness. . ."

Harriet was afraid that if she looked at Hermione, she'd burst out laughing. Instead she looked at Snape, who was wearing an expression of open disgust. Unfortunately, this struck her as extremely funny and she wound up snorting quite loudly from trying not to laugh. Daphne Greengrass gave her a mildly scandalized look.

"Let me draw you up a chair," said Dumbledore. Harriet could have sworn he winked at her. His eyes were certainly twinkling.

He drew a chair in mid-air with his wand, and a wing-backed armchair with purple brocade dropped into an open space between Snape and McGonagall. (Harriet remembered what he'd said to her last year about missing Transfigurations; had all the chairs had come from him? It would explain all the flashy fabrics.)

Professor Trelawney took her seat with a misty smile, appearing oblivious to the way Professor McGonagall's lips thinned and Snape actually moved his elbow off the arm of his chair, like he was afraid her shawls would touch him. Harriet wondered if this told how bad Professor Trelawney really was at fortune-telling.

"Tripe, Sibyll?" Professor McGonagall asked her, poking a spoon into a large tureen.

Professor Trelawney ignored her. "But where is dear Professor Lupin?" she asked, looking up and down the table.

Harriet had the mean thought that finally, Professor Trelawney had said something useful.

"I'm afraid the poor fellow is ill again," said Dumbledore. "A shame, too, that it must happen on Christmas Day. . ."

"But surely you already knew that, Sibyll?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"Certainly I knew, Minerva," said Professor Trelawney coldly. "But one does not parade the fact that one is All-Knowing. I frequently pretend that I do not possess the Inner-Eye, so as not to discomfit those whose Sight is not as far-reaching."

"That explains a great deal," said Professor McGonagall.

"If you must know, Minerva, I fear that Professor Lupin may not be with us for much longer," said Professor Trelawney, her nostrils flaring slightly. "He seems aware, himself, that his time is short. He positively fled when I offered to crystal-gaze for him—"

"I can't imagine why."

"I believe," said Professor Dumbledore in a cheerful but slightly raised voice, putting an end to Professor Trelawney and McGonagall's conversation, "that Professor Lupin is in no immediate danger. Severus, you brewed his potion for him?"

Snape grunted. Harriet wondered if he was in such a bad mood because of her, and then felt silly. That had been days ago. Besides, he was always in a bad mood.

"Then he should be up and about in no time," said Dumbledore, cheerfully still, as if Snape weren't being terribly rude. "Asteria, have you had any of these chipolatas? They're excellent."

Asteria Greengrass went first red and then white at being spoken to, and trembled so much as she took the sausages that the pan rattled loud enough for Harriet to hear it down the table.

The rest of dinner was almost dull, really. The teachers (except Snape) kept to themselves, chatting. The first-year boy concentrated on his dinner, and Daphne spoke in a low voice only to her sister. Hermione must have been dwelling on Sirius Black's broom bomb; she kept looking at Professor McGonagall and answering Harriet at random.

During one of these lulls, Harriet heard someone saying: ". . . dog, in the forest."

Her heart jumped. Daphne Greengrass was speaking to Snape.

". . . Asteria and I were out earlier, near the greenhouses, and we saw it—a great, ugly, filthy dog, very large, and I thought perhaps it might be dangerous, or diseased. . ."

Shut up, shut up, Harriet willed her, because Snape was looking sharp-eyed and suspicious as he listened.

"Hagrid keeps a dog, you know," said Professor Sprout. "Could've been Fang."

"I did not think it was Professor Hagrid's dog, ma'am," said Daphne politely. Asteria kept her head down, staring into her rice pudding. "It did not appear to be a boarhound."

"Does anyone recall seeing a dog?" asked Professor Dumbledore, looking up and down the table.

Asteria did not answer; the other first-year boy shook his head, his mouth full of trifle; Hermione said, "No, sir," and Harriet, trying her hardest to look innocent and honest, echoed her.

Except Snape was looking down the table, his black eyes fixed right on her. Her heart bumped twice in one beat.

"Well, we can certainly look into it," Dumbledore said, smiling.

"I'll do it," Snape said immediately. He finally looked away from Harriet, but this didn't make her feel any less anxious.

"That's quite generous of you, Severus, thank you," Dumbledore said. "Ah . . . now?" he asked when Snape stood from the table.

"Before it gets dark," Snape said, and stalked off, robes billowing.

Harriet watched him go. She tried to calm her nerves by telling herself that Snuffles hid from almost everyone.

But it made her wonder. . . What had he been doing that the Greengrass girls saw him?

\--

The air was so cold it was like a knife in Severus's lungs. The world was glimmering monochrome: glistening white snow covered the grounds; the sky was gray as iron; the tops of the Forbidden Forest black. Everything was silent, the birds all flown south; nothing but the sound of his breath and the snow crunching beneath his boots.

At the edge of the forest, Miss Greengrass had said. A great, filthy black dog. . .

He didn't know why it made him suspicious. He was naturally suspicious, of course. A stray, on Hogwarts grounds—no one had thought anything of it.

But the girl had already known. He was certain of that. He was very good at telling when people were lying, and could generally sense what type of lie it was: outright lie, omission, concealment, misdirection. . . The girl lied quite easily, but wasn't any good at it. He could always tell when she was being less than truthful.

She'd been lying at dinner. She knew about the dog. She'd been trying not to look anxious.

If the dog had something to do with Sirius Black—which had been his first thought—then it didn't make sense that the girl would also have something to do with it. She was still alive, after all, and quite well, stuffing away Christmas goose and potatoes and mince pies like she was storing for winter. Then she'd looked them straight in the eye and lied.

She was getting bolder. Already asking questions he didn't want to even occur to her, let alone hear from her.

_Were you friends with my mum_

_Where did you hear_

_Aunt Petunia told me_

And wasn't he likely to know that wasn't all Petunia had probably told her. . .

His most guarded secret, kept hidden for so long, locked up tight. Oh, a lot of people had known he'd had a thing for Lily—the boys in Slytherin that Mudblood shrew you fancy—Lily's friends you're such a creep, Snivellus, no girl in her right mind'd want anything to do with you—Potter's sycophants Evans could have anyone, she could have James, he's worth a hundred of you—but no one had really known what it truly was. Only Lupin would probably even remember that much, as close as he'd been to Potter and to Lily.

Lupin hadn't once mentioned it, not even through some oblique dig. He didn't talk about the past at all, in fact. He acted like he and Severus had a past, but pretended they'd been genial, if distant, acquaintances.

Severus had no idea why. Sucking up to Dumbledore? Playing games? When Will I Bring It Up and Really Make It Hurt?

Severus mistrusted Lupin on every level. He had no idea who the werewolf was. And he didn't only mean the wolf part; he meant the person, Lupin himself. Lupin was admittedly intelligent and level-headed; someone was definitely home—but who?

Even without Leglimency, Severus could usually get a read on someone. Leglimency was, in fact, his reluctant weapon held in reserve; there were too many things in a person's mind that one didn't want to encounter, the chief of those being what they really thought of you. But no matter what method Severus resorted to, Lupin was like a one-way mirror. He simply reflected everyone around him. It was as if the real Lupin was buried somewhere so deep inside that you never saw him.

In a place as deep inside, so deep he could almost ignore that it was there, Severus was unnerved by that. It made him uneasy how little he knew about Lupin; how little it seemed he could know. He was certain that Lupin was shielding Black somehow, but it was only an instinct; and while he trusted his own instincts implicitly, he had not found a shred of proof, in Lupin's face or voice or actions—or anywhere.

He should have been able to. He always had, before.

Whether a man or a wolf, Lupin discomfited him. He was dangerous. Unpredictable.

God willing, Trelawney would be right: Lupin's time would be short. Soon, he would be gone.

If he hurt the girl, even by so much as an omission, Severus would send him on his way.

Night was falling. The wind was fierce and cold. He lit his wand and stepped into the shadow of the trees, alone.

\--

Being at Hogwarts with so many people gone reminded Harriet of being there in the summer, when she and Snape were the only ones there. But now it was winter, and the silence seemed deep and cold and dark. The clouds outside had parted enough to show the moon, whose shafts of slanting silver light glinted on the diamond window panes.

Hermione's voice was speaking off to one side, quietly over the sound of the fire:

" _Roads go ever ever on,_  
Over rock and under tree,  
By caves where never sun has shone,  
By streams that never find the sea;  
Over snow by winter sown,  
And through the merry flowers of June,  
Over grass and over stone,  
And under mountains of the moon. . .

"Are you worried about Sirius Black?"

Harriet looked round. Hermione had Harriet's new copy of _The Hobbit_ open on her lap. Like in the summer, before Sirius Black had escaped, they'd returned to reading out loud from books, though now they were reading now by the fire at Hogwarts instead of by flashlight in Hermione's Muggle bedroom in London.

"I don't know," Harriet said, half-honestly. _I'm worried about my dog, actually._

It wasn't just that Snape might find him and do something nameless and horrible; it was also very cold outside, and he looked so hungry all the time. If only she had some way of. . .

Dobby.

She sat for a moment, stunned, and then almost jumped up from the couch in excitement. Dobby—how could she have forgotten Dobby? How could it have took her this bloody long to think of it?

"Sorry," she said to a silent, staring Hermione, fumbling the tartan throw off her lap. "Loo—"

She did run to the bathroom, but only so she could whisper tenatively, wondering if it would work:

"Dobby?"

For a moment, nothing happened. Then with a _crack_ Dobby appeared there in the bathroom, wearing his tea cozy hat and mismatched socks, with a lurid orange tie done up neatly over a doll's frilly blouse.

"Miss Harriet Potter!" he cried ecstatically, clutching something to his chest.

"Shh!" Harriet watched the door anxiously, but Hermione did not appear to see what was going on.

Dobby grabbed the ends of his bat-like ears and pulled them down, pressing them over his mouth, and accidentally dropped his package.

"Sorry," Harriet whispered. "I don't want anyone to know I've called you, okay?"

Dobby pulled back his ears a little to whisper, "A secret, Harriet Potter?"

"A very important secret," Harriet said firmly.

"Harriet Potter may trust Dobby with anything," he whispered, his eyes enormous and shining.

"I need you to look out for someone for me. Well, I say someone, but really he's a dog."

Dobby nodded vigorously to show he was listening.

"He's living in the Forbidden Forest. Remember that day I came to the kitchens and asked you to get me some food? . . ."

"Dobby will help, Harriet Potter," Dobby vowed when she'd finished explaining what she wanted him to do. "Dobby will find Harriet Potter's Snuffles and make sure that he is safe and well, forever!"

"Thanks, Dobby. You're a lifesaver." In Snuffles' case, he might well be. At least, as long as he diligently followed her instructions of food and blankets and didn't try to add any special Dobby touches like he'd done for her. "Oh—you dropped something." She pointed at the package lying at his feet.

"How could Dobby have forgotten!" he cried, and then stuffed his ears in his mouth when Harriet shushed him again. "It is a present for Miss Harriet Potter," he whispered in a muffled voice.

"Thank you," she said, surprised but quite touched. "That's really sweet of you. Erm." She wracked her brains. "I—have a present for you, too, but it's, it's upstairs. Wait here."

She left Dobby quivering with happiness and ran to her dorm. Throwing open her trunk, she rooted for something she could give to him, and found a pair of socks that weren't too girly, and which she never wore because they were a terrible mustard color. She threw some discarded wrapping paper around them and dashed back downstairs.

"Merry Christmas," she said as Dobby accepted the package with awed gratitude.

"Harriet Potter!" Dobby choked as he unwrapped the world's ugliest socks. They looked even worse in the bathroom light than they had in the dorm, but Dobby clutched them to him as if they were spun from gold. "Socks is Dobby's most favoritest clothing! Thank you, Harriet Potter, thank you!"

Harriet opened the present from Dobby which turned out to be—socks. She laughed. One was green with a pattern of broomsticks on it, and the other was red with a pattern of Snitches.

"Dobby is knitting them himself, miss," Dobby said, looking anxious.

"They're lovely," Harriet said, grinning as she pictured Lavender's and Parvati's faces. Hell, even Hermione's. She pulled off her slippers and plain white socks and put on Dobby's odd socks. His eyes leaked tears of happiness, and when he bowed, he bowed so low his nose touched the ground.

Then he disappeared with a crack.

When Harriet returned to the common room, she found Hermione sitting and staring at the couch in complete silence, The Hobbit closed and set to one side. Crookshanks was lounging next to her, his yellow eyes half-closed, lashing his tail. His fur was tipped with snow, as if he'd only just come inside.

"Sorry," Harriet said. "Didn't mean for that to take so long. We can get back to . . . what is it?"

When Hermione looked up at her, Harriet was startled to see tears making her eyes glisten.

"I'm sorry," she said in a low, thick voice. "I've been thinking how to tell you. I knew I had to, but I . . . I didn't want to. I'm so sorry."

Harriet's heartbeat picked up. She was bewildered, but the look on Hermione's face was making her hands feel cold. "Is this about how you're getting to your classes?"

"What?" Hermione blinked. At least she wasn't crying outright. That would have made this that much more serious. "No, it's. . ."

She closed her eyes and pressed her heels against them.

"Last Hogsmeade weekend," she said in a muffled voice. "Ron and I stopped in at the Three Broomsticks. . ."

Harriet sat down on the couch, more confused than ever. "Okay," she said when Hermione's voice stalled. "The Three Broomsticks."

Hermione nodded without taking her hands down from her eyes. "Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid came into the pub," she said, her voice still muffled by her arms. "The Minister was with them. Madam Rosmerta sat down with them. . ."

Harriet listened with increasing confusion. What did this have to do with anything?

"They were talking about Sirius Black," Hermione whispered. "Who he was. W-what he—what he did."

"He was Voldemort's supporter," Harriet said, slowly because she knew this, and Hermione knew it, but she didn't understand why Hermione was acting this way. "And he murdered thirteen people with one curse. Now he wants to kill me."

Hermione finally dropped her hands and looked at her, face grim and set. Something cold seeped into Harriet's chest, like Dementor-mist.

"Not . . . not just that." She took a deep breath and reached for Harriet's hands, wrapping her cold fingers around them. "He . . . Harriet, he was the one who led Voldemort to your parents."

Harriet stared at her. She felt the room distort slowly around her, bending the shadows up the walls.

"What?" she whispered. Or maybe she didn't. Maybe her lips only moved, and the sound of her voice was only the wind rattling the windows, the fire hissing. Was she tilting? No; she could feel Hermione's hands. They hadn't moved.

"He was their friend." Hermione's voice wavered, but her eyes did not leave Harriet's face. "He w-was your dad's best friend. Your parents knew Y-you-Know-Who was after them, because one of Dumbledore's spies tipped them off, and they went into hiding. Sirius Black was the only person who knew where they were, and he t-told You-Know-Who—"

Harriet felt like a great weight was slowly pressing on her chest, suffocating her.

"—he tried to take you from Hagrid, after he found you at the house, after—but when Hagrid wouldn't give you to him, he left . . . Your dad's other friend, Peter Pettigrew, confronted him, but Sirius Black cursed him—Pettigrew was one of the thirteen people Sirius Black k-killed on the street that day. . ."

Hermione was crying openly now. Harriet felt as if everything inside her—blood, bones, organs, everything—had been removed and absolutely nothing was left; nothing was even moving in to replace it.

"I'm s-so sor-ry," Hermione said, hiccuping. "I didn't—know how—to—tell you. It's so horrible—"

_He was their friend?_

He was their friend.

_And nobody told me. . ._

"They never told me."

Hermione looked stricken. Harriet said it more loudly.

"They never told me." She was breathing hard, so hard her breath was hitching painfully. "They never told me. Not one person. All this time."

"Harriet," Hermione said fearfully.

"They didn't tell me he's the REASON THEY'RE DEAD."

Hermione's eyes were huge. "Harriet—" she whispered, anguished.

"Do you know what I hear when the Dementors get close to me? I hear my mum begging Voldemort not to kill me, telling him to kill her instead—"

Hermione was staring up at her, looking terrified. Harriet realized she'd gotten to her feet but didn't remember doing it.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to hear that? No, you don't, because your mum's alive, her friend never set her up to be murdered. How could they not have told me? I have a right to know who killed them—"

"I know," Hermione whispered, still crying, but silently now. "I kn-know, Harriet, I'm so sorry—"

Harriet's head felt like it was stuffed with wool, the world around her like it was made of cotton. She whirled and ran up the stairs to the dorm for the second time, throwing open her trunk and dragging things out, dumping it all on the floor if it wasn't what she was looking for. When she found it, she hurtled back down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Hermione stood beside the fire, her hands clutched together, looking frightened. When Harriet thrust the photo album at her, she looked bewildered.

"Which one is he?" Harriet asked, breathing hard and fast. "Which one did they say he was?"

Hands shaking, Hermione took the album and started paging through it, biting her lip, her eyes flicking from side to side. She went past page after page.

Then she stopped. Her eyelids flickered.

"This one," she whispered, and turned the album around.

It was the picture of Harriet's mum and dad at their wedding. Her parents were beaming up at her, their arms around each other . . .

"The Minister said that Sirius Black was best man at their wedding," Hermione said quietly, trembling.

A handsome man with dark hair that fell casually into his eyes was standing there with her dad, laughing, maybe at something someone had said, maybe because her parents were so happy. If no one had told her

(they hadn't)

Harriet would never have guessed that this laughing young man was the same person as the dead-looking man in the WANTED posters. It was like they were two completely different people.

Hermione carefully slid the photograph out of its slot and flipped it over. Her face changed subtly, and she turned it round and held it out Harriet.

_James & Lily wed. Aug 1979 SB, J & L._

SB.

Sirius Black.

\--

It was darker than ever. Hermione had gone to bed, but Harriet couldn't sleep. She kept seeing Sirius Black's handsome, laughing face and hearing her mother's voice, pleading.

Take me, kill me instead—

Sirius Black laughed and laughed. His laugh changed to Voldemort's, and there was a flash of green—

Her mum screamed—

She sat up, kicked off her blankets and pushed past her hangings. As quietly as she could, she searched through her dresser for the Marauder's Map. But she must have put it somewhere else, because it wasn't there.

Well, then. She'd just have to find him on her own.

She pulled her Invisibility Cloak out of her trunk, slung it on over her shoulders, and left the room.


	29. Lies to the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing can be concealed forever. Sometimes you find it quite by accident, and sometimes it finds you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The bit about the politician and his wife caught cheating with the same guy is adapted from a similar bit in BBC's Sherlock, and Severus's knowing the shape of the floor through the soles of his boots is probably something I got from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Severus returned to the castle well after midnight, so cold he couldn't feel his hands or feet, even with warming charms. The snow had soaked him from the knees down, and ice had settled on his shoulders, his chest. He was going to have to check himself for frostbite when he returned to his quarters.

No Black. He hadn't even found the dog, whatever it really was. He wasn't surprised, but the futility ached worse than the cold.

Spells on the dungeons doused the torches at night, so the corridors lay in pitch darkness. He'd lived in the dungeons since he was eleven years old; he didn't need light to know his way. He knew even the gouges in the floor through the soles of his boots.

But when he turned into the hall where his quarters lay, he saw a faint light emanating from some unseen source: a dim glow, shimmering on the ground, drifting up and down the hall—several feet forward, several feed back. He stood still, a good ten paces away, trying to determine what it could be. . .

Perhaps. . . a person underneath an invisibility cloak.

It had just better fucking NOT BE—

His hand shaking, he Summoned the cloak wordlessly. If he was wrong, nothing would happen. If he was right—

Nothing did happen. Nor did his suspicions vanish.

"Homenum revelio," he whispered.

At the same time the spell lit a glow in mid-air in the vague shape of a human body in front of his door, the girl pulled the cloak off herself, her face lit by the glow of her wand.

Something tenuous but intangible inside him snapped.

He stalked toward her, letting the tide of his fury flow into his voice.

"Miss Potter," he snarled, "if you do not have a VERY GOOD explanation—"

She stared up at him as he bore down on her, her face lit silver-blue by the light of her wand. But she did not seem the least bit cowed—she looked angry, in fact, and determined—and before he could do more than notice and begin to wonder what the fuck she thought she was doing, she said:

"Why didn't you tell me Sirius Black was the one who told Voldemort where to find my parents?"

Her voice wasn't petulant; it wasn't even the voice of a child. It was forceful, wounded, and so unexpected that he was wrong-footed—that naive yet not-innocent voice, the grief in her small face. Lumos bled all the color out of the world, so her eyes had no hue; they weren't the eyes of anyone he knew, anyone he'd expected.

"Nobody told me," she went on when he didn't speak. Her anger was gaining ground over other emotions. "Nobody. I had a right to know! Everyone said Voldemort killed them, but it wasn't just him, it was Sirius Black, too—"

Not just Sirius Black, his mind whispered, cruel and unfeeling. You, too, Severus Snape.

"—he's coming after me because he wants to finish me off, isn't he? I'm right, aren't I? How could no one have told me?"

The accusation in her face and voice was as palpable as a slap to the face. _How could_ you _not have told me?_ she was asking.

 _When did_ you _become so important?_ asked a sly, cynical voice inside his heart.

He found his real voice. It was hoarse, and the edge was cruel. "This is your reason for traipsing around in the dark, alone—discovering a mass murderer has more reason to kill you than you'd thought?"

Her face flashed with something between fury and hurt, and she thrust something up at him. For a mad second he thought it was her wand, that she meant to hex him—

It was a photograph.

When he saw who it was and what it was of, he recoiled, actually knocking it away with his wand, an instinctual gesture to get it the fuck away—

"He was my dad's friend." Her voice was shaking—from anger? Tears? "My dad's best friend. If you were friends with my mum, you'd have known that!"

_Not for the reason you think, girl._

"Everyone keeps things from me," she went on, her jaw rigid. "They keep everything from me. It's not fair!"

"That is the cry of a child," he said crushingly.

"I'm not a child!" she all but shouted. "You know what I hear when Dementors get close to me?"

 _No—_ he thought, panic stabbing through him. _Don't—_

"I hear Voldemort murdering my mum— _because of him_." She thrust the photograph forward again. Severus couldn't stand to look at it, he couldn't not look; but Lily's glowing face was too hard to see clearly in the wand-light and the dark, jerking around in her daughter's hand. "And now he's hunting me down, he slashed the Fat Lady to pieces to find me, and nobody's telling me the truth!"

She was breathing hard, like she'd run the length of the castle. The Lumos shone in her eyes, off her glasses, in multiple points of light.

The only sound in the hall was the angry rasp of her breath.

"Does it help you, then?" he asked. The cruelty in his voice felt brittle in his mouth, sounded distant in his ears. "Knowing the truth?"

She stared.

"No," she said, which wasn't the reply he'd been expecting. "But I'd rather know, all the same."

 _Gryffindors_ , he thought. But he felt only hollow, emptied out.

"You'd rather know whom to hate?" he asked. "Whom to blame for your unhappiness?"

She stared up at him. Then, with a sobering seriousness, she said, "I do hate him. He killed my parents."

"Yes," Severus said at length. "He did."

_And so did I._

The girl seemed to deflate. She lowered her arm and, with it, the hand holding that loathsome photograph. In that moment, she looked both extremely young and more sorrowful than should have been possible at her age.

"How could he have done that?" she half-whispered. "If he was supposed to be their friend. . ."

And that, he thought, was the difference between childhood and adulthood: not knowing that people could betray the ones they'd loved, and knowing that they did, without knowing why.

"That is a question that nobody can answer besides Black himself."

She looked up at him. For a few moments, she was silent. And then, quite inevitably, the question came again.

"Were you friends with my mum?"

He thought about not answering. That silence would be answer enough at this point, but that wasn't the reason he said:

"I was."

The girl's eyes widened, like she'd never expected him to admit to it. Then a hungry, yearning, lonely shadow passed across her face, one that echoed inside him with a haunting familiarity. It was like the first time he'd seen her up close, and he'd thought Potter and Lily at the sight of her face and eyes and hair.

Only this time, he was seeing himself.

"Get back to your tower, Miss Potter." He threw her cloak back at her, too roughly; she caught it, but it knocked her glasses askew. "Put that on. Tomorrow, we'll have a discussion about the reckless idiocy of traipsing around, alone, with a mass murderer after you."

"I was under the Cloak," she said as she pulled it back on, disappearing from his sight, except for that faint glow of her wand shining on the floor.

"And as you know now that Black knew your father, you should deduce that he'd be able to find someone who was wearing it. Didn't you wonder how I knew you were there?"

She didn't reply.

"Put your wand out." He lit his own. "And don't dare to go wandering off on your own."

He climbed through the castle, hoping the girl had the sense to fucking do as he said. In the blackness and the freezing cold, he felt like he was walking into a fathoms-deep lake, upside-down. The light of his Lumos fluttered against the dark, barely touching it.

The portrait that used to be the Fat Lady was now an idiotic knight, and he his fat pony were snoring fit to wake the dead. The knight's visor kept fluttering half open when he breathed out and clanking shut when he inhaled.

"The password's 'scurvy cur,'" the girl's disembodied voice said, close by his side.

"I don't need it." He jabbed the portrait with his wand, wishing the knight weren't wearing armor so he could have struck him somewhere fleshy and tender. "Wake up, you fatuous cretin."

The knight snorted awake, his visor clanking shut. "Who goes there!" he shouted, trying to push it open but only succeeding in twisting his helmet around and trapping himself inside. The pony blinked sleepily at them.

"Scurvy cur," the girl said.

The knight's reply was muffled as he tried to pull his helmet on straight; the portrait was already swinging open.

"He's mental," the girl's voice sighed, drifting toward the portrait hole. She seemed to pause for a moment—he could have sworn he heard the faint intake of her breath, as if she was on the verge of speaking. But then the portrait swung shut, without a word.

Fucking bloody fool reckless idiot child. He ought to have wrung her neck. But his rage felt far away, for once. Exhaustion was creeping over him like a fog.

"Stand thy ground and fight!" the knight called after Severus as he stalked away, back down the stairs to the dungeons.

\--

The moon set before dawn, taking the wolf's body with it. It tore out of Remus, snapping bones and sinews, ripping his skin and resewing it, everything changing shape, even his mind.

Once it was done, he lay on the rug beside the fire, trying to find his breath. Eyes open or shut, it didn't matter, he saw nothing. The room was cold, for no one had come to light the fire in the night. Not knowing how the sedated wolf would react to house-elves, he'd forbidden it.

The door did not open. No one came in to hand him a blanket and help him to bed. He'd forbidden that, too.

He dragged himself to the armchair and pulled down the blanket. Everything was a haze of agony. He got the blanket on the floor and rolled into it, slumping beside the unlit fire; slipping into the half-conscious fugue that permeated his mind after the change had reverted.

The Buddhists said time was a river, didn't they? Not a line . . . and other people said you couldn't cross the same river twice. . . but you could cross the bridge as many times as you wished. . .

" _Get some sleep, you moony git_ ," he could hear Sirius saying. "' _Cause when you're hungry, I'm not bringing your lazy arse breakfast in bed._ "

It was morning, a summer morning. The smell of cooking bacon awoke him, and the bedroom was full of light. He ached everywhere, but the bacon called. . .

The kitchen was crowded with friends long-dead. He knew they were gone, just as he knew this was a memory, found again in a dream. . .

Full moons had meant loneliness, in his childhood. Then they had meant belonging.

Now, they meant loss, as vast and deep as oceans.

" _Dearest Prongs, do stop being a suffocating ponce_ ," said Sirius. " _Just write Moony some love poetry if you can't keep your hands to yourself. Wormtail, stop fucking moving the bloody marmalade around, would you?"_

_"I'm just trying to set it where Moony can reach it. Salt, Moony? Milk, sugar?"_

_"No, Peter, you don't need to, really—James, you can sit down, Lily needs your help much more than I do."_

_"I'm fine, Remus."_ Lily's belly was so big she had to sit sideways at the table to reach anything on it. _"You are acting like a jumping bean, James. Please sit down. The baby's turning enough somersaults for the both of you."_

Sirius stole Remus's bacon and dipped it in the marmalade as Remus tried to scoop some onto his toast.

 _"How can you be so heartless?"_ Lily demanded, and pushed all her bacon onto Remus's plate.

When the memory dimmed and slipped back into the river of time, it left Remus aching at heart as much as he did in body.

He woke up fully some time later, ravenous. That was typical. Using the furniture, he dragged himself over to the table where he ate his meals (always, no matter what) and heaved himself into the chair. His bloody-minded determination to eat upright, Sirius had called it. "Even if your head was hanging by a fucking thread like Sir Nick's, you'd sit at the table."

He had to clear his throat several times and cough so hard his body shook before he could croak, "Breakfast."

After eating (several whole steaks, half a dozen fried eggs, half a ham, and a dozen slices of bacon) he felt better. Less like death warmed over. He was able to heave himself to his feet and grope across the furniture to his bedroom, where he crawled beneath the covers and gave in to his body's fervent desire for more sleep on something more comfortable than a freezing stone floor.

_"You don't need to sit up waiting for me, Padfoot, I'm fine—"_

_"You can call it 'fine,' Moony, if you want. Maybe for werewolves, that is fine. But it makes me feel like shit. At least let me have the honor of sitting up all night, worrying my arse off."_

Remus had insisted on certain things. No watching him transform. Ever. Not as a dog or as a man.

_"All right, no Peeping Padfoot. Cheers."_

Sirius could drop the blanket on him and help him to bed, but he wouldn't ask if Remus was all right or if there was anything he could get him. He'd help him to bed and leave him. He could prepare some food for when Remus awoke, hungry—in fact, it would be appreciated—but he was not to bring it to Remus, and he was certainly not to feed him.

_"Well, obviously, Moony. We're not Lily and Prongs. The day I feed you breakfast in bed is the day I go straight and marry Lucius Malfoy."_

Remus had never known whether Sirius was relieved for the ground rules or if he'd hated them. Once the rules were laid, they'd never spoken about them. Sirius had followed them more religiously than any of his professors would have imagined him capable of. As far as Remus knew, Sirius had never even discussed them with James. Lily, Prongs, and Wormtail had gone on wondering how Sirius could pick on Remus when he was clearly so ill and barely able to defend himself.

It had been a fiction, but a necessary one—for Remus, at least, to let someone in to that part of his life. Transforming into Animagi, that had been different. It was the symbol of their acceptance and determination. When he was a wolf, he was strong, if mad. As a man. . .

He'd never said _I need to be able to take care of it on my own._ He wouldn't admit even that much.

But in the end, he'd been righter than he ever could have guessed; for he'd lost them all, one by one.

\--

Harriet's mind had been so full when she lay down after meeting Snape that she hadn't had any thought of sleeping. Thoughts had roiled through her head like those time-lapse videos of clouds over vast fields or mountains. Sirius Black had been her parents' friend—he'd stood with her dad, laughing, at their wedding—he'd betrayed them to Voldemort—Snape had been her mum's friend—he'd admitted it—he hadn't wanted to—he'd kept it from her, like he'd kept the secret of Sirius Black—

She was dreaming she was at her parents' wedding. Sirius Black was there, standing with her dad, who looked so happy. Her mum was talking to Snape, who was wearing black like always, hard-faced and angry. All the voices were on mute; she couldn't hear what anyone was saying, though her mum kept wringing her hands and pacing like Hermione, sunlight shining through her veil.

Then Snape looked at Harriet, straight at her, his gaze black and fierce, and she woke up with her heart beating hard.

A chink of daylight showed past a gap in her hangings. Her eyes felt heavy and tired, but it couldn't be that early if the sun was already up.

She lay for a long time without getting up. In the light of morning, it seemed mad to have confronted Snape like that last night. She couldn't believe she'd done it. The memory seemed fake, and yet, with a hollow kind of horror, she knew it wasn't. She really had marched down there, in the middle of the night, and shouted at him, thrown a picture of her parents in his face, and accused him of lying to her. She'd said—loads of other things—she wasn't sure exactly what; it was all a jumble—just a memory of his voice, low and jagged and angry, and his face white and black in the wand-light, his eyes glittering and hollow.

Mortification burned and twisted in her stomach. She was surprised she hadn't got a hundred detentions and one million points taken from Gryffindor. Maybe he'd been as insane as she was, last night.

_Tomorrow, we'll have a discussion about the reckless idiocy of traipsing around, alone, with a mass murderer after you._

Shit, she thought numbly. He'd said that, hadn't he? Oh, yes, he had.

Groaning, she pulled her pillow over her face.

\--

Last night, Severus had threatened the girl with retribution for her recklessness; but in daylight, he realized he didn't want to see her. At all. What had possessed him to admit the truth (well, a sliver of it) about her mother?

Fuck.

Maybe the full moon promulgated a degree of lunacy in anyone who was exposed to it for too long.

Could his threat of last night make her avoid him? He would certainly do his best to avoid her.

He'd been right about her. Brazen, prying little brat.

_Fuck._

How had she found out about Black, anyway?

His first thought had been Lupin; but Lupin had been too ill to leave his rooms all day and a wolf all last night; he wasn't in any (snort) shape to expose tense, emotional secrets of the past. And Rita Skeeter hadn't had the meat for an article lately. Anyway, she'd moved on to profiling a successful politician and his wife who'd been caught cheating on each other with the same man.

Perhaps the girl had discovered Black through the photograph she'd brought with her last night? But she'd have had to find an old picture of Sirius Black, besides that one . . . it would have required research . . . But she had undertaken research, of her own volition, to learn about Dementors and the Patronus.

She could have simply been snooping. She was good at that.

It didn't matter, really, how she'd found out. What mattered was that she had, and he'd put himself in the mortifying position of admitting something she would surely want to know more about. She'd pop round pestering him with questions, prying into all his most precious and most hated secrets, like a Niffler in a gold mine. They even had similar hair.

Perhaps, he thought masochistically, he ought to tell her the truth about the prophecy. Then she could move straight on to loathing him and would leave him alone. The truth could stay buried.

" _I hate you,_ " she would say, that look of blazing anger and grief in her small, thin face.

His heart recoiled as if dealt a physical blow. For a moment, he sat stunned. The distress that thought caused him was. . . astonishing.

"Fuck," he said aloud.

\--

Harriet got dressed eventually, pulling on her Weasley jumper and her Dobby socks for comfort. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and fiddled with her Hermione necklace.

Hermione wasn't in the room. She must be studying or something. Crookshanks was gone, too.

Harriet was hungry, but she didn't want to run into Snape before she'd decided how to act.

Well. . . there was always the Map. She could use it to see where he was and avoid him until she'd got a plan.

She opened the drawer of her dresser again and rooted around. Maybe she'd missed it last night, trying to be quiet in the dark.

It wasn't there.

She checked her trunk. Nothing. Her pockets—nothing. Her bedding: empty.

Starting to panic, she started pulling out her school books and flipping through them. Still nothing. Her notes—papers—all her dresser drawers, the rubbish she hadn't cleaned out—

No map.

 _Oh no,_ she thought. _Fuck!_

She ransacked her memories, trying to remember where she'd last had it. She knew she'd stuffed it in her pockets after Snuffles had brought it back, because she'd used it to meet Snape. Had she dropped it in his office?

The thought was so horrifying that she almost couldn't think it. But she forced herself to track back through time. The last time she'd definitely had the Map. . . she'd been. . .

"Harriet, what are you doing?" asked Hermione's voice.

At the sound of it, Harriet's heart suffered its—fourth? fifth—nasty shock of the morning. She turned around. Hermione was holding Crookshanks and staring at the books Harriet had strewn across the floor, the loose leaves of parchment, her clothes thrown everywhere.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked in surprise.

"I've lost something." Harriet dropping the sheets she'd pulled clean off her bed, cursing the fact that there was no way to do that casually. "Is there a spell to find things you've lost?"

"There's a Summoning Charm, but it's not on the curriculum until next year." Hermione stepped carefully over Harriet's mess, setting down Crookshanks when he squirmed. "What is it? I'll help you look—"

"It's—nothing," Harriet said, looking away so she wouldn't have to lie to Hermione's face.

"It's clearly not nothing if you've done all this because you lost it." Hermione swept her hand in a wide arc to encompass all of Harriet's destruction.

"I—" Harriet thought frantically. "I've lost my necklace. The one you gave me."

Hermione stared blankly at her. Then she said, "It's round your neck."

Harriet groped at her neck, finding the chain. "Shit," she said. She tried to look extremely embarrassed. It wasn't that hard, since she didn't enjoy lying to Hermione. She ought to have just handed the fucking Map in. She'd known she ought.

What if she'd left it lying around and Sirius Black found it?

Shit shit fuck—

"Are you hungry?" Hermione asked kindly. Harriet felt like a slug.

"Not really," she said. That was the truth, at least; in the last few minutes, her hunger had evaporated.

"Well. . . we should try to eat some toast or something, at least. Coming?"

They left Crookshanks sniffing over the mess Harriet had made and headed down to the Great Hall.

 _What did I do with it?_ she thought frantically. _Please please please don't let Sirius Black find it. . ._

\--

It was dusk again before Remus was able to get out of bed for anything except visiting the loo. And even so, the first thing he did was take a long bath. He almost fell asleep during, as it was.

The Wolfsbane Potion kept him sane during transformations, and for that reason alone he would use it for as long as he could. Once the change took him, the experience was similar to the way James and Sirius and Peter had described their Animagus transformations: everything diluted but still there; thoughts not words but feelings, instincts, desires. But the stag, the dog, the rat had never taken over their minds. Now, Remus could finally say the same about the wolf.

But the Wolfsbane had other effects that he knew would preclude its being a permanent solution among werewolves (aside from the astronomical price and access to a competent brewer). For one thing, when the wolf didn't subsume his consciousness, he was forced to remain aware throughout the entire change, which was more painful than prolonged Cruciatus. For another, he was more exhausted the day after the full moon, and took longer to recover. He'd have to mention it to Snape.

After the bath, he was starving again, so he dragged himself to his table to order enough food for three full-grown men on a binge. In the past, eating helped him heal faster, but it didn't seem to work when he was on the Wolfsbane.

Well, Snape had said the potion was technically a poison.

After he'd banished the plates back to the kitchens, he Summoned the pile of letters and things that had heaped up while he'd been out of it. The day of the change, he was always too restless to answer mail. The day after, he was both so determined to resume a normal routine and so bored out of his mind that he'd welcome even the stupidest message, even if it was a note from Mundungus Fletcher hitting him up for some cash so he could back a Fwooper in a race against a Puffskein. _"It's a sure thing, mate, only cost you a galleon. . . though while you're at it, I got a prime business opportunity to run by you. . . what do you say to 'elping me and this bloke start a ferret farm?"_

Today his pile was full Christmas wishes from Dumbledore and Minerva and the rest of the staff, and a little pile of packages from the same. And. . . a blank piece of parchment?

He went absolutely still, his hand held over it, about to pick it up.

Most people would've laughed to suppose that a blank piece of parchment could be familiar. But this one was. He'd once known every nick in its edges, every faint stain and fingermark. It had picked up quite a few new ones, but he only whispered It can't be because how could it be?

His hand shaking—not, now, from the change—he touched his wand to the parchment and whispered hoarsely, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Ink blossomed from his wand tip, rushing, leaping, skipping to each corner of the parchment. Letters formed in the middle of the page, bearing their names in that ridiculous, beloved legend (Oh, we knew how you styled yourselves), and then fading away, leaving just the map itself.

He was certain he looked at it for a long time, though he couldn't have counted the minutes on any clock. He felt like he lived a thousand minutes in one. He traced his fingers over and over the inky outline of the castle, the names flitting back and forth (Harriet Potter and Hermione Granger eating in the Great Hall; Albus Dumbledore pacing in his study). It was as if he'd stumbled over some piece of someone he'd loved and lost, which he thought was long gone, too.

That's exactly what it was.

The demands of the present returned slowly, in pieces. When they did, he lowered the map to his lap and whispered the most obvious question, the one begging all the answers:

"Who?"

But . . . he knew, didn't he?


	30. Winter of Discontent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harriet wants to know the truth, Severus wants to keep her safe, and Remus wants her to be happy. Worthy goals; why, then, is everyone so thoroughly discontented?

Harriet didn't see Snape for the rest of the holiday—almost. For several days he stopped showing up for meals, and she didn't quite have the nerve to go near his office. She began to worry he was ill. Why would they not see him otherwise? He certainly wouldn't be avoiding her. He ought to have come to claim his million points and half-a-million detentions by now.

In the days where he never appeared, Harriet had time to dredge out of her memory more of the details of their conversation. She had shouted and made angry demands, and he'd mostly answered her with more questions, in a cruel, biting voice.

He'd never told her why he'd never said anything about Sirius Black. The only concrete answer she'd got from him had been about her mum.

Were you friends with my mum?

I was

_He was sick as a dog for your mother. Did he tell you that you were precious to him? You're nothing but a copy of his spoilt princess._

In the moon-tinted darkness of her four-poster, she had wondered: Would Snape's strange behavior about—well, pretty much everything to do with her—make sense if he'd been in love with her mum?

Harriet didn't know. She didn't know enough about love even to guess.

Within a couple of days of Christmas, Professor Lupin, at least, returned to meals, looking a great deal worse for the wear, but ready to chat with the other teachers.

Harriet hadn't forgotten about the card he'd sent her. More secrets; more questions. She sat at Gryffindor table, which had been restored to its place on the floor along with the others, and watched Professor Lupin. She waited for him to say something about the card, but he never did more than smile and nod at her.

So, the day before the holidays were due to be over, Harriet got up from her solitary breakfast (since Boxing Day, Hermione had been going half-sies on her masochistic studying schedule) and marched up to the High Table.

"Hello, Harriet," Professor Lupin said, smiling. "Did you have a good Christmas?"

"I got some good presents," she settled for saying, since she wasn't sure she'd call it a wholly good Christmas, all things considered. Professor McGonagall still had her possibly-curse-laden Firebolt. "Thank you for your card. What's in the Gringott's safety deposit box?"

For a split second, Professor Lupin look startled. Then he brought his smile back. "A few odds and ends I thought you might not have been told about. I take it you haven't written to them yet?"

She shook her head. "How come you know what's in it?"

Now she got the impression that Professor Lupin was wishing she would stop asking him questions. But all he said was, "I knew your parents a little, is all. I thought Hagrid mentioned taking you to Gringott's, but I didn't think he'd have known about the safety deposit box. It's kept in a different part of the bank than the money vaults."

Harriet had not been prepared for this answer. "You knew my parents?"

Professor Lupin blinked at the sharpness in her voice. "Yes—"

"You never said."

He paused. "Many people knew your parents," he said slowly, and she knew he was lying.

"Well enough to know about the stuff they keep at the bank?"

Another pause, slightly longer this time. "We were friends at Hogwarts. It was a long time ago—"

"Yeah. Right. You know, I wish, for once, people would tell me things, instead of just what suits them," she said angrily, and stalked off.

"Harriet," said Professor Lupin; she heard the sound of his chair scraping. She stopped, but not because he'd called after her.

Snape was standing in the half-open door, like he'd been about to walk in, then decided to just turn and go, and finally changed his mind. He appeared to have been watching Harriet and Professor Lupin, but was wearing a peculiar expression, like he was trying not to smile.

But when he saw Harriet looking at him, the expression vanished. His glare flared like an open furnace, and he jerked out of sight, banging the door shut.

Harriet stood with her mouth hanging open.

Even for a grown-up, Snape was weird.

"Harriet." Professor Lupin sounded hesitant. She turned back toward him. His face was wary.

"I'm sorry I've upset you," he said.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew my parents?" She ignored the persistent question knocking against her ribs like a heartbeat: Why didn't Snape tell me he knew my mum?

Professor Lupin didn't answer straightaway. His eyelids flickered, like he was trying not to look away.

"Let's. . . not discuss this here. All right? Will you come to my office?"

Harriet would have gone to the heart of the Forbidden Forest to get to the bottom of all this bloody secrecy. Impatiently she followed Professor Lupin out of the Great Hall, trying not to step on his heels. _Finally, I'll find out—_

Only they walked straight into Snape. She did step on Professor Lupin's heels when he stopped to avoid running into Snape.

"Severus," Professor Lupin said, "good morning—"

"Miss Potter." Snape looked straight through Professor Lupin, like he wasn't even there. "You are late for your detention."

"What?" Harriet blurted.

"The one—of many—you incurred for being out of bed after curfew." A nasty sneer curled around Snape's mouth, and his eyes glittered eerily. "And, being as I had to come and fetch you myself, you've just earned another."

"You didn't tell me about any detentions," Harriet protested, her face feeling hot with anger and embarrassment. "How can I be late—"

"I suppose you should have come and asked." He finally looked at Professor Lupin—glared at him, of course, with bone-curdling hatred. "Get on, Lupin. Miss Potter, with me."

"I thought it was standard procedure to inform students of their punishment beforehand?" Professor Lupin said quietly.

If looks could have killed, Professor Lupin would have been a scorch mark on the wall.

"Miss Potter," Snape snarled. "With me."

Harriet opened her mouth, but caught Professor Lupin giving her the tiniest of head shakes. Of course, he wouldn't mind they'd been stopped. He clearly didn't want to tell her anything, anyway.

She glared at him as she followed Snape, but his brief look of confusion and—hurt?—strangely did not make her feel any better.

She trudged after Snape into the dungeons. She expected him to head to his classroom, but instead he strode past it, down the twisting corridors to his private lab, the one where he and Professor Lupin had been making that mysterious potion all summer. The room was cold, everything put neatly away.

"What am I doing?" she asked, seeing nothing terribly disgusting sitting out for her to take care of.

"You will sit here"—Snape pointed his wand at a three-legged stool, which skidded across the floor to a corner of the room—"facing the wall, and contemplate the stupidity of your actions."

Harriet spluttered, face catching on fire.

"Sit," Snape barked.

Harriet knew there was nothing she could say to keep her from sitting on the stool. The most she could hope for was something that would make Snape angrier and put him in a worse mood, but she couldn't think of a single thing to say. So she turned on her heel and walked over to the stool, which he'd wedged so far into the corner her knees almost didn't fit, and tried her fiercest to pretend he didn't exist.

It was hard when she was so incredibly bored within five minutes. And Snape kept rustling around behind her. She could hear his knife thwocking on the table top. Was he making that potion for Professor Lupin?

She tried to sneak a look without him seeing.

"That's another hour you've earned for not following directions," he said without looking up.

"An hour?" Harriet said indignantly.

"That's two for speaking," he said, and chopped a thick wooden root clean in half with one strike.

Well—that was just—fine! If that's what he wanted, she'd never speak to him _as long as she lived._

\--

"Of course she'd figure it out," Remus said to Ermentrude, his potted plant. "Or if she didn't, Hermione Granger would have," he added wryly.

He didn't know why he'd written to her about the safety deposit box. In retrospect, he should have figured that she might think it was a trap from Sirius Black. That didn't seem to have occurred to her, but the question of how he would know about the box had. He'd have preferred it hadn't. Questions about Lily and James would lead to questions about why he had never mentioned it, perhaps even to questions about Sirius, and she would be understandably hurt, if not extremely angry, to find out that Sirius Black was her godfather and no one had ever told her.

The safety deposit box was all jewelry: Lily's jewelry; Potter heirlooms. Lily had seldom worn those—only once that Remus could remember, to a charity ball when she and James had only been engaged, before the War made such things inappropriate. But she'd been grateful for the excuse to forgo them; James's mother had had old-fashioned taste, and had restored the jewels to a replica of their original sixteenth century setting. They were rubies, too, which Lily felt clashed with her hair.

Had felt.

So she'd bought her own jewelry, and put it all away into storage when she and James went into hiding, along with the pieces she'd inherited that weren't claimed by Petunia when their mother died. He didn't remember all that was in there, but it had seemed a much better Christmas present for Harriet than anything else he could possibly give her, or that she could want from him.

Perhaps telling her about her parents would have been a more valuable gift than jewelry?

And perhaps you sent her the card because you knew that and didn't want to admit it.

He scrubbed his hand over his face.

"Talk to me," he muttered, tapping his wand against the surface of their Map. Their handwriting blossomed on the parchment, one line after another.

_Mr. Padfoot bids Moping Moony a good day, and inquires on the long face, which, scarcely possible though it may be, is not an improvement over the old one._

_Mr. Wormtail advises caution, or it will surely stick that way._

_Mr. Prongs wonders how Mr. Wormtail can be so pathetic as to think that's a good insult._

_Mr. Moony thinks it might be an improvement after all if his face should stick some other way than it's always been._

_Mr. Padfoot would advise Mr. Moony not to talk down to himself, the old misery-guts._

Smiling, if sadly, Remus murmured, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The Map sketched itself on the blank parchment, the dots drifting. Heart clenching, he looked for any dot labeled Sirius Black, but there was none.

Nor did he see any dots for Harriet Potter or Severus Snape.

For a moment, his heart stood still. Then he remembered the dungeons were unmappable, aside from that first corridor where the Potions classroom and professor's office lay, and he breathed out.

But. . . why would Severus have taken Harriet deep inside the dungeons?

He drummed his fingers on the desk, staring out the snow-encrusted window. Then he tapped the map with a brief, "Mischief managed," folded it up and put it in his pocket, and left his rooms.

\--

Snape's wall was extremely, amazingly, fundamentally, mind-bogglingly boring. It made Binns' class look like a party.

Harriet had no idea how long she'd been sitting on that stool, crammed into the corner, but she was ready to bash her brains out just so she'd have something to do.

"Very well," said Snape's wintry voice. "That will do for now. You may get to lunch, once you've told me what you learned."

Harriet paused in her dash to the door. The retort welled up in her like water someone had just chucked a bag of stones into.

"You've got five hundred and seventy six stones in that wall over there."

Snape's stare fixed on her and bored in. His face was hard like each one of those stones. Her heart and stomach tried to squirm into each other's places.

"Come back after lunch," Snape said coldly. "Don't make me come and find you."

Harriet turned and left without another word, and made sure to shut the door very politely behind her on the way out. She hoped he felt it.

"There you are." Hermione looked intensely relieved. "I've been looking for ages and weren't able to find—what happened?" she asked, taking in the expression on Harriet's face.

"I was in detention with Snape." Harriet jerked a dish of creamed corn toward her and slapped a spoonful onto her plate. Hermione jumped as some of the corn went splattering across the table.

"Detention?" she repeated, horrified. "What for?"

Harriet knew Hermione would keep asking until she found out. "That night you told me about Sirius Black, I—went for a walk. Well, I couldn't sleep, could I?" she said defensively when Hermione's eyes flashed with alarm and disapproval. "What would you have done?"

"I wouldn't have gone out into the castle, alone, at night, without telling anyone!" Hermione said, as if she really couldn't believe Harriet had done it. "Harriet, you know that Sirius Black knows how to get in! If Professor Snape found you, then Black could have, too—"

Harriet was in no bloody mood to be lectured. "I was wearing the Cloak, all right?"

"And if Sirius Black knew your dad, he'd know about the Cloak, too!" It didn't make Harriet feel any better to reflect that this was exactly what Snape had said. "That was very careless, Harriet! Professor Snape was right to be upset—"

"Oh, was he?" Harriet snapped. "And you are, too? I suppose you know exactly what it's like, finding out what someone like Black did to your parents—you and Snape both—"

"Harriet, of course I don't know what it's like." Hermione's eyes were bright with tears. "And I'm sorry, I am, but—I didn't tell you about him so you could play right into his hands! Don't you see that's what he'd want? What would you have done if you'd run into him that night?"

"Hexed his murdering traitor's face off." Harriet shoved her plate away and stood.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked fearfully.

"Finish my detention with Snape."

"But your lunch—"

"Funny, I'm not hungry anymore."

She stalked off, not looking back. Professor Lupin wasn't at the staff table, but she almost didn't care. Right now, she just couldn't deal with someone else lying to her or trying to tell her how to handle the only truths she did know.

\--

Sometimes, Severus was grateful that his enforced role as a double-agent had led to his developing a certain kind of mental agility. Without it, he might never have been able to carry on doing one thing that required such steadiness and concentration while being so enraged he could've blasted the ceiling down on his own head.

He'd never have survived teaching without it, certainly.

The mechanism also forced him to ride out his fury until it had dissipated to a point where he wasn't in (so much) danger of committing manslaughter. If it hadn't been for needing to get on with his work, he might have strangled Lily's daughter where she sat. Or stood. Or smarted off.

Insufferable little. . .

The detention had been spur of the moment. He'd seen her about to walk off with (untrustworthy, collaborating-with-a-mass-murderer) Lupin and, in a fit of alarm, had put a stop to it. Unfortunately, this meant keeping a resentful and rebellious thirteen-year-old girl near himself after deliberately putting her in a bad mood.

The spawn of Lily and Potter could thank Narcissa that she hadn't been throttled.

Since childhood, Narcissa had suffered a chronic complaint that worsened in the cold months. It could easily be kept in check with potions, and she had long insisted that Severus' were superior to anyone's. Although he would have, for various reasons, provided them for a pittance, Narcissa always paid him a tidy sum (in addition to providing remuneration for the ingredients). He used it to sweeten his traveling fund.

He'd never had the opportunity for travel—not the lengthy, considered, and unencumbered sort he longed for—and he probably never would; but by God he'd have the funds for it, if one day he was ever allowed.

He was brooding on his indenture, dreaming of faraway mountains, and monitoring Narcissa's potion when he heard the unmistakable sound of a lost owl flapping in the hall. Usually such owls were for him, though they occasionally got lost.

Opening the door with a wordless spell, he Summoned it; scattering feathers, it shot into the room and tumbled onto one of the empty tables.

"For me?" he said, detaching the letter. The owl was too stunned to acknowledge him.

It was for him. He split the wax seal as the owl tottered to its feet and fled the room as fast as it could.

He never looked at salutations first; always the signature. This letter was from Mrs. Jacob Greengrass.

(Jacob Greengrass was all but estranged from his family, living on the Continent with a string of heinous mistresses, and still his wife very correctly signed her letters with his name.)

She was writing to inform Severus of the withdrawal of her daughter Leto from Hogwarts. Leto was to be married as soon as possible, and wouldn't be returning to finish her seventh year.

" _As you are Head of Slytherin, I feel it quite natural to place my trust in you, and beg that you intercede with the Headmaster on behalf of our family in the matter of my daughter's withdrawal."_

This was typical of Slytherin mothers in her situation. Severus had, in fact, informed Dumbledore twenty-seven times over the years that such-and-such a female student wasn't coming back to school because she was getting married. Slytherin parents instinctively mistrusted non-Slytherin Headmasters. Since there had only ever been one Slytherin Headmaster, it was something of a House tradition.

It wasn't a surprise that Leto Greengrass should have become Girl Number Twenty-eight, but Severus couldn't stop a flash of Minerva-like disgust. He knew it was pure-blood tradition, not just among the conservative Slytherins, but he'd never liked how so many of his female students' ambitions pinned on making a good marriage.

(He blamed his Muggle upbringing. Even pure-blood Non boys didn't think anything of it.)

But an ambitious marriage was too apt to turn out badly for the girls. For non-former Death Eaters with life debts yet to pay, switching careers was easy, but magical marriages were ultimately binding. When the ministers said, "You are now bonded for life," they weren't speaking metaphorically: the marriage spell was unbreakable by anything but death. It was one reason pure-bloods didn't consider half-blood marriages to be genuine; true marriage binding required two wands, and Muggles didn't have those. To all proper society, Severus and all half-bloods could be legally considered bastards. Any laws that honored them beyond that were hardly more than gentlemen's agreements. It was one of many little injustices that had put him at such odds with his own society and made the Dark Lord's prospective future look so attractive.

Mrs. Jacob Greengrass was like Severus, a half-blood of Slytherin, careful to cover the tracks of her Muggle heritage. She'd married into a pure-blood line as unbroken as they ever got; but her first sights had been set on Lucius. Everyone's had, in those days. Narcissa, subtle, ruthless and cunning, had beaten them all; consigning some to scandal, grinding others to dust, racking up enemies and dismissing them all as unimportant. Narcissa had always been untouchable. He couldn't recall exactly when the one-day Mrs-Jacob-Greengrass had fallen out of the running—or even what her name had been—but now she had four daughters to tread the same path as herself.

He hoped Leto had at least managed to snag someone wealthy, if she had to throw herself away. In the circumstances, there couldn't possibly be anything more than affection without substance. He hoped, for her sake, that it would solidify into something real one day. . . however unlikely it was.

Daphne Greengrass was surely headed the same way. Though sensible and level-headed, she'd never done more than the barest minimum as a student; like most Slytherin girls, she was more preoccupied with her social upkeep. Perhaps he ought to recommend her to Narcissa. If Daphne had set her mind on a marriage of convenience, she might as well try to be one of the richest women in England.

But Asteria. . . perhaps he could do something there. Make a push. Towards something other than marriage to a pampered prince.

He wouldn't do it himself. He never meddled directly in his students' affairs unless he thought they'd die otherwise (which had nearly happened more times than he was comfortable with). He was such a miserable arbiter of his own happiness that he knew he had no discernment towards anyone else's. But he also knew how you could be so blinded to your own ambition that you forgot anything else existed or would ever be possible. You could think the world would allow you only one recourse by which to better yourself, finding out too late that there might have been others.

As he finished Narcissa's potion, which glimmered a pearly gray, luminescent in the dim light, he laid the groundwork for his plan. Simpler plans were better ones. They allowed more room to adapt.

When the girl returned, sulking and scuffing her feet, he'd prepared what he needed.

In truth, he was almost surprised to see her, and very nearly on time. But something. . . something was. . .

"Is that snow on your shoes?" he asked, deceptively soft.

She went quite still, eyes flying to his face. For the first time he wondered whether her Patronus would be a doe, too, should she ever manage to produce one.

"I went out to the courtyard," she said, after a hesitation that was just a little too long. Her tone was almost correctly casual.

He narrowed his eyes, staring her down. She looked boldly back.

"Get back to your corner," he said.

She got back to it with an air of dignity.

He finished Narcissa's potion and bottled it in the crystal decanters that were actually necessary for its transport; it was so delicate that it would react with any other material. The bottles were spelled unbreakable, and he added another layer of enchantment that would prevent anyone but Narcissa from opening them. It was his standard practice, even with clients who weren't friends that had nearly been victims of fatal poisoning in the past.

By the time he'd cleaned his workspace and packed everything away, he judged the girl was frustrated enough to be receptive to his proposal.

"That will do for today. Conditionally," he added as she jumped up from the stool, and then let the word dangle.

She looked at him, half wary and half defiant. "Conditions?"

"You have a further eleven detentions to serve," he said with obviously deceptive mildness; she heard it, and looked alarmed. "However, I would. . . entertain the possibility of curtailing them were you to accept my counteroffer."

"Okay," she said immediately.

"You haven't even heard what the offer is," he said, irritated for more reason than one.

"It can't be worse than staring at the wall," she said.

"How do you know I wouldn't make it so, to prove you wrong?"

She opened her mouth and then shut it, eying him as if trying to determine if he was being serious or not.

"Is it shorter, at least?" she asked.

He knew that his answering smile was not anywhere near nice. "You've already accepted."

She glowered impressively. He'd take that for starters.

"Strain your memory," he said, "back to Hallowe'en. You will recall Asteria Greengrass."

Emotions had flitted across her face as he spoke—indignation, exasperation, wariness, clarity—ending in confusion. He found himself unable to remember if either Potter or Lily had been this easy to read, or if her face was unusually expressive.

It was probably nothing more than his increased capacity for deciphering facial ticks.

"Well?" he said impatiently. "Do you?"

"Yeah, sure," she said, still bewildered. "Hard to forget that. What about her?"

"Miss Greengrass is not adjusting well to boarding school life. The recent loss of her eldest sister is doubtless going to make it even more diffi—"

"Daphne _died_?" the girl blurted, going white. "When?"

He rallied after a split second's surprise. "No one died, and not Daphne; the eldest sister, Leto. She's withdrawing from school due to an impending marriage."

The girl had relaxed with relief; now she wrinkled her nose. "Why is that a bad thing?"

"Because," he said impatiently, "Leto was, besides Daphne, one of only two people whom Asteria would talk to. She will also pine for her sister and become even more withdrawn. You will attempt to curtail this self-destructively insular behavior."

"Me?" Now the girl was more bewildered than ever, and was beginning to look alarmed again. "What can I do?"

"I leave that for you to determine."

Panic, now. That was interesting. "But—but I don't even know her. What will happen if I can't help?"

"That is for me to determine. You have already accepted the assignment, Miss Potter."

Panic turned to troubled anxiety. "I'm not good at—with people—Hermione would be better at this than me—or one of the Slytherin girls—"

"I have given you the task," he said in a tone that, with a non-Gryffindor, would have forestalled any argument. "You will undertake it or go back to your corner."

Her expression said she'd actually forgotten about that part of the bargain, but it swiftly shifted to mulish determination. "I'll take the corner," she said. "I'm not—not qualified to help—"

"You saved her from childish brutality once," he said, coldly, to repress a pang that was almost something complimentary in memory of it. "This is no different."

She blinked. When she looked at him then, he found himself quite unable to tell what she was thinking.

"All right," she said. "I'll do it."

"Yes," he said, sneering. "I will contact you with further details. Get away, now."

She went, looking thoughtful. He waited until she was well down the hall before dousing the lights and following her out.

\--

Once he was sure they were gone, Remus lifted his Disillusionment. If he were caught, it would be too hard to pass off "I just got lost in the dungeons" while under a concealing spell.

He'd learned just enough to ponder, but not enough to come to any conclusion.

He left, feeling very thoughtful.


	31. Part of Growing Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for my really dreadful potion-naming and rampant abuse of the word "Dobby."

Snape did not get back to Harriet before the holidays ended, but she wasn't daft enough to think—this time—that he'd forget. He _was_ going to make her sorry she'd gone wandering at nighttime.

Honestly, this conditional task he'd come up with didn't sound so terrible as it did impossible. How was she supposed to help Asteria Greengrass fit into Hogwarts if her sisters couldn't? They would surely know her a great deal better than Harriet. Did Snape imagine Harriet was much more popular than she actually was, enough to provide Asteria with a ton of friends?

"Perhaps he thinks that if she can learn to connect with someone outside her own family, it will make it easier for her to form other friendships," Hermione said, a bit breathlessly. "Thanks, Harriet, you can set them down—"

Harriet shoved her stack of books onto Madam Pince's desk and rotated her now-free shoulders. Hermione was checking out six books on Arithmancy, four for Muggle Studies, and eight on Ancient Runes. Eighteen bloody books. Her hair was almost as wild as Harriet's these days, and her eyes, instead of brightening from lack of homework, were only getting darker with circles from all the extra studying she'd put in. Soon she'd look like a raccoon.

Madam Pince glared at them both and began her exhaustive process of checking each book over for nicks and spoils, sniffing repeatedly as she went. They were going to be there a long time.

"But why me?" Harriet asked in a library-voice, turning back to Hermione. "Snape doesn't even like me."

"Perhaps he thinks Asteria will like you," Hermione said. "And that's more important, isn't it?"

Harriet brooded on this possibility. Well, even if it didn't make much sense, she was going to do it anyway. Snape would make sure she did.

"You saved her from childish brutality once before," Snape had said. But Harriet would have felt much more comfortable punching someone in the nose than doing. . . this.

Everyone was due back at the castle that evening, so even though the holidays were technically over, she and Hermione (and Daphne, Asteria, and the other boy) still had the castle to themselves. Hermione, predictably, had plans to study.

They dragged her books through the castle in three separate bags.

"We need pack horses," Harriet huffed as they climbed the stairs. Wingardium Leviosa only worked for brief levitation. She didn't want to imagine what Madam Pince would do to them if they accidentally levitated the books off the stairs and dropped them several hundred feet.

"You know," Hermione panted as they staggered onto the floor where the entrance to Gryffindor Tower lay. "Don't tell Ron, please, he'd only laugh—but I really am thinking of giving up Muggle Studies. Not because it's too much work," she added quickly. "But it's. . . it's insulting."

"How?" Harriet asked in surprise.

"It's so. . . so patronizing and, and twee. Wizards have the, the stupidest view of Muggles, even if they aren't being cruel. Professor Burbage is very nice, of course, but the books we have to read! They act as if all the scientific and intellectual advancements of the past three hundred years are simply the Muggles' quaint way of compensating for being deficient in magic!"

"Oddsbodikins," Harriet told Sir Cadogan, who was dancing back and forth on his green, clearly wanting to challenge them to a fight but too chivalrous to interrupt two ladies while they were talking. Looking disappointed (his visor clanked down over his face when he dropped his head), he had no choice but to let the portrait open.

"'What Muggles toil to achieve with coal and oil and electricity are not necessary for the wizard, for whom fire, light, and movement are accomplished with a slight movement of his wand; and the arts, philosophies and theologies that Muggles craft in their spare time, to fill the terrible emptiness in their souls, the wizard may experience by casting the spark of the lightest spell.'" Hermione said it like she was quoting, and her eyes were blazing. "And all the books are like that! Poor little Muggles, stuck without magic in their quaint, dull little ways. . . "

She must have been storing this up for quite a while. Harriet let her rant on, making noises in places that sounded like good ones, but she was mostly thinking about her stomach hurting: a low-level but continued ache that had started up some time in the library. She'd thought it would go away if she ignored it, but the more she ignored it, the sharper the pains started to twinge, layered over the dull ache that was already there.

". . . completely ignoring how Muggles have contributed to the world, while wizards just sit around and—and play Quidditch—oh, I don't mean that, but when was the last time Professor Binns mentioned a conference of wizards that didn't have something to do with keeping down goblins and werewolves and giants and, and Muggles? Harriet, are you all right?"

"Yeah. No. I dunno." Harriet grimaced, rubbing her stomach. "I think the bacon was off at breakfast or something. My stomach hurts."

Hermione's righteous anger morphed into worry. "Do you want to go to Madam Pomfrey?"

As Harriet was shaking her head, an angry pain, sharper than all the rest, pulsed like it was gripping the lower half of her body. "Maybe. Okay, yeah."

Madam Pomfrey was not in the infirmary. Everything was dark, and the doors were locked.

"She must not have got back yet from her holiday," Hermione said worriedly. "Maybe Professor McGonagall will have something you can take. . ."

Professor McGonagall was working at her desk when Hermione knocked on her office door.

"If you are coming to inquire about your broom, Miss Potter," she said, looking over her square spectacles at them, "Professor Flitwick thinks it may be carrying a Hurling Jinx."

"Harriet thinks she ate something bad at breakfast," Hermione said quickly.

"My stomach hurts," Harriet said uncomfortably when Professor McGonagall looked sharply at her.

"In all the years I've been here, Miss Potter, when there's a case of food-poisoning at Hogwarts, one of the students has been responsible. Since none of the five who remained seem likely culprits, it's probably something else." She stood. "Come with me. I'll let you into the infirmary."

They trekked back through the halls to the hospital wing. Harriet knew it was evidence of how much Hermione was worried about her that she'd sacrificed studying her eighteen new books (well, maybe not the four Muggle Studies ones) to go on this pointless walk-about.

Professor McGonagall unlocked the infirmary doors and swept along to Madam Pomfrey's massive cabinet of medicinal potions. It was big enough that the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team could have climbed inside it and not knocked elbows. On its many shelves, hundreds of bottles gleamed in the light, cobalt blue and emerald green and opal white, shimmering black and mucky brown. Professor McGonagall reached for a ruby red one, which made Hermione say, "Oh!" in a tone of sudden comprehension. It did look familiar. . . Harriet thought she'd seen Hermione take it bef. . .

"Oh." Harriet went bright red, like the potion.

"This might do the trick." Professor McGonagall handed it down to her, briskly business-like. "I believe the bathroom is open. I know Madam Pomfrey keeps the. . . other articles in there." That slight hesitation was the only lapse in her matter-of-fact manner.

Face flaming, Harriet fled to the infirmary bathroom and locked herself in.

It was. . . that.

So.

Relief and satisfaction warred with worry. It was really uncomfortable. She knew Hermione hated getting it, but seeing Hermione grimace and drink that red potion and splutter was a lot different than having to do it herself. The stuff smelled like vinegar. And now she'd be having _it_ for the rest of her life.

 _Until menopause, at least,_ said her Hermione-like part.

"Cheers," Harriet muttered. Pinching her nose, she knocked the potion back.

It _tasted_ like fermented vinegar. Coughing, she filled a cup of water from the sink and chugged it. "Pleh. PLEH."

Once everything was. . . taken care of, she skulked out of the safety of the bathroom. Professor McGonagall and Hermione had been talking, but they left it off and turned to face her.

"It was that," Harriet said before either of them could ask, blushing again.

Professor McGonagall looked sympathetic, really. "A burden we all must endure, Miss Potter. Well!" She was brisk again. "You know where the potions are. Madam Pomfrey allows female students up to five doses per cycle on a standard basis, but if you need more, you can discuss it with her."

She walked with them back to the Tower. Hermione was talking with her, something about Transfigurations, but Harriet was concentrating on herself. Although the pain in her lower body was gone, she thought she kept seeing spots whenever she tried to focus on anything. She tried to blink the spots away, but they wouldn't go.

Once they were back in the common room, Hermione marched toward her books, looking like someone about to roll back her sleeves and get down to brass tacks. Harriet had offered to look up page numbers in the index for her, but when she opened the first book, she realized she couldn't read. The spots made the words disappear when she tried to focus on them.

"Harriet?" asked Hermione.

"I. . . can't see." Harriet tried to squash her panic. Maybe it was just a period thing. "Does this happen to you?"

"You can't see?" Hermione asked in alarm.

"I can see," Harriet said quickly, "I just—I'm getting spots. I can't read. Wait, this can't happen to you or you'd never be able to study—"

"Do you have a headache?" Hermione asked.

"My head feels funny, but. . ."

"Lie down on the couch," Hermione instructed. "I'm going to get Professor McGonagall."

She dashed away, the portrait opening and shutting. Harriet decided Hermione was right, as usual: lying down seemed like a good idea. She took off her glasses and curled up next to the fire. A moment later, a soft, furry weight landed on the cushions and settled against her stomach.

"Hi, Crookshanks." She scratched his chin. He yawned massively, showing all his teeth.

Hermione came back. Harriet squinted at her, but without her glasses all she could make out was a vague, Hermione-like shape with a mass of hair. It was like one of those paintings that made images with huge streaks and whorls of paint.

"Miss Potter?" said Professor McGonagall's voice. "How do you manage to get into trouble drinking a simple potion?"

"Natural talent, Professor," Harriet said as Professor McGonagall touched her forehead.

"Miss Granger said you were seeing spots. Does your head ache? Any sensitivity to light?"

"No. . ."

"Fatigue? Numbness?"

Harriet considered. "I feel tired and—not good. What is it?"

"The menstrual analgesic provokes a migraine in a small percentage of witches," Professor McGonagall said. "About three percent, I believe. It's possible the migraine is concurrent, but you're awfully young to get them, even as part of your cycle. Have you ever experienced migraines before?"

"No, but. . . Aunt Petunia gets them," she said reluctantly.

Professor McGonagall hmm'd. Harriet could imagine her pressing her lips together in one unbending line.

"Lie down in your dorm, at least. I'll return shortly. I need to see Professor Snape about which potions for migraine can be mixed with this potion."

The horror at Professor McGonagall telling Snape that she needed a potion for this crashed over Harriet like a wave at the beach that had knocked her down (although she had never actually been to the beach). "I'll take the migraine. It's not so bad."

"Miss Potter, Professor Snape is a Head of House," Professor McGonagall said briskly. "I can assure you, he's dealt with. . . this sort of matter before with his female students. And as Madam Pomfrey has been delayed, he has the best knowledge of medicinal potions in the castle at present. Get up to bed and I'll be with you shortly."

She left. Harriet's head churned—with the migraine, which was starting to hurt, like someone was putting a huge pressure not on her skull but directly on her brain; with the image of Snape handing out potions for, for it; with the knowledge that he'd know she was on it.

"It shouldn't be embarrassing, you know," Hermione was saying. "It's a perfectly natural condition. For goodness' sake, it happens to fifty percent of the human race every month! It's really quite insulting that we're made to feel like there's something the matter with us whenever our periods come and we mustn't talk about it, or be embarrassed if we do—"

"Can we please talk about this later?" Harriet said, wincing. "My head's really starting to hurt. . ."

Hermione ushered her upstairs, tucked her into bed and drew the hangings around her four-poster. Harriet felt very tired now but her head was hurting too much for her to fall asleep. She shut her eyes.

Be careful what you wished for—honestly. This part of growing up sucked.

And it probably meant she was going to be short forever.

\--

Severus frequently found himself at a profound loss in dealing with Asteria Greengrass. Was this how being Longbottom's Head of House would have been? (For himself. If Minerva had any problems, she didn't discuss them where he could hear.) Although he'd had his share of anxious first-year students, his House favoritism had always soothed them—to a certain extent. They didn't shake and squeak like Longbottom, but they understood the importance of deferring to him in exchange for his continued protection.

Asteria was the only student he'd ever had who still blanched and trembled and refused to look at him when he so much as stood within ten feet of her. Talking to her was an absolute disaster. He'd considered relocating her to Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw as an experiment, but was afraid the shock of being removed from her sisters would kill her.

He wasn't entirely exaggerating, either.

Since the rest of the school hadn't yet returned, he met with the remaining Greengrass girls in the Slytherin common room. In defiance of every tactic he'd perfected to intimidate his students—even the Slytherins—he also sat down, in an armchair, so the sisters could take the adjacent couch and Daphne could sit in the middle, letting Asteria believe she was shielded. Although she was tall for her age, she did have a knack for appearing smaller than she was, and had perfected the trick of vanishing into the background. Most people likely forgot she was there. Having mastered that habit himself, Severus didn't, and it was clear that Daphne didn't, either, but they both pretended Asteria wasn't there. Severus had learned that Asteria was much more comfortable being ignored entirely.

She was a very strange child.

"I hope you had a good holiday, Professor," Daphne said, calmly polite. He'd never seen her manners lapse, even from constant exposure to Pansy Parkinson, who in her own way could have challenged Harriet Potter in a contest to vex the Pope.

"Thank you, Miss Greengrass." That wasn't a real answer, but he tried to avoid giving real answers whenever possible. In the same noncommittal spirit, he said, "I believe congratulations are in order for your family."

For a moment, Asteria's invisible shield rippled, but Daphne's composure did not. If anything, she seemed truly pleased. Being a practical girl with her hopes aimed in the same direction, she probably did welcome her sister's prospected marriage.

But Asteria, in that flash of a moment, was clearly not happy with Leto's leaving. Severus was satisfied.

"Thank you, Professor," said Daphne. "We're all very pleased."

He did not ask if they'd be attending the wedding. He'd received no word to arrange their temporary withdrawal, and since Leto was being removed from school to expedite her marriage, the wedding would be taking place shortly (if it hadn't already). If the expense of transporting two sisters had been too much for the bride, the groom might have offered; but either he hadn't or had been voted down. Either way, to Severus' mind it was an ill beginning.

"I am aware that the event must be a trial for you all," he said. "Your sister to be removed from her home, and the remaining two to lose her."

Asteria's invisibility rippled again. Even Daphne's eyelids flickered that time.

"You, Miss Greengrass, have a number of allies who can support you." Slytherins rarely used the term "friends"; they considered it too juvenile and frail as an association. "Your sister, however, is more delicately placed."

Daphne's eyes darted toward Asteria, who was staring fixedly at the ground, her face and posture telegraphing the exertion it was costing her not to jump up and flee.

"I have assigned Harriet Potter to work with her," Severus said coolly.

Daphne's eyes flew back to him, widening, while an expression came over her face that said she thought he was mad. Asteria, however, went a deep shade of scarlet.

"Harriet Potter?" Daphne repeated. "I—" She was clearly struggling with the propriety of arguing. "Sir—forgive me—but I hardly think that a good idea. . ."

"Miss Potter has already assisted your sister once."

Daphne blinked. "When? I. . ." Then the light of understanding passed over her face. She turned to Asteria, who was trying more than ever to hide in plain sight. "She was the one, then?" Daphne said, as if a lingering question had just been answered.

Severus was distracted by a brief warmth flaring in the pocket against his ribs. While Daphne and Asteria conversed through tense, silent looks, he pulled out the small notebook he and the other Heads used for minor emergencies.

Minerva's handwriting said: 'Need to know what potions are compatible with Feminine Comfort that may have provoked migraine.'

"I will leave you to discuss it," Severus said to the Greengrass sisters. "However, I must inform you that the meetings are a requirement and your sister must attend them without you. I will contact you with the details of the first meeting."

Daphne looked stunned; Asteria frozen, almost paralytic. He left them like that, feeling like he'd just thrown a kitten out in the snow. But it was necessary; he knew it was necessary. If he allowed Daphne to accompany Asteria, she would let Daphne take care of everything and they would get nowhere, none of them. The teachers believed the same as her sister: with infinite kindness, Asteria would eventually settle into boarding school life, form friendships and grow into a capable young woman. But Severus knew that people rarely worked that way; for most, it took either a shock or a deep desire to alter them in the slightest. Asteria appeared to have no desire to change. If left to her own devices, she would remain withdrawn and isolated, and Daphne would willingly shoulder the burden of carrying her alone. Slytherins could be neurotic in their assumption of duty.

Escaping the common room, he entered into the next awkward fray of the day involving teenaged girls. If Minerva was asking, the sufferer was either Granger or Harriet Potter.

He spelled onto the page: 'You had better wait for the dose to pass through her system before you give her anything else.'

'If there's another option, Severus,' Minerva wrote back immediately, 'I would take it rather than force the poor girl to suffer a migraine.'

'Pain potions—which Feminine Comfort is, in large part—contain ingredients that should not be overloaded into the system, which is what would happen if you gave her anything for the resultant migraine.'

'Where are you?' Minerva wrote. 'I couldn't find you in your office. Come to the infirmary.'

He went, but only because if their positions had been reversed—one of his Slytherins half-Transfigured into a badger, perhaps—he would have hunted Minerva down, even if she'd told him he just had to wait and let the student de-badgerize.

"I do wish Poppy hadn't been delayed," was how Minerva greeted him when he stalked into the infirmary. "I can't remember what half these potions are. Is there really nothing I can give her, Severus?"

"Nothing," he said flatly. "Feminine Comfort is an analgesic and a stimulant. If you give her any more pain potions, she will have a reaction to that, and sleep potions and stimulants mix with disastrous results."

Minerva gave Pomfrey's medicine cabinet a dark look, as if it was being deliberately unhelpful.

"She should do whatever she normally does," Severus said. "Or whatever Pomfrey has written in her file."

"She's never had this problem before." Minerva shut the cabinet door and spelled the lock. "Apparently her aunt also suffers from migraines, but she would take Muggle remedies, of course."

That still didn't narrow down which girl it was, but Severus suspected he knew who. It was perversely appropriate that he should have to deal with this concerning her.

"It's highly likely that the migraine is resulting from the potion," he said. "It affects three percent of witches in that way."

"Yes, I'm aware."

"And if it were simply part of her usual symptoms," he continued, ignoring this but feeling quite stupid all the same, "the potion would have taken care of it. The migraine will abate by the time the potion passes through her system."

"Thank you, Severus," Minerva said, a sigh in her voice.

He left, feeling oddly uncomfortable about being so useless. It was simple biology; there was nothing to be done. To his extreme annoyance, neither telling himself that nor realizing he was entirely correct did anything to improve his mood.

\--

"Are you sure you don't need me to stay?" Hermione asked anxiously, fussing with Harriet's pillow.

"Sure as can be." Harriet settled back on her now-more-lumpy pillow. "There's nothing for you to do. Go to dinner, I'll be fine. You can finally talk to someone other than me and your Arithmancy books."

"I haven't been exactly pining away for Lavender and Parvati's society," Hermione said.

What about Ron's? Harriet thought. But she had no intention of saying it. She and Hermione never talked about boys, though "Boys, Boys, Boys" made up about 48% of Lavender and Parvati's conversation. That one time Harriet had brought up Lockhart, Hermione couldn't have changed the subject faster.

Sometimes Harriet would have liked to talk about boys. A worry niggled at her that maybe she was weird because all the boys Lavender and Parvati gushed about—Lockhart (who was more of a man, but still), Cedric Diggory, Roger Davies, Michael Corner—didn't appeal to her at all. They looked bland and boring to her, verging on unattractive.

"Well. . . if you need anything," Hermione said reluctantly, now wrinkling Harriet's blankets.

"I'll make a list and give it to you when you get back. Make sure you hand me a quill and a roll of parchment before you go."

Hermione's mouth twitched, almost smiling. She leaned over and kissed Harriet on the cheek, and then left the room, dousing all the lamps with a spell. Hermione might have come from Muggles and rage about the way wizards treated them, but she was a better witch than a lot of magic-born girls (or boys).

Harriet drifted into not-quite-sleep. Her headache was softening, but the lower-body pain was growing as the migraine sloughed off. Professor McGonagall had explained that she wouldn't be able to take Feminine Comfort without enduring migraines, but a general analgesic should take care of most of the pain. She could try it when the Feminine Comfort wore off.

She woke up fully after a time because her stomach had that hollow, burning, hungry feeling in it. Damn. How was she going to get anything to. . .

Cautiously, she opened her eyes. They'd finally stopped spotting and hurting in the light. The room was dark, the only light coming from the moonlight shining a ghostly silver through the frosted window glass.

"Dobby?" she said.

Crack!

(Good thing her headache was lighter.)

"Miss Harriet Potter!" Dobby cried.

Not light enough. She winced. "Hi, Dobby. Sorry, but could you whisper? I've got a migraine. . ."

He stuffed his ears in his mouth again. "What is Harriet Potter wishing from Dobby?" he whispered, so quietly she had to strain to hear him at all.

"How's Snuffles?" she asked, glancing at the snow pillowed on the windowsill.

"Dobby is feeding Snuffles five times a day," he announced, like he was telling her about a sacred duty. "Snuffles is as kind and noble as Harriet Potter! He is entrusting Dobby with many important secrets, and is saying to Dobby, 'You must be keeping Harriet Potter safe, as I cannot be being with her.'"

Harriet blinked at his shining, fervent face. She'd always sensed that Snuffles was cleverer than other dogs, but she didn't know he could speak to house-elves. Maybe he was part-Crup? Or maybe house-elves could talk to animals. Their magic was certainly different than humans'.

"Thanks for looking after him, Dobby, I really owe you one." She glanced again at the ghostly shining snow. "Is he cold?"

"He is sleeping in the Shrieking Shack," Dobby explained. "Harriet Potter, you must be careful."

Harriet had been about to ask, half-jokingly, where the Shack's ghosts had gone, but he was looking so earnest and serious that she was quite taken aback.

"Snuffles is saying to Dobby there is a dangerous man at Hogwarts, a servant of," he trembled, "H-he Who Must Not Be Named. He is in disguise, and has tricked many people for oh so many years. He is a nasty, cunning, traitor-wizard. Snuffles was almost to be capturing him before, but the traitor-wizard outsmarted Snuffles, it is true, and now Snuffles has come to find him, and to protect Harriet Potter at last."

Harriet was too stunned to do more than blink several times.

"Snuffles told you all this?" she said weakly.

He nodded his head so vigorously that if he'd been Sir Nick, that last bit of flesh holding his head to his neck might finally have snapped. "Snuffles is entrusting Dobby with his most important secrets, so that he is helping protect Harriet Potter! Dobby would die for Harriet Potter—"

"Nobody needs to die for me." Her stomach twisted up in a way that had nothing to do with her cramps. . . but also at the shining look on Dobby's face. He really meant it.

Her mouth felt suddenly dry with fear.

"Really," she said, while he gazed at her worshipfully. "I mean it. This is an order, Dobby, okay? I know I can't give you orders, really—"

"Dobby will do whatever Harriet Potter wishes!" he cried.

"Okay, then," Harriet said firmly. "If you died for me, Dobby, I'd—it would break my heart. So I don't want you doing anything like that. Okay?"

His eyes widened and started to leak tears. A strange expression had come over his face, one that was half-misery, half ecstasy.

"Dobby's life should be worth nothing if Harriet Potter were to die and Dobby live," he said tremulously.

Harriet had no idea what to say to this. The words wrapped around her heart like ropes and tried to drag it far, far down. "I'm not that important."

"To Dobby, Harriet Potter is." His wide eyes were utterly serious. "And to Harriet Potter's Snuffles. We is to be keeping Harriet Potter safe. Evil dark wizards is not to be hurting Harriet Potter while Dobby and Snuffles is drawing breath. Dobby. . ." More tears streamed out of his eyes; he started to tremble. Harriet became very alarmed. "Dobby—" he choked. "Wishes of all things to promise Harriet Potter—but he cannot—Harriet Potter must live!"

The expression on his twisted-up little face was even more alarming than the pitch of his wailing voice. Harriet scrambled out of her bed just in time to prevent him from charging headlong into her dresser.

"Dobby is sorry!" he wailed. "Dobby's life is worth nothing if it is not being in service to Harriet Potter!"

"Okay!" Harriet struggled to keep a grip on him. "Okay, I don't—I take it back! I take it back." Dobby turned his enormous eyes on her, though he was still weeping. Harriet felt gooseflesh prickling up her arms. "You can—you can do whatever you want. Okay? Just. . ."

She was at a complete loss. It frightened her to think he'd hurl himself into something dark and dangerous out of—out of love. She felt like the window had been blown open and the snow was burying her. She wanted, strangely, to cry.

"Can you promise me, at least," she said at last, "you'll think of some other way? Before dying. Okay? Can you do that?"

He nodded wordlessly.

"Dobby promises," he croaked.

\--

When Hermione returned, Harriet was sitting in bed eating out of a massive hamper Dobby had brought her. She wasn't as hungry as she'd been earlier, but the food smelled so good. . .

To think she'd only called Dobby so she could ask for dinner.

She'd felt very low since he'd left.

"Hi." Hermione huffed breathlessly, like she'd run all the way up from the Great Hall. Her eyebrows flew up at the sight of the hamper. "Well, that's much better than what I brought." She waved a lumpy napkin. "Dobby?"

"Mmm." Harriet swallowed a bite of what she suspected was pate. "I think this must've been what he fixed for Narcissa Malfoy when she was—you know. It's got pheasant pies in it. And just look at these eclairs. . ."

The eclairs had a cream topping over the chocolate, sculpted in tiny, intricate rosettes. Hermione's eyes widened.

"And there's all these truffles," Harriet said, opening their box. Each one was decorated with a sugar violet. "And chocolate mousse. . . Want some?"

They snacked out of the hamper until they heard Lavender and Parvati clattering up the stairwell like a herd of wildebeests; then Hermione, stuffing the end of her éclair between her teeth, set the hamper on the other side of the bed, out of their sights.

She turned away to swallow the last of the éclair as the other girls burst into the dorm. Eyes shining, they stormed Harriet's bed.

"Harry!" said Lavender in a hushed, vibrant voice. "Hermione told us."

"This is brilliant," Parvati said happily. "Now we can finally do it!"

"Do what?" Harriet said, taken aback.

"Oh, not that rubbish again," Hermione said irritably.

"It's not rubbish," Lavender sniffed. "It's an ancient art."

"What is?" asked Harriet, bewildered.

"Some Divs ritual," Hermione said with clear scorn.

"It needs three witches to work," said Parvati to Harriet. "On their feminine cycles."

"What?" Harriet didn't know whether to laugh or pull her pillow over her face.

"Hermione would never agree to do it with us," said Lavender, shooting Hermione a dark look, while Hermione looked aloofly superior. "But you will, Harry, won't you?"

"What's—what's it do?" Harriet asked.

"It gives us a more potent scope into the future," said Parvati quite seriously, and Harriet remembered that her mother worked Divs for a living. "Three is a sacred number, and during this time, our bodies are a powerful vehicle for the forces of life's magic. The cycle of all life is centered in us, now more than ever."

This sounded so ridiculous that she nearly did laugh. But then she remembered how Dobby had explained understanding what was the matter with her: "The magic changes, Harriet Potter. It never happens to wizards, but to witches—house-elves is telling." And he hadn't looked embarrassed at all (though Harriet had been red-faced enough for the both of them).

"Well. . ." Harriet had wondered before: if Divinations was truly rubbish, as Hermione claimed, why did Hogwarts still teach it? Trelawney did seem like a dirty great fraud, but what if it was just her, not the subject? "Couldn't hurt to try."

Lavender and Parvati squealed. Hermione looked disbelieving.

"It will be amazing!" Lavender declared.

"We'll do it when we're all having it at the same time," Parvati said, eyes shining. "I bet we're all on the same cycle, now that you've started, Harriet—"

As the other two started their noisy unpacking ritual, Harriet looked at Hermione in silence. They shared a thought that wasn't words, and didn't need to be augmented by life's sacred forces to be understood.


	32. What Ails You

The next day, Harriet awoke to Lavender and Parvati's noisy morning routine of deciding how to fix their hair. Hogwarts' strict policy on dress, from jewelry to shoes, meant that hair was pretty much the only leeway the girls were allowed, and so Lavender and Parvati always spent the mornings in an agony of indecision.

"Harry?" asked Hermione's voice through the thickness of her drapes. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah." Harriet sat up and tugged the rope to open her hangings.

"Are you feeling okay?" Hermione's worried face came into focus as Harriet fumbled on her glasses. "Do you need to rest today?"

Harriet took stock of herself. She felt rather drained and wobbly, but she had no desire to lie in bed all day. "I think I'll be okay."

"Well, I'm putting a pain potion in your bag, just in case. . ."

Harriet couldn't help noticing that Hermione's hair looked more brushed than usual. It had a shiny quality to it, though whatever she'd done to it had made it bushier than ever.

"Oh Harry, you ook awhul," said Lavender, her mouth full of bobby pins.

Harriet knew she had to look really terrible if Lavender was noticing. Glancing in the mirror, she saw her own pale, pinched face and hair like Medusa's.

"Maybe you should stay up here," said Parvati worriedly. "You don't really want everyone seeing you like that."

"Thank you for putting the matter in such perspective," Hermione said waspishly. "Harriet, I've got your uniform ready, and here's your toothbrush. . ."

Harriet got dressed, but so sluggishly that she was ready at the same time as Parvati and Lavender. They whooshed out of the room in a whirlwind, but Harriet and Hermione followed much more slowly.

"I want you to promise me," Hermione said, pushing open the door from the stairwell to the common room, "that if you start to feel worse, you'll say something."

Before Harriet could reply, she was accosted by Oliver Wood.

"Harry, there you are." Competitive fire was already alight in his face. Before she could reply to that, either, he said, "Have a good Christmas? Listen, I wanted to ask if you've ordered a new broom yet. We'll be playing Ravenclaw. Their Seeker Cho Chang isn't as good as you—she's had a lot of injuries and I was hoping she wouldn't recover—but she's good enough to outfly an old Shooting Star—"

Hermione, her eyes sparking as bright as Oliver's (though with a very different light), cut him off at the pass.

"Harriet was sent a broom for Christmas," she said with McGonagall-like sharpness. "No, she doesn't have it, Professor McGonagall does."

Eyes bulging slightly, Oliver seemed to struggle with priorities. He finally settled on: "What kind of—"

"A Firebolt," Harriet offered, not quite able to quash a twinge of wistful disappointment at not getting to ride it even once.

"A F-f-f—" Oliver's eyes bulged and his mouth open and closed.

"Professor Mcgonagall thinks it may have been tampered with," Hermione said briskly. "Harriet will have it back when we're sure it's not jinxed."

Then she swept Harriet away before Oliver could stop choking on his tongue—or tried to. Fred and George materialized on either side of them, bringing them to a halt.

"Did our ears deceive us?" the twins chorused.

"How are we to know?" Harriet asked tiredly. Maybe she should've stayed in bed. . . she'd forgotten how. . . exuberant everyone was on the first day of term.

"A Firebolt?" Ron demanded, turning up behind her and Hermione. "Seriously, a real Firebolt?"

"Cor!" said Seamus, appearing over Ron's shoulder with wide eyes, and Dean turned up at the other to say, "Cool."

Even Angelina, Katie and Alicia were crowding round. Harriet's head spiked.

"Harriet doesn't even have it!" Hermione said, loudly displeased. "Professor McGonagall took it away—now will you please let it alone? We need to get to breakfast, and Harriet hasn't been—"

A ginger form blurred in the air, and a split second later Ron swore loudly and staggered sideways: Crookshanks had landed on his head. While they all stood gaping, the cat clawed down Ron's shoulders and took a swipe at his pocket, ripping it wide open, and Scabbers dropped straight to the ground.

Ron bellowed—with shock, pain, anger, and maybe all three—as Crookshanks took a flying leap off his shoulders, arching after Scabbers, who shot between everyone's feet and streaked beneath a cabinet against the far wall. By the time Harriet, Ron and Hermione had pushed past everyone, Crookshanks was crouched low, tail lashing, swiping beneath the cabinet. Ron aimed a kick at him; Crookshanks leapt away, spitting, and Hermione cried, "Don't!" at the same time Ron kicked the cabinet instead of the cat and swore loud and foul enough to shock a group of first-year girls who stood nearby, gaping at them.

Harriet scooped up Crookshanks as he made to spring back toward the cabinet. Ron was on his knees, groping under the cabinet for Scabbers, and managed to drag him out by his tail, though Scabbers fought him with a terror that seemed half mad.

In Harriet's arms, Crookshanks let out a long, menacing hiss that startled all three of them and made Scabbers thrash alarmingly.

"That mad cat's got it in for Scabbers!" Ron said furiously, his face deep scarlet with fury.

"All cats chase mice, Ron!" Hermione said in a shaken voice. She was standing half in front of Harriet and her cat, like she wanted to shield him. "Crookshanks doesn't realize its wrong!"

But, then as before, Harriet wasn't so sure. Crookshanks was holding very still in her arms, his tail lashing methodically back and forth like a pendulum, his yellow eyes fixed on Scabbers and his pupils wide.

_"Look at him!"_

Ron thrust Scabbers forward. Harriet realized she hadn't seen Scabbers in ages; he had lost a great deal of weight, and his fur was falling out. He was shivering violently in Ron's grip, and the closer proximity to Crookshanks made him squeaksqueaksqueak and writhe, his black eyes bulging.

Ron snatched Scabbers back against his chest with a look of alarm that instantly darkened to anger. "He's scared to death of that mad cat! He was fine before that monster came!"

"It isn't Crookshanks' fault!" Hermione said shrilly. Harriet really thought she was saying, _It isn't my fault!_

"I'm going to go put him upstairs," she said, though she doubt they heard her, and left, her arms clamped tightly round Crookshanks so he wouldn't escape.

"Why've you got it in for Scabbers, huh?" she asked quietly, scratching behind his ears He twitched them and gave her an enigmatic cat look, nothing more.

Shutting the dorm-room door firmly behind her, she left to rejoin Hermione. Ron was storming out as Harriet got back to the common room; she was just in time to see the tail end of his angrily flapping robe and hear the portrait slamming loud enough to hurt her ears.

She looked at Hermione, who snatched her hands down from her face. Wiping away tears?

"I'm fine," she said in a suspiciously thick voice before Harriet could ask. "Let's—let's just go down to breakfast? I-I'm starving."

Harriet nodded silently and followed her out of the common room. She watched her carefully, but Hermione was equally careful not to make eye contact.

On the other side of the portrait, Sir Cadogan was picking himself up from the ground and trying to pull his helmet the right way round. The force of Ron's exit must've knocked him off his feet.

\--

"Morning, Harry. You look awful. This came for you," said Ginny all at once, and handed Harriet a folded bit of parchment sealed with a drop of wax. "The owl didn't want to wait. By the way. . ." She lowered her voice, her eyebrows scrunching together. "What's up with Ron now?"

Harriet glanced up the table and wasn't surprised to see Ron sitting with Fred and George and Lee Jordan, mashing up his fried eggs like they were the ones who'd clawed his neck and attacked his rat.

"Later," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth, since Hermione was sitting on the other side of her. She had a book open in front of her and was bent over it so that her hair shielded her face. She hadn't said a word since they'd left the common room.

Ginny slid a sideways glance at Hermione and went back to her toast and tomatoes. Harriet turned to her letter.

Miss Potter was written on the front in glistening black ink with the shape of Snape's spiky handwriting. She wondered what his deal was with all the black. Even the drop of wax sealing it shut was black.

On the inside, Snape had curtly written: My office after dinner, promptly, for your assignment.

And that was it. Snape wasn't at the staff table. Most of the teachers weren't, by now. Even the student tables were sparse with breakfast-eaters.

"We should get going," Hermione muttered as even Ginny got up to leave with her pack of friends. "We'll probably be late to Divination. . ."

"It's all right," Harriet said. "I'm sure Professor Trelawney's already foreseen it."

\--

By the end of the day, Harriet was exhausted. Her head hurt, though not like the migraine had; just a solid ache, especially around her temples. After about half an hour of swirling her spoon around her soup bowl in not-very-interesting patterns, she gave up and headed down to see Snape.

Hermione had skipped dinner entirely. Harriet didn't blame her; Ron was ignoring her so obviously and unpleasantly that even Dean and Seamus had started avoiding him halfway through Care of Magical Creatures. But he wasn't at dinner either.

At least the lights in Snape's office were dim, to enhance creepiness. Maybe it would soothe her headache.

Snape's unfriendly voice told her to come in, and he was glaring at the door when she sidled into his office. Lavender and Parvati would have said that eerie, greenish light didn't do his skin tone any favors. Lord, she hoped that was just her migraine talking.

"Sit," he said curtly, so she did. He eyed her with a tinge of suspicion in his face. Harriet was too tired to wonder why, or be indignant or defiant or anything. She just wanted to go to bed.

"Are you still feeling unwell?" he asked abruptly.

Harriet realized she wasn't too tired to feel mortified, or to blush all over her face. At least Snape was looking equally embarrassed (and stunned, like he couldn't believe he'd said it). It wasn't a look she'd ever seen on him before—in fact, it took her a moment to realize that's what it was. It wasn't an especially flattering expression on him, but she found it strangely calming.

"I'm just tired," she mumbled, trying not to look at him.

"The effects of migraines last after the pain has abated," he said, so sharply she wondered if he wasn't somehow telling her off. "You should have sat out classes today. Get to Madam Pomfrey. Go on," he said when she just stared at him.

"But. . . the meeting?" she said blankly.

"It wasn't going to be tonight in any case, and I certainly wouldn't have you doing it in this state. Infirmary, now." He pointed.

"She'll just make me spend the night in the hospital wing," Harriet objected. "I hate being in there. I'll just take another potion and go to bed when I get upstairs."

"When did you last take a potion?" Snape asked impatiently.

"Erm. . . in Divinations this morning. Around 9:30, I think?" Trelawney's incense had made her feel like throwing up.

"Then you can't have another one until later tonight. They have a twelve-hour span. Especially since you took. . ." Oh God, she hoped he wasn't going to name it. ". . .another exceptionally strong potion yesterday, you have to be careful. Ingestion of too much poppy can lead to a number of unpleasant side-effects."

He fell abruptly silent, staring at her through narrowed eyes. Then he snapped, "Wait here," shoved his chair back from his desk with a loud scrape, and stalked into his storeroom. She heard him rustling around, and then he came back holding a small jar made of glass that was—surprise of surprises—black.

"If you're still feeling poorly tomorrow, drink that. Return at the same time tomorrow evening to discuss Miss Greengrass."

Thoroughly bewildered, Harriet took the potion and left. She might have said thank you, but she wasn't sure of even that much. Her aching head was spinning. It was almost like Snape. . . cared. Or something. No, caring was much too strong a word, but that had been almost. . . considerate?

Definitely the migraine talking.

As soon as Sir Cadogan's portrait swung open, Harriet's ears were slammed with the sounds of a really frightful row. It didn't take her more than a couple of wincing seconds to recognize the bellowing voices as Ron's and Hermione's.

Harriet pushed through the crowd, who were looking mostly amused and gleeful and had formed a circle around Ron and Hermione, who were facing off a few paces apart and yelling at each other. Ron was holding . . . his sheets?

Harriet didn't bother to ask anyone what was going on; she walked straight toward Ron, grabbed his bed sheet, balled it up, and threw it. A silence fell over the whole common room, except for the whump of the sheet landing on the floor. She grabbed Hermione's hand, spun her around, and dragged her to the stairwell.

She forgot the door pushed inward and spent a couple of moments swearing at it for not opening, while the common room remained dead silent. But then she got the door open and stormed up the stairs, Hermione towed silently behind her.

In their dorm, Harriet threw down her bag, placed Snape's potion carefully inside her dresser, and then finally turned to look at Hermione. Her eyes were very wide.

There was a moment of continued silence. Hermione's lip trembled.

"I think Ron's head nearly exploded," she said in a high, squeaky voice.

Then she burst into tears.

Horrified, Harriet said, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean—"

"It's—not—your—fault," Hermione sobbed, her breath hitching. "I'm just—so—tired—I—"

Harriet rubbed Hermione's back while she lay face-down on her bed and howled into her pillow. After her offer of, "Ron's a git-faced wanker," made Hermione howl even louder, Harriet had no idea what to say and fewer ideas about what to do. So she just sat next to Hermione while she lay on her bed and cried, and rubbed her back, and felt like the most useless person alive.

No, on second thought, that was probably Ron. And everyone in the common room who'd just stood round grinning.

"H-h-h-h-h," Hermione gulped.

Harriet's right hand was going numb, so she switched to her left.

"H-h-h-h-e-e said Crookshanks had—eaten Scabbers," Hermione choked. "He had—some of Crookshanks' h-h-hairs—and th-there was b-b-blood on h-h-h-his sh-sh-sheets—"

"That explains why he had the sheets, then. I'd wondered," Harriet said feebly, while Hermione dissolved into incoherent sobbing again.

"Look," Harried tried. "You said earlier that Scabbers was looking bad before you ever got Crookshanks. He's, what, twelve years old? Or something—he was Percy's rat first—he's probably just old and sick, and then Crookshanks fixed on him because almost everyone's got an owl, there aren't that many rats in the tower, and Scabbers was weak anyway. It isn't your fault your cat's doing what all cats do."

"It was s-so nice," Hermione said in a badly wavering voice, taking Harriet aback. What was nice about anything she'd said? "Earlier th-this year, at the H-hogsmeade w-weekends—it was almost like—but h-he's so—so angry—and he's been spending so much time with Dean and Seamus—and I just miss when w-we were all friends and wh-when I didn't have so much stupid homework and S-sirius Black w-wasn't trying to kill you and R-ron didn't h-hate me because my cat ate his Scabbers, I mean his rat—"

Harriet absorbed all this while Hermione broke down in a fresh wave of tears. A range of emotions fluctuated through her, more like a wavelength of light than actual thoughts, so fast she wasn't sure what all of them were. But one of them pulsed more strongly bright than the others, forming into words: I wish my mum could tell me what to say. Surely her mum would have known what she should do here. That was one of the things about being a mum, wasn't it? Mums were good at fixing problems. And her mum would probably have had crying friends and would've known what to do for them. Maybe she hadn't had friends who were crying because they were taking four classes at the same time as other classes and because their cat ate the rat of the boy they liked, but surely her mum would have known something comforting to say.

"I think you need to ask Professor McGonagall to drop a couple of classes," Harriet said at last, when Hermione's crying had wound down to the occasional wrenching hiccup.

Whether this was the right thing to say or not, Harriet couldn't exactly tell, but it made Hermione raise her head and start wiping her eyes.

"No," she said eventually. "I—I want to finish out the year, at least."

"You just told me yesterday you wanted to drop Muggle Studies because it was stupid and patronymic," Harriet reminded her.

"Patronizing," Hermione said automatically. "Patronymic means a component of a surname derived from—"

"Okay," Harriet said patiently. "But why don't you just go ahead and drop it? If you want to already."

"I can't have on my record that I just dropped a class in the middle of the year, Harriet." Hermione looked anguished, like the thought caused her physical pain. Harriet supposed she should have realized it would. But at least Hermione was upset about how her record would look and not Ron, right?

"Okay," Harriet said again. "You're right. Bad idea."

Hermione was wiping her eyes on her bed sheet. "Where's my bag?" she said, looking round in a vague-yet-distressed way for her things. "I need to start my essay on equinumeral distichs. . ."

Harriet struggled with a few strong feelings. When she was sure—well, mostly—that she'd got her voice under control, she said, "Hermione, I really think you ought to take a break tonight from—"

"I can't, Harry," Hermione said in a trembling voice, like she was trying to be calm but was really on the verge of a panic fit. "I have to write an essay for Muggle Studies about electricity and complete a Runic translation of High Ancient Dwarvish and read the next three chapters on Leonidas of Alexandria for Arithmancy—"

"All right," Harriet said, as her head throbbed just thinking about all this work. If you'd stood her and Hermione together and asked a stranger which of them had been bedridden with a migraine the day before, you probably wouldn't have been able to guess unless Snape or McGonagall told you. "How can I help?"

Hermione shook her head. "You're sick," she said, fumbling open her book bag. "You should take your bath and go to bed. I can handle it—I signed up for these classes, you know, and Professor McGonagall wouldn't have let me if she thought I couldn't do it—"

Harriet was seriously considering having a word with Professor McGonagall about helping Hermione achieve self-destructive levels of knowledge-seeking. "At least let me do your Divs homework or something."

"I couldn't!" Hermione shook her head harder that time. Her hair had returned to its normal frizzy bushiness. "I'll be fine, Harriet, really. Get your rest."

She kissed Harriet's cheek; her own was sticky from all the crying, cold where the tears had run and hot where they hadn't. Then she stood, her arms so full of books she had to tilt her head back so her chin would clear, and very carefully shuffled toward her dresser. Lavender and Parvati's dressing tables were covered in beauty products, but Hermione's had towers of books and quills and rolls of parchment. She sat down, opened the first enormous grimoire, and started reading.

Harriet took her shower, washed her wilder-than-ever hair, and spent at least half an hour trying to comb out the wet tangles. (And that was after using the special conditioner Hermione had assured her helped even her frizzy curls.)

Back in the dorm, she found Hermione had turned down the lights except for the lamp on her dresser. It was only 7:30.

"You don't have to work in the dark," Harriet said as she took off her glasses and placed them carefully on her nightstand, in the same spot she always did. She was too blind to find them when she wasn't wearing them unless she knew exactly where they were. "Your eyes'll get as bad as mine."

"I'm fine," Hermione said after a long pause, her voice gone thick again. If Harriet were Snape, her eyes would have narrowed to knife-blade slits of suspicion.

"Hermione. . ."

"Good night, Harry." Hermione bent further over her book, quill scratching. "Have a good sleep."

She must've been quietly crying most of the time Harriet was in the bathroom. Harriet wanted to hit something. Ron, maybe. Or Muggle Studies. Harriet took a deep breath. "I will, if you promise me one thing."

Hermione's quill paused. "What?" she whispered.

"You're not possessed by Voldemort, are you?"

Hermione gave a surprised laugh. "No!" She finally set down her quill and turned round in her seat. "I'm just tired. And worried. About you." Harriet couldn't tell what her face looked like, but her voice was quiet and shadowed.

"I'm worried about you, too," Harriet said quietly. "You're unhappy all the time."

Harriet heard Hermione swallow loudly three times without speaking.

"Goodnight, Harriet," she said eventually, her voice almost steady. "I'll see you in the morning."

Then she turned back around, picked up her quill, and bent over her books again.

Harriet climbed into bed and pulled her hangings shut. Hermione's light glowed like a halo through the dark velvet at the foot of her bed.

It felt like a long time that Harriet lay listening to Hermione's scritch-scratching quill and her sniffs. As Harriet drifted into sleep, she wondered if Snape would know what to say to a crying girl friend, since he'd been friends with her mum.

\--

Remus checked the Map every morning, noon, and night, and periodically throughout the day. It was night now, and the ghostly sliver of the moon, at this time almost swallowed by its own shadow, glinted on the snow and the window glass. Piles of marking cast long shadows across his desk in the candlelight.

So far, he'd found nothing, but he wasn't surprised. (And perhaps it was just as well during the day—he could hardly go running off to confront a mass murderer five minutes before his next class was due.) It was often difficult to pick out people on the Map unless you knew exactly where they were or if they spent a great deal of time alone in isolated locations. Common rooms tended to be a black mass of tangled names, impossible to distinguish. Between bells, the corridors writhed with streams of ink.

But Sirius had to have sent this to him. It was the only explanation.

Why would Sirius want to be found? (Could Animagi get into the Gryffindor girls' dorms?)

Sirius could be trying to get Remus to come to him and thereby put him in some kind of trap. Under Voldemort's tutelage, Sirius could have learnt Dark spells to compel werewolves. They existed, Remus knew they did. A simple Imperius wouldn't work on him. Others had tried—close friend of the Potters, use that shabby Lupin, easy to get to them—and always failed.

Harriet had looked quite ill all day. Minerva had said she was sick over the weekend. Perhaps Severus had overworked her.

Remus didn't really think so, but something—odd—was going on there. He hadn't found an explanation for it, nor any simple solution that would stop it prickling at his mind, the mental equivalent of a pebble in his shoe. Nothing seemed to fit from what he knew and had observed. But, he'd learned patience over the years. Waiting each month for all your bones to break had that effect on a person. He would wait and see.

He glanced at the Map one more time before he wiped it clean to head to bed. The candles were burning low, causing even the words on the tattered, beloved old parchment to cast their own shadows.

And just before his wand touched the parchment and he whispered Mischief managed, he saw it, in the tunnel to the Whomping Willow.

Sirius Black.

The world around him seemed to break apart and drift away, as if he and it were separated on an endless black ocean.

Sirius Black

Sirius

It was as he stared at the tiny dot moving slowly down the tunnel that he realized he'd never had the slightest intention of telling anyone about Sirius. Even his arguments with himself had been the assertions of a self-denial so profound he hadn't even seen it till now.

He had always meant to keep Sirius Black for himself.

With one wordless swipe of his wand, he doused the candles. His office became absolutely dark around him, except for that faint, silver tint of the moon.

The Map in hand, he ran from the room, headed toward that tunnel and that solitary dot.


	33. Old Acquaintence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the saying "Doubt is a pain too lonely..." is from Khalil Gibran.

Remus had wiped the Map clean and stuffed it in his pocket to hurtle mindlessly through the castle, which, as things turned out, was not the best of approaches. In that state of incriminating disarray, he almost plowed straight into Snape.

Even at the time, his heart jolted with the near-miss.

Making his quick way downward, he was so distracted that he passed over the proper moving staircase; he had to step off on the first floor and rush down an alternate stair pretending to be an empty drop into nothing. Just before he skidded around the corner into the main foyer, he heard the rustle of a cloak on stone.

Snape, the functioning part of his brain supplied, recognizing the complete absence of footfalls. Remus had noticed before that Snape must wear soft-soled shoes, because you never heard him stepping.

Slowing, Remus drew himself back against the wall and peered round the corner.

It was Snape, looking as menacing as ever in the torchlight. He had on a thick traveling cloak and was pulling on a pair of gloves.

Where was he going, so late in the evening?

There was no telling, but it seemed to be for a prolonged walk. A moment later he'd swung open one of the main doors and slipped out, pulling it shut behind him. A moment after that, Remus saw the wood shimmer silver with the application of a spell.

Of course Snape would want to know who went outside after him.

Well. . . Remus didn't have to take that door. There was more than one way onto the grounds.

\--

The world outside was all silver and black; the endless night sky, tangling with the trees, and the fields of snow, the moon reflecting of the towers that rose behind Remus. The paths down to the forest were frozen over. The entire world was silent.

The Whomping Willow stirred as he drew near. He raised his wand to levitate a stick into the knothole—but the tree suddenly froze, arrested without his help.

_Sirius_

All the thoughts wiped blank from his mind, except for those three syllables, that name, isolated, he lit his wand.

A pair of golden eyes flashed in the darkness, and he almost ceased to breathe.

But it was a cat. An enormous, squat-faced, ginger cat. It gave him a look of unmistakable feline superiority and vanished into the darkness beneath the roots.

And once the cat had gone, the tree's upper branches began to shiver. Remus quickly levitated the branch, paralyzed the tree, and slipped beneath the roots, sliding down through muddy snow.

The smell of earth and ice was almost overpowering. He didn't see the cat.

He put his wand out. He couldn't crawl with it in his hand, and sticking the light between his teeth would only serve to blind him.

He knew this tunnel the way he knew the Map, besides.

For ages he crawled, until he saw the vague lightening patch at the end that would bring him above ground. Hoisting himself out of the hole, into the dusty, broken, derelict house, he might have passed fifteen years through time.

There were paw prints in the dust. Small ones, presumably belonging to a cat, and larger ones.

Belonging to a dog.

The imprints padded across the floor, up the stairs to the second storey, then down the hall to a room where Remus knew a shredded, decaying bed lay.

The house was almost silent but not quite. It was filled with the creak of the walls, shifted by the wind. The groan of the floorboards where he stepped. The pulse of his heartbeat in his ears. The rasp of his breath.

Did he feel calm? Did he feel nothing? Or was this an emotion so new and foreign that he couldn't even name it?

When he pushed open the door at the end of the hall, he saw a patch of ginger in the gloom: the cat, sitting on the bed next to the black dog he thought he'd prepared for, but now found he hadn't prepared anywhere near enough.

Padfoot.

_Sirius_

The dog looked up at him. The cat stood, arching its back and flexing its claws out. Then it sat, curling its tail about its feet, and began washing itself.

The dog didn't move. It just looked at Remus, while the cat tried to wash the back of its own neck. The house groaned and his heart beat, hard.

This was. . .

. . . not how Remus had imagined this going.

A thousand possible openings flashed through his mind, quick as a lightning storm; some inappropriately humorous (when did you get a cat), some questions he'd been keeping for twelve years (how could you have done it how could you have left), even some spells that would (avada). . .

But when he heard his own voice, all it said, all it half-whispered, was, "Padfoot."

And as if that word had been the spell he'd uttered, the dog changed into a man.

Remus' first thought was _He doesn't look at all like Sirius._ This man standing in front of him looked like the man in the WANTED posters, not like Sirius. Remus had seen that picture plenty of times, in the newspapers and on every surface in Hogsmeade that could be given up to it; but the dead-eyed face had so little resembled the man he had known that he could easily turn his mind away from it. It was easy to think _There's the man who killed Lily and James_ but it was never quite Sirius; _that man_ might be a murderer, a traitor to Remus and James and Lily and Peter and Harriet, but he wasn't Sirius. . .

Remus couldn't stop thinking: Sirius' face is handsome, full of laughter, a kind of sharp laughter, sometimes, that can darken quickly to anger, but laughter nonetheless; it's not gaunt, skeletal skin stretched tight over bone, dark hollows around the eyes and mouth, haunted, grim; his hair is thick and shining, not this matted, colorless tangle; he stands casual and proud, almost arrogant, not hunched and wary and half-feral. . .

 _Why should he be wary of me?_ he wondered distantly.

Remus stared at—this stranger. The stranger stared at Remus.

 _Kill him_ , whispered a voice inside Remus, perhaps the voice of his conscience or something altogether darker. _Every second you leave him alive you're betraying them, you're endangering her. . ._

He couldn't even think her name, that poor, sweet child.

_This isn't Sirius, it's their murderer, you've told yourself this, and here he is in front of you; you've satisfied your curiosity, you've answered the question; Sirius is gone, this is all that's left. . ._

"Waiting for me to talk first?"

Remus saw the man's lips move, but that voice didn't sound like Sirius' any more than the face resembled his. It was rasping and hoarse, worse than Remus' after the full, not deep and resonant and rife with Muggle swear words.

Remus only continued staring at him. Something flickered—not in the man's eyes, because they were nearly sunken in deep hollows—but in the ravages of his face.

"Did you ever imagine what it'd be like?" said the-man-who-was-not-Sirius in the voice-that-was-not-Sirius's, and it struck Remus that this man did not sound mad at all. Azkaban was supposed to drive you out of your mind, but these were not the words of a madman. He sounded quite sane, all things considered. . .

 _Kill. Him,_ whispered that voice again. _It's what you should do. Or bring him to be Kissed—_

But everything inside him recoiled from that thought.

The man's face flickered again.

"You didn't see him on the Map, did you," he asked, his croaking voice carrying currents of emotion—resignation and menace. "The fucking _coward_ got out of it."

The return to swearing was as soothing as the context was bewildering, and it was that which made Remus finally find his voice. "What?"

"Peter."

The shadow that fell across the man's face was chilling. It was closer to what Remus had expected to find, rather than this. . . understated grief, and for a moment, almost for that moment, he could have been. . .

"Crookshanks told me the bloody fucking rat got away not two hours ago."

"Crookshanks?" Remus said, revising his estimate of this man's mental state.

"The cat, Moony."

Remus looked at the cat, which had tucked itself into a meatloaf position and appeared to be napping.

"The cat. . . told you Peter. . . what?" _Have you forgotten you blasted Peter into so many pieces they only ever found his finger?_

Perhaps he'd gone so long without confronting anybody about anything that he couldn't do it even in these circumstances.

The man swore, a half-muttered string of creative filth that rose in volume here and there, and he stalked to the left of the bed and then back again. In this moment, at least, he looked fully Azkaban-mad. The cat—Crookshanks—slitted its yellow eyes open and watched him pace.

He fumbled at the tatters of clothing he was wearing. Remus gripped his wand, but the man didn't notice.

"There," he croaked. "Look."

It was a piece of—paper? Remus cautiously floated it over to himself and then lit his wand. Newsprint. A half-page article with a photograph of people waving against a desert backdrop.

"These are the Weasleys," he said.

"The rat, look at the rat. On the boy's shoulder. . ."

Remus passed his wand-light over the paper until he found a boy—it was Ron—with, yes, a rat on his shoulder.

"It's Peter." The man's voice was gaining an urgent, half-desperate, yet still-menacing edge. "How many times did we see him transform? He's missing the last toe on his front paw. . ."

It was true. And the rat did look like Wormtail. . . plump and squat, it had the same slightly crooked muzzle. . .

"Peter wasn't missing a toe," Remus said slowly.

"He cut it off—when I cornered him—he left it behind, turned into a rat, left everyone to believe I'd blasted him to bits—"

 _The only piece they could find of him_ , Mrs. Pettigrew had sobbed over the box containing Peter's little finger. . .

The room tilted around Remus, but he gripped his wand and pressed his heels into the floor.

"Have you got the Map?" the man said, eying him almost desperately. "I had the cat bring it to you—so you could see—if you saw Peter—"

"Peter's dead," Remus said, the room tilting more sharply now; no amount of steadying himself would right it completely. "Like James—"

 _"He faked it!"_ For a second, the other man's face was absolutely mad—with fury, and with anguish— "He faked it twelve years ago and he's fucking done it again! Both times when I almost caught the fucking traitor—last time he cut off his own finger, this time he bit himself, left blood on the sheets, the cat's just told me—"

Remus was more convinced than ever that this was raving, but—why wasn't he attacking?

"Do you have the Map?" he broke off his rant to demand.

Remus was startled at being suddenly addressed. "You can't think I'm going to give it to you."

"I gave it to you!" His eyes were wild, burning in those hollow pits. "So you could see—I can smell him out, I can find him, I know exactly where he is—or I did, until the cowardly shit ran for it—the Map, Moony, we can find him on the Map, he's still got to be in the castle—"

"Sirius. . ." Remus wanted to pull at his own hair, or bury his face in his hands, or something; he hadn't meant to say the name, to validate—

But it was only more self-denial. He knew this was Sirius, the way he'd always known he'd never turn him in.

It was too much—all of it, everything—

And yet it wasn't more than he'd endured twelve years ago. It wasn't more than he'd lived through every day after that, for a long time.

"It wasn't me," Sirius said hoarsely, his face becoming even more haunted than before. "I wasn't their Secret Keeper. I changed with Peter—at the last minute—he was the double-agent—"

"What?"

"I. . ." Sirius' expression flickered again, with something that on a face less hollow might have been shame. "I thought. . . it was you. So I convinced. . . James was going to use me. . . but I told him to. . . I. . ."

The room remained tilted, and now Remus' head was spinning in the opposite direction. And then, with a wrenching jolt, they both stilled, at such an angle that he was utterly disorientated, though he could see everything clearly.

"You thought I was the spy."

Sirius' face flickered again, and he nodded, the movement almost imperceptible.

"And that I'd tell Voldemort you would be the key to finding Lily and James."

Sirius dropped his eyes and nodded again. His hands were clenched into fists, his tendons standing out as harsh as bone.

"So you convinced them to make Peter their Secret Keeper. . . and it turned out Peter was the spy all along."

Sirius lowered his head. If it was a performance, it was a good one.

A very, very good one.

"That's what you're saying, at least," Remus said calmly.

"It's what happened, Moony," he rasped. When Remus didn't reply, Sirius raised his head, his eyes burning in the hollows of his face. "Look at the Map," he urged. "It never lies, you know it doesn't. . ."

"You helped make it," Remus said. "You could have enchanted it."

"No I couldn't have," Sirius asked, sounding normal again, looking almost exasperated. "You know it needs all—all four of us to change anything."

That was the truth. Remus hadn't forgotten, but to hear him say it, to hear his voice breaking on the words _all four of us. . ._

"You want me to believe you're here to kill Peter," he said, still calmly, "and not. . ." But he still couldn't say her name—

 _Every second you leave him alive, you're betraying her,_ whispered that voice again; and once again, everything inside him recoiled.

Sirius' gaunt, not-himself face was grief-stricken. "I'm not here to kill Holly-berry," he said, his voice so hoarse Remus' own throat ached in sympathy. "I've seen her. . . she's grown up so much. . . she's. . . she thinks I'm a dog. She calls me Snuffles. . . brings me food."

Remus was stunned. Then, with sudden and almost paralyzing force, rage boiled up inside him. Sirius must have seen it, because his face flashed with alarm and he threw his hands out, palms facing Remus, and dropped to his knees. It was an ancient pose of surrender, something pure-blood children of his class learned along with their genealogy charts and table manners (Sirius had had told them years ago, sneering). Remus had never even imagined him doing that, supplicating—

"Get up," Remus said, breathing harshly. "Get UP."

"I've got proof," Sirius croaked. "Proof she really—don't hex, all right?—Dobby."

If Sirius hadn't said _don't hex_ , Remus surely would have let something fly at the startling CRACK! that followed. A house-elf, dressed in an odd assortment of clothes, appeared on the dusty floor between them.

"What is Harriet Potter's Snuffles needing of Dobby?" the elf squeaked. Then he saw Remus, and his tennis-ball-sized eyes widened liked he'd received an electric shock. He jumped between Remus and Sirius, almost like he was trying to act as a shield. "Professor Lupin is being here! Harriet Potter's Snuffles must hide!"

"Don't worry, mate, I saw him," Sirius said.

Remus eyed Dobby with suspicion. Under very different circumstances, he would have been amused to note the elf was doing the same to him.

"How do I know that's not really Kreacher?" he asked, while the name Dobby kicked at him in its familiarity.

"You know, Moony, it'd really be a help if you were a stuffy old inbred pure-blood," Sirius said, his croaky voice rather unsteady, "not a genetically sound half-blood. Then you'd know this is Narcissa and Lucius' old elf. Holly-berry freed him last year, he works in the Hogwarts kitchens now. Just ask her, she'll tell you," and if there was a pulse of urgency in his voice, Remus couldn't be surprised.

"Harriet Potter is the greatest, kindest, noblest witch ever to live!" Dobby asserted, his little face shining with rapt devotion. "She is freeing Dobby and saving Hogwarts from the evil monster of Salazar Slytherin, that Master Malfoy is releasing—"

He broke off, his eyes going even wider than before, and with an ear-wrangling cry of " _Bad Dobby_!" he hurled himself at the bed's foot-board.

Remus was too startled to react, but Sirius grabbed him before he could make contact, with the air of someone who had done this before. Crookshanks, disturbed from his perch, leapt to the floor, hissing.

"Thank you, Harriet Potter's Snuffles, sir," said Dobby weakly.

"I need you to tell Moony what Holly—Harriet told you to do," Sirius said, his eyes flicking between the elf and Remus. "About Snuffles."

"What is Moony, Harriet Potter's Snuffles, sir?"

"He means me," Remus said gently.

Dobby stood to attention, facing Remus. "Harriet Potter is saying to Dobby that she is needing him to look after someone-who-is-really-a-dog for her. She is asking Dobby to be bringing food to Snuffles and to see that he is being well, for it is being very cold outside. She says Snuffles is being her dog for many months now." He beamed.

Sirius was giving Remus a pleading look. Remus scrubbed his hand over his eyes, in part to avoid having to endure that expression.

"Did you find Wormtail?" Sirius asked Dobby, whose ears wilted.

"Dobby is trying, Harriet Potter's Snuffles, sir, but the Youngest Boy-Weasley is keeping his rat close because of the Hermy-own's cat." He nodded at Crookshanks; Remus blinked.

"Do you mean Hermione?" he asked.

Dobby nodded so vigorously his ears flapped. "That is the name, Professor Lupin, sir!"

"He got away," Sirius was snarling to himself, sounding quite mad again. "He got—little shit—not you, Dobby. Remus, please. The Map."

Sirius hadn't called him Remus until now. He'd always been "Moony" except for very private moments. Was it manipulation or a slip of the tongue?

But Sirius had never been manipulative. . . he hadn't had the subtlety or the patience. . . of them all, that had been. . .

Remus pulled the Map slowly from his pocket. He saw the yearning and the grief that suffused Sirius' skeletal face at the sight of it. 

Looking away again, Remus said clearly, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Sirius passed a shaking hand over his face, pausing for a long moment with it held over his eyes, while the inky trails of the Map bloomed in Remus' hands.

"Find him," Sirius croaked.

Dobby was watching them anxiously, even a bit awkwardly. Remus wanted to ask him to leave, but at the same time he felt a strange comfort in his presence.

Looking down at the Map, he saw Harriet's dot high in the Gryffindor girls' tower. His heart clenched at the sight of her name.

_This might be your only chance, whispered that voice again._

_If he's telling the truth, then Harriet has been alone with him many times and come to no harm. . ._

_IF he's telling the truth. Have you any solid evidence?_

_The house-elf—_

_He could have told it to lie. House-elves are madly devoted to their masters, and you never met Kreacher._

_Kreacher was old. He's probably dead by now._

_Any house-elf might have greater loyalty to a scion of the House of Black than to a half-blood girl._

He forced his attention back to the Map.

The longer he searched through the little black dots and along the inky stretches of the corridors without seeing what he sought, the further his heart sank. It had almost begun to make sense. . . more sense than what he'd always been told. . . and yet. . .

It was like a second loss, almost as cruel as the first.

"I don't see him." And his voice was hard.

Sirius' face flickered with disbelief and something that was nearly fear.

"Let me see it," he said urgently, his claw-like hand shaking as he held it out. "Let me see—"

"Absolutely not."

"Christ on a fucking bike, Moony, I know where Holly-berry sleeps, in the bleeding Gryffindor girls' tower on the highest floor. I'd never—" He looked at Remus, hard, an aching, burning look. "If you think I'd hurt that baby, you ought to kill me right now."

Dobby trembled but made no noise. The Malfoys had trained him well, Remus thought with acidic bitterness.

Remus stared down at the still-kneeling Sirius, who gazed unflinchingly back.

"Is that what you want?" Remus asked coldly.

"Christ fucking no," said Sirius. "But it's what you should do."

It was such a Sirius-answer, it almost broke Remus' heart. "You know I don't have the courage to do that."

Sirius looked startled, and then half-ashamed. Of Remus?

"Merlin, Sirius," Remus whispered, as pieces of his heart broke inside him, one by one, like the full moon snapping his bones in slow-motion. "What am I supposed to do with this? If you're telling the truth and I—" no, no, no "—but if you're lying. . ."

"I don't know." Sirius shook his head, looking so helpless Remus could almost convince himself that this really was someone else entirely. "I. . . I couldn't figure out a way even to try convincing you, until I found the Map—"

"How did you?"

"Holly-berry had it. I've no idea where she bloody got it, but I saw she had it and I had Crookshanks steal it—I had him bring it to you, because the Map doesn't lie, it can't be enchanted without. . . I didn't realize the boy was leaving for Christmas and taking Peter with him. . . so I stayed out of sight while he was gone, so you wouldn't see me without seeing him. . . I thought. . . I thought, sometimes, you might think to look at the Shack, so I stayed in the Forest for a while, until it got too bloody fucking cold. . . and after Hallowe'en. . . and none of the secret entrances or anything got boarded up, I figured you were keeping quiet about me, though I couldn't bloody guess why. . ."

"Couldn't you?" Remus asked bitterly, and then wished he hadn't.

Sirius actually looked away. "I thought you'd want me dead," he said quietly, after a long pause, so quietly Remus almost missed it over the creak and groan of the house.

Remus considered and discarded a thousand replies. "That would make more sense," he said at last.

Sirius looked back at him. The desperate, yearning hope in his face threatened to break Remus' heart all over again.

"Do you believe me?" he asked.

It was Remus' turn to look away from him. He looked at Dobby (good Merlin, was he still there?), at the cat, at the Map, and finally back at Sirius.

He took a steadying breath. "I. . ."

\--

The streets were dark and cold, as inhospitable as the bright lights in the windows. Unseen and uninteresting out in the dirty snow, he passed by many faces laughing and talking and drinking, until he reached the plain, unmarked door that was even less interesting than himself.

Narcissa and her posh restaurants, Severus thought. He instinctively reviled any place where the waiters were better-dressed than himself.

At least Hogwarts' professors were accorded decent treatment everywhere in Hogsmeade; even ones as sour as Severus, who came in with muddy shoes and robes powdered with snow.

The restaurant was private, open only to invitation, and blessedly quiet inside. He was early. The waiter brought him a glass of cognac, and he accepted it without the smallest intention of drinking.

He pretended to relax next to the fire, though he certainly didn't really. Taking out a book—people only sat staring into the fire when they had something on their mind—he settled into a pretense of turning the pages at even intervals; the pace at which he really did read. He'd long since timed himself and made a habit of counting down in his head for situations like these, when he wanted to seem preoccupied with a book while he thought about something else entirely. He even moved his eyes from side to side and down the page.

He always used a book he'd read before so that he could answer questions if asked. The need had never come up, but for all his mental discipline, Severus had never mastered the art of being less than totally paranoid. If anything, he was disgusted that everyone was so uncritical that they believed he was reading just because his eyes were moving and his hands were turning pages.

He was trying to quell a persistent feeling that he'd been. . . followed. No, not followed, but—something. Something had been amiss. He'd felt it around the time he'd entered or left the entrance hall and not been able to shake it off. Even now it niggled at him, preventing him from absorbing a word of his book, though he knew exactly what page 157 was about.

Narcissa turned up seventeen minutes past the time she'd appointed, by which time Severus had been fake-reading for forty-three minutes and flipped through fifty pages without taking in a word. Although the lane outside was slushy and dirty, Narcissa looked as impeccable as ever. She shrugged off a spotless, ermine-lined cloak, matching gloves and hat, and joined Severus beside the fire. Like all pure-bloods of her class, Narcissa believed that dinners were meant to last for three hours at the least.

But Severus liked the little parlor. The head of a stag hung over the mantle—the form of James Potter's Patronus.

"Severus," Narcissa greeted. She never said "good evening" or anything similarly inane. It was one of the reasons the two of them got on. Lupin's and Dumbledore's little pleasantries grated on his nerves almost as much as Harriet Potter's snarky little comebacks.

"Haven't I seen you reading that before?" Narcissa twitted him as she took the armchair across from his.

"Some things may be enjoyed repeatedly," Severus said smoothly. "You notice something a little different with each new pass."

Narcissa accepted a blanc-cassis from the waiter. "Even in Muggle novels?"

She had certainly not requested he come down from Hogwarts to chat about Muggle novels, which she had not the slightest interest in; but any truly good Slytherin was patient, and although Severus despised having to be patient, he'd had cause to learn how. (If only he could pound it into Draco's head to do the same.) Narcissa was patient by nature as well as by design, and so Severus let her carry the conversation through her aperitifs beside the fire, down the carpeted halls to the private supper-room where hors d'oeuvres were served on a white-clothed table next to another fire, and throughout the multiple-course dinner. They had come there to talk about something very specific and dangerous, and they both knew that the more dangerous the idea, the greater vigilance one must observe at the safest moment to voice it. Pretty good safety would not do; it must be absolute. Each knew how unlikely it was that the waiters should be interested in their chat, or political enough to pose any probable threat; but when the price for laxity was high, it did not do to be lax at all.

It wasn't until the digestifs were served and the waiters sent off that Narcissa finally referred to the letter she'd sent him by owl at dusk.

"Have you—felt anything?"

"No." _But you must know that. Lucius and I will have the same reaction._ His mark was still as faded as it had been when Dumbledore asked the same question two summers past.

She tapped one fingernail on the table, and then stopped herself. "It is overanxious of me, I know. If. . . He. . . were to return, more than my cousin would have been freed. And yet. . ."

 _Draco_ , Severus supplied.

Her clear, light eyes searched his face. He'd known her long enough to detect the almost invisible traces of a plea. "You truly have heard nothing?"

"You would have heard more than I," he said, forbearing yet again to tell her about Quirrell.

"You are stuck minding the children," she said, "and I with the women. Drawing-room gossip and trousseaux—"

"Assignments and staff-room gossip are equally fatuous, I assure you."

"But your theory about that half-blood wastrel at Hogwarts, that he and my cousin were. . .?" Narcissa let the implication trail off delicately in her distaste.

"Black got out of Azkaban and into Hogwarts once already. How did he manage either, without help? Lupin was a free man when Black escaped, and a professor here when Black broke in—"

"Severus," Narcissa said in a soft, sharp voice as their cups began to rattle, independently of the table—which had also begun to shake.

He breathed evenly out, trying to banish the ways he'd like to rid the school of Lupin. But his usual breathing exercises didn't work; he was too angry; he'd been too angry for too long. He stood and paced, wishing the room were larger or his own, so that he could break things.

"The Headmaster doesn't believe you?" Narcissa pressed. "Don't you have his trust?"

"The Headmaster believes that people deserve second chances." He only treats them well if the transgressors hail from Gryffindor. "It feeds his assertions of his own goodness."

This conversation was getting him too bloody worked up. Measures more drastic than pacing were called for.

He regarded a rather twee porcelain statuette of a shepherdess stashed on the mantle. Then he picked it up and smashed it.

"Any improvement?" Narcissa asked, with a delicate disregard for this open display of emotion.

"No," he said, and broke one of the porcelain sheep.

"Dumbledore appears to be very sanguine about it all." Narcissa reached across the table and took Severus' untouched glass of limoncello for herself. "What does he do, with my cousin escaped and seeking his precious savior child? I've not seen that he has done anything, except for posting those monstrous creatures within arm's reach of our children."

"He doesn't tell me everything," Severus said, wishing he didn't feel so damned bitter about it.

In fact, Dumbledore had told him very little about anything this year. Ever since their quarrel in the summer, when Dumbledore had wanted to send the girl back to her Muggle relatives without telling her the truth and Severus had shouted and smashed things in his office, the old man had been oddly. . . distant. It was a cordial distance, half-abstracted, but Severus had felt it.

He didn't repent his temper—it had gained him his point, and the girl hadn't been left with those _Dursleys_ —but it grated to be put aside for venting his spleen while Lupin, who concealed everything, was welcomed with complaisance. It appalled him to be snubbed, however gently, for caring whether Harriet Potter lived or died, while Lupin would sit back and let Black have her because he'd loved him, once.

Dumbledore wouldn't even hear the theory, but Severus was convinced that Lupin still loved Black. Perhaps Black was free only now because it had taken the werewolf twelve years to break him out of Azkaban, and then Black was so fixated on killing Harriet Potter that Lupin permitted him the attempt.

Every time Severus thought it, the theory made him want to laugh; a bitter laugh, half mad, because it did seem like raving—and he never laughed, besides—but if it had been him. . . if that had been Lily in Azkaban—no matter what she'd done, he'd have found some way to free her, even if it had meant taking her place. If her first thought upon walking free had been to kill someone, he'd have helped.

And she hadn't even loved him back. If she had, the limits to what he'd have done. . .

He couldn't imagine any.

If Black had loved Lupin in return. . .

How was Harriet Potter still alive?

It frightened him, not knowing.

He reached out and smashed the porcelain lamb, leaving the mantle empty.

\--

Harriet felt well enough in the morning that she decided to save Snape's black-bottle potion for another day (or month, even). Hermione, the masochist, refused to skive off Divinations to take an extra hour's sleep, but at least in the watery morning light she didn't look like she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

Still, Harriet had a decision to make.

"What do you think?" she heard Lavender ask Parvati while she considered. "The pink today, or the lavender?"

Harriet held up a hank of her hair, measuring the length in the mirror. No, that was a bit too short. . .

"The lavender won't go with the shade of pink I'm wearing," Parvati said. "We don't want to clash. . ."

That looked about right. She liked it when it was just a bit below her chin. Not so short it looked anything like a boy's hair, but not too long.

"Should I take Rudimentary Runology to breakfast or come back and get it at lunch?" Hermione muttered to herself. "And swap it out for Arthimantic Arithmatic. . ."

Harriet rooted in her dresser drawer and found her scissors. She squeezed them open and shut a couple of times to make sure they wouldn't stick, then raised them to her hair and cut off a large chunk of it. It dropped to the floor. She grabbed another hank, measured and cut that off, too.

She'd worked most of the way around her head before anybody noticed. When Parvati shrieked, she almost chopped her own ear off.

"HARRIET! What are you doing?!"

"Your hair!" Lavender cried. "Oh, Morgana!"

"It was driving me mad." Harriet brushed some tufts off her shoulder and snipped off the final bit of hair. Now at least she'd be able to get a brush through it. She fluffed it out a few times. "That's better."

When she turned around, Parvati and Lavender were wearing appalled looks, their hands over their mouths, and Hermione was holding Rudimentary Runology in one hand and Arithmantic Arithmatic in the other, and looking thoughtful.

"You can't really tell if it's uneven or not," she said. "With all the cowlicks."

"It looks awful!" Parvati said, shuddering.

"It always looks awful, though," said Lavender, almost like she was trying to be helpful.

"Thanks very much," Harriet said.

It turned out Hermione was right: Harriet's hair was always so messy that you couldn't tell she'd cut it herself with a pair of cheap Muggle scissors. No one commented on it all day—though Snape did glance at her and Hermione's table in Potions several times. It was noticeable because he normally ignored them completely, unless Hermione was getting on his nerves.

Professor Lupin was acting odd, too. He passed out group assignments (four to a group, and one of the four had a secret assignment to be the vampire, while the others' task was to figure them out and accurately defeat them), and while they worked on detecting each other and attacking with strategic cloves of fake garlic, he stared off into space. He would respond normally to questions, smiling and speaking calmly, but when no one needed him, he'd lapse into. . . abstraction? Was that the word?

As they were packing up, he asked Harriet if she might stay behind.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked once everyone had charged away to dinner. "Professor McGonagall told me you'd been ill over the weekend."

At least she didn't seem to have told him in what way. "I'm fine, thanks."

"I hope it wasn't from getting out in the snow to take care of your dog," he said lightly.

Harriet twitched. But he was smiling, his eyebrows raised.

"No," she said carefully. "Wasn't that."

"But you do have a dog," he said, like he was half-asking. "Don't worry—it's not an interrogation. My lips are sealed. I only wanted to make sure you were minding what you were doing. Even the fringes of the Forest are a dangerous place."

Harriet nodded along. She wasn't going to tell him about Dobby.

"It seems a rough week for pets," Professor Lupin went on. "I heard Ron lost his rat."

"Scabbers." She nodded again. Her newly short hair tickled her neck. "He's. . . erm, upset. He'd had him for twelve years or something. I'd be upset losing Hedwig and I've only had her for three. . ."

"Yes," Professor Lupin said after a strange pause, smiling oddly. "We all get attached." Another pause, and then he said, in a strange voice, "Losing someone is always sudden, whether they're quite old and declining, or it's entirely unexpected."

"Scabbers wasn't that old, really. Well, for a rat, maybe—but he always looked really healthy. Fat—he slept a lot, except for one time when he bit Goyle for us. But then he fell right back asleep."

Professor Lupin got a very odd look on his face, but his voice sounded quite normal now. "Then how did he—?"

"Crookshanks—that's Hermione's cat—ate him. Well, that's what Ron said. We didn't actually see it. . . but Crookshanks has been after him for months, and Ron found blood and cat hairs on his sheets. It's odd," she went on, "because other students have cats and you never hear of them eating other people's familiars, but Crookshanks has been after Scabbers since they first met."

Professor Lupin seemed to be thinking about something else. Harriet would have been put out—weren't they having a conversation? a conversation he'd started?—except then he looked at her almost like he'd seen a ghost.

He said, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. About your parents. Knowing them, that is."

Harriet was startled, but only for a moment; then she felt an anxious, desperate hope. Was he going to say something now? She held absolutely still, not daring even to nod, in case it should put him off what was on the tip of his tongue.

"It's difficult," he said, his eyes flicking here and there, leaving her face and then returning. It was like he wanted to keep eye contact but couldn't help looking away, and kept forcing himself to look back. "To talk about. . . what happened. Even the fact that I knew them. I. . . never was able to do it. Even with people who knew them, too."

He smiled again, but it seemed to battle with the rest of his face.

"The safe deposit box has your mother's jewelry in it. And some that belonged to your grandmother. Not really pieces appropriate for a thirteen-year-old girl to wear to school—I can't imagine Professor McGonagall letting them pass dress code inspection—but there might be something in there for you. . . or you just might like to have them. I thought."

Harriet's throat felt very tight.

"Thanks," she said hoarsely. "I'll send off for it."

He nodded, smiling rather oddly, and clicked his briefcase shut. Taking that as a signal, she left, but slowly. She didn't feel very hungry, all of a sudden.

Though she'd go down to dinner anyway. She wondered if Hermione would know how to write a letter to Gringott's.

\--

Remus had thought he'd go mad, waiting the whole day to talk to Harriet, but after she was gone he was grateful that her class was his last of the afternoon. Whether she'd confirmed Sirius' assertions (and good God, she had) or debunked them, his head would have been too full to concentrate properly on his lessons. He'd barely managed it while wondering what she would say.

She had a dog (he hadn't been able to figure out a way to ask her subtly or reasonably about the house-elf), and Ron had lost his rat, who had been in his family much longer than rats should even live. . . twelve years. . . the exact span of time that. . .

What Sirius had claimed, Harriet had just innocently corroborated.

Remus' head ached. He dropped it in his hands.

It wasn't proof. The only complete truth would be Peter, and all those years ago they had deliberately enchanted the Map not to show a person's location on command. They'd had ideas of Snape stealing it in particular, and hadn't wanted him to be able to find them so easily. And without James and Peter, Remus and Sirius couldn't alter the Map in any way. Even a new map of a similar kind was likely beyond the two of them; the enchantments woven into Hogwarts' foundations had been so powerful that it had taken all their ingenuity and combined power to coax their way around them (and even so, they'd never been able to penetrate to the dungeons). Remus' powers had increased since he was fifteen, but Sirius said Azkaban had rendered his abilities so erratic that with a wand he might blow himself up trying to light a fire.

Remus would look into Locating Charms, but he had a feeling most of them wouldn't work at Hogwarts.

_So you've decided you believe him, then._

Was it Conscience or that dark voice?

He couldn't even tell them apart.

"Doubt," he muttered to his silent, empty classroom, "is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother."

He didn't know which of the brothers was uppermost in his heart. He hoped to be right and feared being wrong; he wanted to trust Sirius; but either Sirius was a traitor or he hadn't trusted Remus all those years ago. . . and the truth was that Remus did not blame Sirius for not trusting him, when Remus had never trusted himself.


	34. All Schooldays' Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -"As your best friend / you can't use that for another year" is not exactly like the exchange between Joey and Chandler in Friends, but it's close enough.
> 
> -The title of this chapter, "All Schooldays' Friendship," is from Shakespeare.

After a halfhearted dinner, during which Harriet didn't see Hermione at all (and Ron was still so surly and bad-tempered that only Neville would sit with him), Harriet headed down, once again, to see Snape. She was rather used to the walk by now: down the dark stone stairs, along the cold corridor, with the drip, drip, drip of water unseen somewhere nearby.

She was early, so Snape made her sit quietly while he finished up some marking. Harriet took the opportunity to examine his jars. Each had something different and disgusting-looking floating in it. Were they his hobby, or part of some strange sense of humor? His private rooms looked perfectly normal. He even had lamps there.

That's Other Snape-space, Harriet thought. This is Teacher Snape-space.

She sneaked a glance at him. She didn't think it was just the lighting that made him look worse than usual. He never looked healthy, but Hermione was giving Harriet a decent experience with people who overworked themselves to exhaustion. Hermione's hair was frazzled like mad these days, and Snape's was stringier than ever. Hermione looked on the verge of tears, and Snape looked like he'd cut your throat with a quill. And Harriet couldn't recall seeing him at meals any time recently, either.

She had an extremely silly vision of herself trying to make Snape stop marking and take some dinner. It would be really brave—maybe the last thing she'd ever do.

At 6:00 exactly, Snape piled his marking into a leather folio and stuffed the whole thing in a drawer. Then he turned his cold, unfriendly eyes on her.

"I have informed Asteria Greengrass that she will be meeting with you alone," he said in his cold, unfriendly voice. "Her sister Daphne is also aware of this fact, but she will attempt to shoehorn her way into these sessions nonetheless. You will not allow it. Not the first time, nor in any subsequent meeting."

"Why not?" Harriet was trying not to be too obvious about looking at the jar over Snape's left shoulder. Was that an eyeball floating in it?

"Because," Snape glared, "the object of this experiment is to remove Asteria from the confines of her own isolation and force her into making new friends. I am beginning with you because as far my awareness extends, you are the only person aside from her sisters to have done her some positive good."

Snape hesitated, if you could call it that. He had an abrupt way of pausing, like he was stomping on his silences.

"Do not mention her sister's wedding. It will upset her, and you will get nowhere if she spends the whole first meeting in tears."

Harriet was starting to feel alarmed again. The floating eyeball wasn't helping. "Would that really happen?"

"It may," he said unhelpfully. "She is extremely sensitive."

"I don't want to make her cry."

"Then don't mention the wedding," he said, even more unhelpfully. "Or her home in Cornwall."

"Have you got a list of safe topics?" Harriet asked, not entirely being sarcastic. Maybe only forty-eight percent.

"No." Snape's look said he knew exactly what percentage of sarcasm she had used. It was a look that had a lot in common with an executioner's axe. "I have reason to believe she goes to watch you at Quidditch."

Harriet blinked.

"The Gryffindor game was the only one she attended."

"She could've just been scared away by the Dementors," Harriet said. . . but she was thinking of a beautiful thank-you-get-well card that had turned up at the hospital wing with no signature.

"So, you know best," said Snape, with 102% sarcasm. "I exercised sound judgment in giving you this assignment, it would seem."

Harriet didn't know whether to blush, scowl, or roll her eyes. "Anything else?"

"Her sister Daphne is likely a safe topic."

"But I don't know Daphne."

"Do try to apply your brain to this assignment," Snape said, with the withering weariness he was known for. (Harriet didn't have any trouble scowling, then.) "Even a shade of the initiative you've displayed on the Patronus Charm would be a welcome change from this wide-eyed bumbling."

"You're not going to give me Patronus lessons again, are you?" she asked before she could lose her nerve. Or her temper.

"Miss Potter." She couldn't read his expression—well, beyond sneering and crotchety. "I am quite serious in saying that I have absolutely nothing I can teach you there. Whether in my office or in Surrey, you will have to master it on your own."

\--

Since Hermione hadn't been at dinner, Harriet went down to the kitchens after leaving Snape, to see about scrounging up a sandwich. The elves were only too happy to make her up a basket with a handkerchief over the top, stitched with the Hogwarts crest. Harriet wouldn't have been surprised to learn that one of them had embroidered it on the spot.

(Aunt Petunia would have despised house-elves. They outdid her in householdy things the way the sea outdid a bathtub. And one of these days, Harriet was really going to the sea, rather than having to be content with that twenty-foot mural painted on the wall of the Charms corridor.)

Dobby must have been feeding Snuffles because she didn't see him anywhere. So, waving good-bye to the house-elves, she lugged her dinner basket up to the Tower. House-elves apparently thought "sandwich" really meant "ten pounds of food."

Hermione was hunched over her dresser, looking miserable and exhausted.

"Look," Harriet said, hefting the basket in the mirror, in what she hoped was a tempting way. "Dinner."

"I'm fine," Hermione said vaguely, turning pages in her Arithmancy book. "I mean, I've been to dinner."

"No you haven't, because I was there and you weren't."

Hermione looked confused. "I. . . oh. Did I forget to go?"

This was an odd reply for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that Hermione never forgot things, ever.

"Don't make me write to your mum," Harriet said warningly. When Hermione only bit her lip, Harriet tried a different tack. "As your best friend, I command you to stop working and eat what I've brought you."

". . .Okay," Hermione smiled, "but you can't use the best friend card again for a whole year."

"Fair enough.

"D'you know how I'd go about asking Gringott's for that safe deposit box?" she asked as Hermione shoveled shepherd's pie into her mouth like Snuffles ate chicken.

"I donf." Hermione, her mouth full of pie, looked momentarily startled—perhaps by this lack of information in her head, or because her table manners were growing as bad as Ron's.

"I'll just ask Professor McGonagall," Harriet said quickly. "I asked Professor Lupin what was in it—he said my mum's jewelry. And some of my grandmum's. . ."

She wondered what her grandmother had been like. Which person had she been in the Mirror of Erised, two Christmases ago?

"Why would Professor Lupin know. . .?" Hermione asked.

"Oh." Harriet blushed to realize that in her miff the other day, she'd forgotten to tell Hermione anything about it. "He, er, he knew my parents. He. . . told me when I asked about the safe deposit box." And wasn't that the abridged version.

Hermione looked startled. "So he also knew Sirius Black?"

This hadn't occurred to Harriet. "I guess he did. . . he didn't mention that, either." Now she was growing annoyed with Professor Lupin again, and mostly confused. While very helpful in class, getting information from him on any other topic was like coaxing a toy away from Dudley.

And if Snape had known her mum. . . did that mean he'd known Sirius Black, too? He was as bad as Professor Lupin!

Hermione's surprise turned thoughtful as she switched from her shepherd's pie to dessert.

"He might not want to talk about it," she said slowly, digging into a lemon tart. "I mean," she blushed, "he might not want to talk about it because, if they all knew each other, then one of his friends killed the rest of his friends, and nearly killed you. If Professor Lupin knew your parents, he probably knew you as a baby. He would surely remember. . ." Her pale face went even paler. "It would be terrible."

I have trouble talking about them even with people who knew them, Professor Lupin had said.

And Harriet hadn't known them at all.

"I hate that everyone knew my parents and I don't," she said, half without meaning to, and then looked away.

Hermione blinked rapidly, the way she did when she was trying not to cry. Very carefully, she stacked her empty plates together and set them inside basket. As soon as she'd dropped the napkin in, too, everything, basket and all, disappeared with a faint pop!

"Let's go ask Professor McGonagall about Gringott's," Hermione said.

Harriet looked over her shoulder at Hermione's fortress of open books, sheaves of inky parchment and quills. "What about—?"

"It can wait," Hermione said.

\--

The rest of the week went much the same way. Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender all got their periods on Thursday, and Parvati was hopeful that by the next month, Harriet's first day would fall on the same day as theirs. She was full of happy preparations for her Divinations spell, which looked to be quite complex.

Ron and Hermione continued not speaking to each other, though at least without any rowing matches. Fred and George started up a betting ring on which of them would crack first, until Harriet yelled at them (when Hermione wasn't around), and Ginny threatened to write their mum.

Hermione fought to achieve new levels of studying masochism. Oliver Wood dragged the team onto the pitch, and Harriet spent her time hovering above the game on an ancient Shooting Star and dreaming of her Firebolt, which Professor Flitwick and Madam Hooch were still testing for jinxes.

With Professor McGonagall's uncharacteristically patient help, Harriet wrote to Gringott's requesting the Potter safe deposit box. Professor McGonagall said she would probably hear back within a month, though not much before.

The day of Harriet's first meeting with Asteria Greengrass loomed over the weekend. She'd almost rather disembowel another barrel of horned toads. At least if she cocked up there, the toads were already beyond earthly suffering. She couldn't escape the fear that she was somehow going to ruin Asteria's life.

She wondered if this was how Hermione felt every time a test was coming.

And Snape was like a ruddy unhelpful magical textbook.

"Why don't you ask the other teachers?" Hermione suggested, proving why she was the most brilliant witch in their year.

They had Herbology with Professor Sprout next, so Harriet decided to ask her first.

"Asteria Greengrass?" Professor Sprout asked as the rest of the class slogged across the snowy grounds towards lunch. "Why d'you want to know, Miss Potter?"

"Sn—Professor Snape wants me to get to know her," Harriet explained. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized how mental they sounded. Professor Sprout seemed to agree.

"Professor Snape?" she repeated, her eyebrows almost disappearing into her flyaway hair.

"Erm." Harriet squirmed. "In place of detentions."

"Hmm." Professor Sprout considered her. "You've asked him about the girl?"

Harriet didn't know how to tell another teacher that Snape was bloody unhelpful. "I think she's scared of him," she said as diplomatically as she could.

Professor Sprout's lips twitched. "Well, she's scared of most things, truth be told," she said, sounding rather diplomatic herself. "She gets along well enough with plants, though she can't stand doing group work. Too nervous. Afraid I can't tell you much more, Miss Potter. She keeps to herself."

At lunch, Harriet read to Hermione from her Arithmancy textbook while Hermione ate. It was going quite well until Ron said, in a carrying voice from his seat next to Neville, "It's a shame some people don't care as much about animals as they do about their grades."

Hermione froze. Her lip trembled, but she didn't burst into tears, at least. Instead, she pulled her textbook away from Harriet and left the table at a half-run.

As soon as she was gone, Harriet rounded on Ron. "What's the point of being such a fatheaded git?"

Ron's ears were already red, but they went, if possible, even redder. "She's acting like Scabbers just went on holiday!"

"And you're acting like she ate him herself," Harriet said angrily. "Why don't you grow up!"

Grabbing her bag, she stormed away, past the staff table and out of the Great Hall. She was rather early for Charms, but perhaps she could talk to. . .

"Professor Lupin?" she called to the only other person in the Entrance Hall. He turned quickly round from reaching for the handle on one of the front doors.

"Harriet," he said, bringing up a faint smile as he stepped away from the door. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," she lied, the quarrel with Ron still knotted in a little space beneath her heart. "I wanted to ask you. . ."

"Asteria?" Professor Lupin repeated when she'd explained, looking even more surprised than Professor Sprout had, though more curious. "I'm afraid I don't know her at all. She keeps so intensely to herself."

Harriet was going to nod and just give it up, but. . . looking at Professor Lupin's tired face, his clear, interested expression, she remembered Hermione saying, He probably knew you when you were a baby, and an urge rose in her. . .

"I don't want to say the wrong thing and make her cry," she blurted.

Professor Lupin blinked. "If you do," he said gently, "it will only be that she's so different from you, you couldn't have known what upset her. Then you only have to do what you usually would, when one of your friends is crying. I'm sure that's happened?"

Had it ever. "Hermione's having a bad year," Harriet admitted. I wish she'd just stop, I'm afraid she's going to make herself sick...

"Some people take on too much, and some people will do less for themselves the more other people do for them. It sounds as if Professor Snape thinks Asteria is the latter. Really, I think he made a good choice in assigning you to help her."

"He needed to give me detentions," Harriet mumbled, blushing. "I'm not any good at. . . emotions stuff. I never know what to do."

"Most of us don't. We blunder along, doing the best we can. You're very kindhearted—otherwise you wouldn't be worried about doing the wrong thing for her—and you've already helped Asteria once, at Hallowe'en. Professor McGonagall was quite proud of you."

His smile faded, while Harriet was so embarrassed she didn't know where to look.

"I can tell you," he said quietly, "that the other students treat Asteria very poorly."

"Why?" Harriet asked, her embarrassment taken over by indignation.

"She's different," Professor Lupin said. "She's afraid—and she's in Slytherin." Harriet thought a shadow passed over his face. "Any would do, but all together. . . And when someone is used to poor treatment, even a simple kindness can have a profound effect. . . Perhaps Professor Snape is thinking of that, as well. He might also be using your, ah, fame."

"Eh?"

"If you're seen being nice to Asteria, it might make others back off her," Professor Lupin explained. "It would be a very Slytherin design, all things considered."

Harriet thought about this and decided she was relieved. Although it was nice not to be treated the way she was in Little Whinging—like a sack of dung—her fame, as Professor Lupin called it, had always made her rather uncomfortable. If it helped Asteria Greengrass, then it would have bloody finally done something useful.

"Have you talked to her sister?" Professor Lupin said. "Daphne? They're very close. If you want an idea of Asteria before you meet, you might talk to Daphne."

Harriet felt like an idiot for not thinking of this before. That was one of the only things she knew about Asteria: she loved her sisters.

"But if I might suggest it," Professor Lupin went on, "I think it would be best to let Asteria tell you about herself. That might be one reason Professor Snape wouldn't tell you more about her." Like Professor Sprout, he twitched his lips. "I heard him talk about her in the staff room, back at the beginning of last term, and he really does know a great deal about her. Most of us prefer to tell our own stories rather than letting others speak for us. Asteria might not want to be put to the task, but it would do her a world of good."

Harriet nodded. "Thanks," she said sincerely, and went up to Charms, feeling very thoughtful. It wasn't until she was looking round outside the classroom for any sign of Hermione that she realized she'd entirely forgotten to ask Professor Lupin about knowing Sirius Black.

\--

Remus was still mulling over his conversation with Harriet when he set out to meet Sirius.

He'd arranged it for his free period, which fell right after lunch that day. With Snape sure to be on the watch, he had decided against walking the grounds at night. But Snape had his classes in the afternoons, and Remus, if questioned, could simply claim to be going for a midday walk. The weather wasn't all that fair—solidly overcast and frigid—but for a werewolf that hardly mattered.

As the rest of the school returned to its lessons, he circled the long way round the lake and meandered into the thin, pale trees on the farthest shore.

Sirius, as Padfoot, was waiting far too close to the lake's edge for Remus' comfort, but Remus wasn't surprised. You and your risks, he thought, not trusting himself to say it for fear his voice might break.

"Before you nag," Sirius said, in that hoarse, unfamiliar voice, "I was only wondering where you'd got to. Thought something might've happened."

"Something like 'it became too dangerous to meet'? Yes, that would make it a good idea to step out looking for me."

"Smug git," Sirius said without rancor. "You mentioned Snape's here." His gaunt face darkened. "Bastard might've poisoned you."

On Monday night, Remus had stayed in the Shack almost till dawn. At some point he'd brought up the Wolfsbane Potion, though in hindsight he shouldn't have. This was only their second meeting, and Sirius had already predicted seventeen times that Snape would poison Remus. Eighteen, now.

"I only take Wolfsbane in the week preceding the full moon, and that's almost two weeks away. So you needn't worry about me getting poisoned for another week."

Sirius gave him a sour, moody look, quite unlike himself. Or rather, it was unlike him considering the provocation. He did become sour and moody, but not for so little. Remus decided to change the subject.

"I was talking to Harriet."

Sirius' dead eyes lit up. In another life, Remus might have envied Harriet the ability to inspire that, when he no longer could.

"Did she like the broom?"

"What br—" Remus stopped, remembering Minerva telling him. . . "Do you mean the Firebolt?" he asked slowly.

"'Course I do. What? Why're you looking like that?"

"Sirius, what do you suppose the reaction was when Harriet was sent a very expensive present with no note, during a time when someone is trying to kill her?"

Sirius looked startled, then appalled. "They threw it away?" His voice rose. "Of all the fucking—"

"It's being tested for jinxes and hexes," Remus said sharply, "which is as it should be. Did you really not think of that?"

"Merlin, I don't know." Sirius dragged a claw-like hand through his matted hair. "Her broom got smashed to bits by our tree, so I thought—you know the goblins'll keep your gold for you, no matter what. I got the cat to take the order to the Owl Office in Hogsmeade for me, it was a cinch."

Remus was momentarily distracted by the perverseness of a society that would send a man to prison without a trial or the possibility of appeal or parole, and still allow him access to his gold without question.

"Well, if you didn't curse it, she'll get it back eventually."

"Of course I didn't bloody curse it, I keep telling you—" He pressed his lips together, looking at Remus with something like recrimination mixed with bitterness. "You still don't believe me, do you."

"I—"

"Then what're you fucking doing out here?" Sirius paced away from him, stalking about the little clearing. He muttered to himself, making sharp, meaningless movements with his hands.

"Dumbledore gave evidence that you were James and Lily's Secret Keeper," Remus reminded him sharply, while his heart beat into his throat. "Have you really no proof other than Peter? Did it never occur to you to need any? To any of you?"

Sirius stopped pacing, though he didn't look at Remus.

"It was supposed to work," he whispered hoarsely. "It was supposed to keep them. . ."

They fell silent, not moving. The wind passed through the trees, clicking at the empty branches.

"I never told anyone. . . about Padfoot," Remus said eventually. "Not then, when it happened, or now. . . I never told them about the secret entrances we all discovered—which you were using to get into the school, I'm guessing—or about the Shack, the Willow. . . none of it."

Sirius blinked at him with those hollow eyes but didn't speak.

"It's never felt right," Remus said. "The truth—what everyone said was the truth. You, Voldemort's spy. . . but what other explanation was there? I didn't know what to do or to think, even. . . so I did and thought nothing," he said flatly.

"You were always like that," Sirius muttered, an odd look on his face.

"Now I can't help thinking. . . if you're telling the truth, and I had told everyone what I knew; if they'd caught you and you'd been Kissed. . . But if you're lying, and I lead you to Harriet. . . or if I doubt you, and you're right about Peter, and somehow he finishes what he started, twelve years ago. . ."

A black look suffused Sirius' face. "I'm going to find him, Remus. I'm going to find that little shit of a coward, and when I do—"

"How? I've gone over and over the Map, Padfoot. He's run for it."

"That Rob boy—"

"Ron."

"—he took Peter round with him all over the place, the fucking rat's scent is all over the castle. I'm tracking where he's been, Crookshanks is doing the same, and Dobby's helping. . . we'll find him. I didn't get out of Azkaban to get this far and no farther, Remus."

"How did you get out?" Remus asked, as an old thought niggled at him, trying to struggle through the detritus of more recent thoughts.

"Dog. Slipped through the bars. Barely made it, even so. Swam for it."

"Good Lord, it's a wonder you didn't drown."

The shadow of a dark smile passed over Sirius' face. "Man on a mission. Or dog, rather."

"She's at Hogwarts," Remus said suddenly. "That's what you said—'she's at Hogwarts.' Before you broke out."

"What?"

"In your sleep, you were heard saying it. That's why everyone's been so certain you're after Harriet."

Sirius scratched at his filthy hair. "Don't think I said that. Might've said 'he's at Hogwarts.' Peter. Fudge came for one of his fucking inspections—they were always fascinated by me." That dark smile again. "For never going mad."

"How didn't you—?"

"Dog," Sirius said again. "Their thoughts are. . . different. Dementors don't have as much interest in animals. I'd change and they'd bugger off to torment someone else. But it lapses when I sleep, you know. . . and when any humans came, of course, I didn't want them knowing, so I'd change back. Fudge gave me his paper, and I saw the photo of Peter. . . it said the kids were going back to Hogwarts, so I knew Peter would be there, too, and I knew what I had to do. . ."

Remus sat down on a fallen log, rubbing his forehead. Sirius shuffled at the dead carpet of leaves on the ground.

"You have class with Holly-berry today?"

"Tomorrow," Remus muttered. "Had it Monday—I asked her about the dog, and Peter—she said exactly what you had, more or less."

Sirius nodded but did not appear to find this partial exoneration as interesting as its source. "How's she been?"

"She was ill over the weekend, but she seems better now. She cut her hair a little. It's like James's. The more of it there is, the wilder it grows."

"Prongs and his ruddy magic hair," Sirius said, more hoarsely than ever.

"It's been odd, being back. So odd. . . She looks just enough like them that I keep expecting them, and yet she's an entirely different person. It's so obvious that she is—everything about her manner is different. So it's more that split-second when I first see her coming round a corner or sitting in class. . ."

"It's like Prongs-not-Prongs," Sirius said. "And then Not-Prongs."

"And Not-Lily," Remus added.

"Thank Merlin's arse."

Remus surprised himself by almost laughing. "You liked Lily very much eventually."

"Eventually," Sirius said. "She had a, what, a fungal personality."

"Grows on you?" Remus guessed.

"Yeah. After you can't get rid of it."

Remus remembered Sirius and Lily taking nasty pot-shots at each other, then being achingly, over-the-top polite, and James's happy oblivion. Not the king of the emotional nuance, James.

Remus and Sirius looked at each other, no doubt remembering variations of the same thing.

"Holly-berry's sad," Sirius said. "Lonely."

"Yes," Remus agreed. He felt suddenly and intensely ashamed of himself for not reaching out to her more that year; for hiding in his own regrets and fearing what she'd uncover, that poor child who was, for the most part, unloved. The other professors worried about her, Minerva in particular, and she had her friends; but a child needed more than that.

Anyone did, but a child most of all.

\--

Daphne had always been well-disposed toward Professor Snape. As Tracey had pointed out last year, he looked after the Slytherins, whom the rest of the school, even most of the wizarding world, was against. That was their burden to bear, and Professor Snape helped them bear it.

But this business with Harriet Potter made her feel almost. . . betrayed.

Professor Snape ought to be above such considerations as popularity. Slytherin House approved his general dismissal of Potter's special status, which the rest of the school bestowed upon her. The Slytherin girls, from years one to seven, approved one degree further, and the Slytherin girls in Potter's year approved the most of all. They only wished he would tell her that she was ugly, or insult her glasses or her dreadful hair.

Yet now he was telling Daphne that she was not complete enough a companion for her own little sister—that Harriet Potter was better than herself.

How could he? How could he prefer Potter to one his own?

Asteria was no help. Daphne had hoped that if Asteria could be induced to say something to him, Professor Snape would change his plans. Asteria speaking, to him, would indicate something momentous. But Asteria would only hide behind her homework and mumble so that not even Daphne could understand her.

"But Aster," she said with increasing desperation, as the day of that first and awful meeting drew nearer, "surely you don't want to have to meet with Potter, and have her talk at you—"

After four months, Asteria still slipped away whenever Tracey came by, and she went absolutely white and hid whenever she heard Pansy's voice. She did not seem to mind Millicent, but Millicent didn't try to talk to her. Surely Harriet Potter would not be so forbearing.

But Asteria said, sounding both solemn and innocent, "It would be much scarier to ask Professor Snape to let me off than to meet with H-harriet Potter."

And with that, Daphne had to be content.

Though she certainly didn't have to like it.

"You're mollycoddling her," Tracey said. "It's no wonder she's terrified to step out of the dorm without you."

"Not everyone is so fearless as you," Daphne retorted, stung.

"And no one's as totally fearful as her," Tracey said, unfazed.

Usually Daphne admired how little ever got to Tracey, for though her emotions were deep and powerful, she guarded them fiercely. Daphne felt shallow and insipid in comparison. But today she wanted a crack to show in Tracey's armor. She wanted to be the one to put it there.

"I don't expect you to understand. You care for no one."

There; a flicker, that hardened like a shell of ice. "You know that's not true."

"Isn't it?" Daphne challenged. "You've snogged Draco behind Pansy's back. That's heartless."

Tracey shrugged, though the look in her eyes was not so casual. "He wanted it. I didn't put the thought in his head."

"You knew exactly what you were doing, making yourself up this year. You've snogged Blaise, too, didn't you? It's not only heartless, it's indecent."

"Indecent?" Tracey laughed, sharp and scornful. "Right, I forgot: you're living like it's the 1820s so you can bag a rich old husband with dried up balls and huge sacks of gold."

"Tracey!" Daphne said, really appalled.

"You don't call that heartless? I've got a life to live. If you want to cordon yourself off like a marble statue, just you and your darling little sister, and protect her from her own shadow, you do as you like."

And she left without a backwards glance. Daphne sat alone, not certain at all that she'd hurt Tracey in any material way, but fully aware of having hurt herself more deeply than she'd prepared for.

\--

The weekend arrived quickly, probably because Harriet didn't want it to.

On Saturday, she made sure she had everything she needed for her meeting with Asteria before she headed to lunch. Snape had ordered her to be at the extra dungeon's classroom at 1:00.

While she ate, Harriet glanced along the Slytherin table, but she didn't see either Asteria or Daphne, though Pansy and Draco were there. Eurgh. Harriet didn't see how they could stand to snog each other.

Snape wasn't at the staff table, either.

At 12:45, she said good-bye to Hermione and headed into the gloom of the dungeons. She found the unused classroom easy enough; it was just down the hall from Potions and looked almost identical to that room, down to the greenish lighting. The whole place had a dusty, disused air that reminded her of an attic where nobody went. She couldn't imagine a more depressing place to meet.

At 1:01, a prim knock rattled the silence.

"Er," Harriet said, and walked over to the door and opened it, as if she was at home receiving visitors.

It was Asteria—and Daphne. More accurately, it was Daphne and Asteria, since Daphne stood in front, she was clearly the one who'd knocked, and she had a brisk, take-charge expression on her face that reminded Harriet no little bit of Hermione. Asteria was half-hiding behind her and staring at the floor.

"Potter," said Daphne in a brisk, take-charge voice. "How do you do."

"Er—fine, thanks." Harriet scratched her head. "Erm. . . How are you?"

"We're quite well, thank you," Daphne said, still briskly, and whisked herself and Asteria into the room—or tried to. But Harriet blocked the door.

"Sorry," she said, "but Sn—Professor Snape said the meeting's just me and Asteria."

Daphne stared at her, and Harriet was momentarily startled by the hard unfriendliness she saw there. "I'm sure you misunderstood him, Potter. Asteria needs me."

"Snape's rather hard to misunderstand," Harriet said firmly. "He wants it to just be me and her."

Daphne started to reply, but froze when Snape's voice bled out of the air:

"How regrettable that you found my instructions confusing, Miss Greengrass."

Harriet saw Daphne grimace slightly, but she turned around to face him, her shoulders straight. "I. . . must have not been attending properly, sir."

"Indeed," Snape said coldly, looking down his hippogriff-beak nose. "Now you know. You may leave your sister with Miss Potter with no qualms."

Harriet glanced at Asteria to see how she felt about this. She'd gone white—well, pale green in the dungeon lighting—and seemed to be trying to make herself as small as possible. Harriet had seen a similar expression on Neville's face when he'd faced his Boggart.

"Come with me," Snape said to Daphne, and led her away. Harriet mused that he'd probably been waiting just out of sight to see if she was going to follow his orders about keeping Daphne out.

Left alone, Harriet stared at Asteria, and Asteria stared at the floor. The silence was awkward and uncomfortable, like a lumpy bed.

"Want to come in?" Harriet said, trying to sound friendly.

Asteria didn't look any less scared, but she edged into the room and looked around it (rather fearfully).

"It's not the nicest place," Harriet said. "Sn—Professor Snape picked it. I think he's allergic to natural light."

This got no response except an apprehensive half-look.

"Want to sit down?" Harriet asked after a long pause.

They sat at one of the tables—on opposite ends. Harriet had to sit down first to make Asteria move, and she chose the seat farthest from Harriet, looking like she'd rather be sitting down on the other end of the room.

Harriet cleared her throat. "Sorry I couldn't let your sister in. Professor Snape said it had to be just us, and, well, you saw him lying in wait."

Asteria stared at her lap.

Harriet scratched the other side of her head.

At least she wasn't crying.

"Erm. . ." At a total loss, Harriet fumbled in her pocket for the list. "Sorry, I'm just going to look at. . ."

Asteria, of course, did not say, "Perfectly fine, go ahead," or "Personally I think that's rather rude," so Harriet unfolded the list and scanned down the questions.

Last night, Hermione's idea had been to draw up a list of questions to get a conversation rolling. But it wasn't going to work. Daphne's absence, Hermione's questions and Snape's room—they just weren't going to do the job.

Harriet felt a surge of determination, and with it came an idea.

"This room is depressing me," she said. "I know somewhere better." She smiled at Asteria's timid glance. "Have you ever been to the kitchens?"

\--

Harriet figured the house-elves were always delighted to receive visitors because they were always so thrilled whenever she came in. Maybe they only stayed in the kitchens—she'd never seen them anywhere else—and liked new faces.

"Could we get some dessert?" she asked the happy group that clustered round her and Asteria. "Do you like chocolate?"

Asteria had large blue eyes that made her look wide-eyed no matter what, but now they were even larger than normal as she stared round at the kitchen and the elves. At least she looked more stunned than terrified—and she actually nodded!

Another group of elves rushed over bearing a silver platter with a matching tea-service on it: hot chocolate with whipped cream, a plate of those amazing eclairs, and chocolate-iced croissants. Then another group ran up with another platter: plates of Belgian chocolates, dozens of them, each decorated differently, probably each a different favor.

"Blimey," Harriet said, using Ron's word.

"Is Miss wanting more?" asked the elf, who she thought of as the butler. "We is having much, much more if Miss wants!"

"This is brilliant," Harriet said, hoping she and Asteria wouldn't fall into comas and be found by Snape lying on the floor of the kitchen covered in chocolate.

The elves were already making up a table for them in the corner, laying it with a sky-blue tablecloth and setting out plates and silverware. Harriet helped herself to one of the eclairs, while Asteria lingered over the chocolates.

"Have you got a house-elf?" Harriet asked her.

Asteria shook her head. She seemed to start to reply, but then stopped herself. Harriet considered that another success, though, maybe even a brilliant one—it was the first reply she'd almost got.

"My relatives are Muggles. I'd never heard of house-elves until I met Dobby. He's not here today, though—at least, I don't see him." She left off explaining who Dobby was so that Asteria would have to ask, if she wanted to know. She did look like she was listening, but she didn't say a word.

"He knit me some odd socks for Christmas. They're really quite warm." Harriet tugged up the leg of her jeans to show.

Asteria leaned around the table to see and smiled shyly.

"I can't knit, or do anything artsy." Harriet was glad to have worked round to this, and reached into her pocket to pull out her ace—or what she hoped would be her ace, at least. "I got this when I was in the hospital wing, but it wasn't signed."

She unfolded the thank-you-get-well card with the drawing of the roses and the calligraphy. Asteria's eyes went rounder than ever, and her face went bright red.

"It's really brilliant," Harriet said. "Whoever can draw and write like this, they're genius."

Asteria was trying to hide behind her long blonde hair, which told Harriet she was right not to have asked outright if it was from her. But it clearly was.

"And it was really nice to get," Harriet went on, folding it away again, "because I was feeling so low then. Really terrible. Dementors. . ." She took a deep breath and said, "They scare me."

Asteria peered out from behind her hair.

"I'm trying to learn this charm," Harriet said. "Called the Patronus. . ."

She went on talking and eating chocolate, and Asteria ate chocolate and listened. She never said a word, but a little smile flickered onto her face and stayed there, like a light shining in a house far across the way.

\--

Had Daphne Greengrass been a student of any House but his own, Severus would have read her the riot act for attempting to disobey his explicit instructions. As it was, he only sent her on her way. Then he retreated to the staff room to finish off some marking that had piled up at the end of the first week.

Sprout and Minerva were there chatting along with Lupin. Severus almost turned around and walked out, but felt how stupid that would make him look. So he sat down in his usual chair as if they were at the bottom of the lake, and opened the dreary folder that contained this week's mind-bogglingly stupid homework assignments.

"Tea, Severus?"

He looked up to find Minerva holding out a cup to him. It was so unexpected that he had absolutely no idea how to react.

Undaunted, Minerva sat the tea down on the table next to his chair and took the seat next to it.

"Pomona and Remus were just telling me about a peculiar assignment you gave to Miss Potter."

Ah. That explained the tea, but—

"What do they know about it?" he asked, staring hard at culprits.

"She came asking us what we knew about Asteria Greengrass," said Sprout. "Couldn't tell her much, though. Didn't seem to have got much more from you."

"I don't see what business it is of yours," said Severus, while inwardly he was surprised to learn Harriet Potter had taken the assignment so seriously as all this.

"Do try not to get your wand in a knot, Severus," Minerva said, "we're only curious."

"She was afraid of making Asteria cry," Lupin said, with an odd half-smile.

"It would be no great wonder if she did."

"I think it's rather sweet, truth be told," Minerva said. "Now confess, Severus, you do like Miss Potter."

Severus had no idea what to say to this. But Minerva went on, without waiting for his reply:

"You bristle up whenever one of us so much as mentions a Slytherin student's name, and yet you're entrusting the most delicate of them all to her."

He couldn't escape the feeling that he was being made fun of. Minerva had a merry look in her eye, and Sprout seemed to be trying not to grin. Lupin looked—strange. What was that expression supposed to be? It was both faraway and sharply present, like he'd just understood something momentous, and it had stunned him.

"I have no opinion of Miss Potter," Severus said, cold and dismissive. "But I feel that her fame will prove very useful—probably of more use than she will be."

He grabbed his marking and left them, having successfully managed to wipe the smiles off their faces. But he didn't feel any better for having done it, and that rather pissed him off.

He retreated back to his office to wait out the rest of Miss Potter's meeting, but at five minutes till its end, he locked his door and went down to the classroom he'd appointed them.

Inside, it seemed to be silent. With a hot rush of suspicion, he pushed open the door.

The room was empty.

He was standing in the doorway, struggling with a dawning surge of fury, when he heard a familiar voice echoing down the corridor:

". . .can't even swim very well, I bet it literally looks like a puppy you chuck into a pool, and it's struggling to get to the side. . ."

Harriet Potter was coming down the corridor, Asteria Greengrass with her; and although Miss Potter was doing all the talking, Asteria was listening with every appearance of raptness.

". . . good for a laugh, at—" Miss Potter looked up and saw him, and her eyes widened. "Least. . .Er. Hallo."

He looked from her to Asteria, whose obvious enjoyment was fading into fearfulness again, her color paling, her eyes dropping to the floor, her head tipping forward and her hair swinging in front of her face. Miss Potter frowned.

"The meeting time is done," Severus said, finding himself at a loss but refusing to show it. "Miss Greengrass, you may return to your usual pursuits."

She darted away, stealing a look at Miss Potter as she went. Miss Potter waved after her, though she didn't get a wave in return.

"Why's she so scared of you?" she asked once Asteria had gone.

A more appropriate question is, why are you not? "Wouldn't she tell you?"

"I couldn't get her to say anything," Miss Potter said, looking resigned. Then her face lit up. "Though I did get her to nod and shake her head."

Severus was surprised, not only to hear that she'd managed that, but that she should realize that it was a real achievement.

"More than once?"

"Yeah," she said, clearly pleased. "Sorry we didn't stay in that room, but it's horridly gloomy in there—and you didn't say we couldn't go walking."

"And of course you'd have stayed put if I had," he said coolly. Her only response was a little smile that was half self-deprecating, half impertinent. "Where did you take her?"

"To. . . get dessert," she said, a rather evasive look coming over her face. "And then to that mural of the sea on the Charms corridor. I was trying to get her to tell me about the sea without mentioning her house. Of course, I couldn't get her to talk, but she did nod and all that."

Severus was surprised yet again by the real thought and effort she'd displayed.

"You do realize," he said, "that having achieved so many successes, you're never going to escape the burden of this assignment?"

"I don't mind," Miss Potter said. "I didn't once make her cry."

She looked so proud and relieved at the same time; very young, but taking on a responsibility that he had fully expected to be beyond her means.

"I will assess the situation and let you know when another meeting is convenient," was all he could think to say.

He shut the door to the old classroom and followed slowly behind her as she headed for the stairs.

He said, "Miss Potter," though quietly enough that she might not hear. She did hear, though, and looked back at him curiously.

At first he hesitated because he was unsure of exactly what to say. But then the reflexive cutting reply rose to the tip of his tongue, and he had to stop himself from saying it. It took an effort, because he always said it.

"You. . ." He grit his teeth and forced out the rest: "Did well."

She lit up.

"Thanks," she said, apparently delighted, as if it was the most profound compliment she had ever received.

Then she ran up the stairs to the Entrance Hall, out of sight.

He had been intending to return to his office and the ever-present bloody pile of marking; but just then, he changed his mind and his direction at the same time. In fact, he found he'd rather go for a walk.


	35. Making Plans

Remus had so many unpleasant thoughts to occupy him these days that he always went to bed with a jumble in his head, as first one consideration jostled to the fore, only to be succeeded by another; and he always awoke with a mixture of them on his mind.

There was Peter, of course. And Sirius. Together and separately. They took up a large space in his head that was set aside for worrying, and occasionally muscled in on his concentration and complacency—such as it he could ever find nowadays. He knew he always _appeared_ complacent, because nobody, even Albus, ever asked him what was wrong; but inside all was confusion.

There was Harriet. James and Lily, too. The echoes of them all around the school—in their daughter—in everything.

And there was Snape.

_Now, confess, Severus: you do like Miss Potter._

Remus _had_ wondered what was going on there. Why should Severus Snape care enough to threaten him for posing a danger to Harriet in particular? He'd puzzled over that from the start. And then there was that business over the holiday, with Snape taking Harriet down to his private lab and shutting them both inside for several hours. She'd stayed with him over the summer, too. He did not _act_ as if he liked her, but his behavior toward her was inconsistent, by turns protective and caustic, though not remotely indulgent; and yet he let her get away with a great deal more than Remus would ever have imagined.

It was when Minerva had said, _You_ do _like Miss Potter,_ that Remus had—not _remembered_ , exactly, because he'd said it to himself at the beginning of last term—but that he'd recognized the importance of Snape's having once been friends—of wanting to be more—with Lily.

In the staff room, the discovery had seemed so momentous. . .

And then the certainty had faded, even the surety of what that momentous discovery had really been. Was he supposing that Snape was grafting his old feelings for Lily onto her daughter? He didn't know Snape well enough to say whether it was likely. That had been almost twenty years ago, and such a measure would take a great perversion of sentiment, a kind of obsession that augured a diseased mind. He'd never positively _liked_ Snape, but was he prepared to think him capable of that kind of incestuous pedophilia?

At the next meal, Remus watched Snape, and Harriet, too. Snape seemed as cold and dour as ever, while Harriet sat with Hermione looking quite happy. If Snape glanced over at the Gryffindor table several times, he glanced all around the Great Hall, too, and quite often at the Slytherin table.

As far as sleuthing went, the evidence was pretty inconclusive.

Remus decided to take a more direct approach.

"How did Harriet do?" he asked Snape across the empty seat Filius had recently vacated. "At her meeting, you know."

"No," Snape said, "I had no idea. Given Miss Potter's reputation, she might have slain a dragon some time in the past hour and I'd just failed to hear about it."

If Snape didn't despise him, Remus would have thought he was making a joke.

"I'm sure we'd never have missed hearing about something like _that_ ," he replied, smiling.

Snape only gave him a disdainful look and drank from his goblet. He had no food in front of him except a bowl of broth, and he seemed to think it was better to stir it inattentively than to eat any of it.

"How _did_ she do?" Remus asked.

"What does it matter to you, Lupin?"

"I'm only curious."

"You might ask her, then."

"But I'm _very_ curious, and think how odd it would look if I went down and seated myself at Gryffindor table. I'd have to wait till dinner's over."

"Yes," Snape said, "you will." And, pushing back his chair, he stood and stalked out of the hall.

Remus pondered whether this extreme reaction had some other source than Snape's simply despising him so much that even the slightest conversation made him leave the room.

"I'm proud of him, you know," said Albus on Remus' right. "He's trained himself to walk away. As a younger man," his eyes twinkled, "he'd have flung the contents of his goblet in your face."

"And how long ago was that got over?" Remus asked, amused in spite of his worries.

"I believe he was thirty when he at last managed to conquer _that_ impulse. Of course, it came after we'd gotten past the swearing. I find myself missing it sometimes, though. Severus has a most versatile grasp of language. Only my brother Aberforth could surpass him."

"Severus' vocabulary was always extensive, even as a boy—particularly in that way."

"Ah yes," Albus said cheerfully. "You would have been on the receiving end a time or two."

"Deservedly, too." Like most shameful acts, those became progressively more unpleasant at the end of another years' reflection.

"But what were you asking about?" Albus went on. "Some meeting with Harriet?"

"He's having her bond with Asteria Greengrass."

"Ah, yes," said Albus again, this time thoughtfully.

"It seems unlike him," said Remus, as innocently as he could. "Minerva and Pomona were saying so earlier—twitting him a little. Now I understand better why he so suddenly left the room then, too."

Albus chuckled.

"Harriet looks cheerful," he observed, glancing at the Gryffindor table, where Harriet was settling into a second helping of trifle. "I think it's safe to assume the meeting went well. By the bye—I'd heard you were in the library looking up Locating Charms?"

Remus wondered how he knew that. A brief yet gut-clenching fear seized him that Albus might be keeping as close an eye on him as Snape purported to be doing, only far more discreetly. If he'd observed Remus' long afternoon walks—

"I was refreshing my memory," Remus said, preserving his calm, "and brushing up a little. It had occurred to me to wonder why nobody thought to try and locate Black magically?"

"We did think to," Albus said mildly, examining a magnificent strawberry cake that had appeared on the table between them. "But it didn't work. No one has been able to determine why. . . "

"Even outside of Hogwarts?"

"Even so. But," Albus speared a sugar-glazed strawberry, "if Sirius Black can escape Azkaban and penetrate Hogwarts' defenses with no one being much the wiser, it's safe to assume he possesses powers we know not of."

_Very true._

That was what Remus' research had yielded: Locating Charms worked only on humans. Animagi, when transformed, were far enough from human that they confused the focus of the magic.

_There are Dark spells, however_ , Remus thought, thinking of the flaking old books he'd checked out of the library, _that might prove more useful_. . .

Remus did not know any Dark magic.

But there was one person at this school who was always supposed to have been quite good at it.

The plan he'd been forming was dangerous, both to Sirius and himself, and even to Snape. But if it could be done—if he could carry it off—

The temptation of success would be worth the risk, grave as it was.

Though Remus knew how very steadfast his own powers of concealment stood, he was equally aware that he wasn't a good _liar._ His lies tended to be wild and feeble. He was far better at keeping secrets than spinning probable falsehoods. It was unfortunate, then, that Snape had always been clever and cunning, with an uncanny knack for sniffing out deceit and a tenacious, even a bloody-minded, follow-through. He wouldn't be able to _prove_ or _disprove_ anything Remus said, but for the plan to work, the integrity of his reason would need to be a little overpowered by the temptation of catching Sirius for himself.

Sirius' consent to the plan would not be difficult to obtain: Remus would simply have to tell him nothing about it.

He was confident, at least, that if it weren't for involving Snape, the extreme risk of the plan would surely have made Sirius approve it wholeheartedly.

* * *

Monday morning, as Harriet was going through her routine of preparing herself to endure Divination—by eating a lot of breakfast, mainly—something unexpected happened.

Hagrid did not usually eat his breakfast in the Great Hall: whether from the poor success of his class, which he'd never quite got over, or from his regular grounds-keeping duties, or even from the smallness of the chairs and tables and portions of food, he wasn't usually seen there in the mornings. But that morning he came in, his wild hair tangled and powdered with snow, and edged along behind the staff table towards Dumbledore.

It was hard not to notice Hagrid, who, when trying to be furtive, became _more_ noticeable. Harriet watched him bend down to speak to Dumbledore, who nodded and turned to Professor Lupin. _He_ looked looked surprised but pushed his chair back and left the table with him.

Snape stared after them, his expression deeply resentful.

Harriet was still wondering what all of this could possibly mean when she noticed Hagrid shuffling along the gap between the House tables, headed towards her.

"Summat fer yeh at the gate, Harry," he said, bending down as if trying to say it only to her. His voice, though, was as incapable of whispering as he was of going unnoticed. Half of Gryffindor table and some of Hufflepuff looked over.

Bewildered yet curious, Harriet followed Hagrid out of the Great Hall. She stole a peek at Snape as she went, but it wasn't necessary: he stood abruptly as they passed the table, and followed them out of the Hall.

"Mornin', Professer," Hagrid said, sounding friendly but confused, because Snape was now walking _with_ them toward the front doors.

"Yes, it is," Snape said coldly.

"Where are we going?" Harriet asked as they stepped outside. A sleety mizzle was dribbling down from the sky. She had her cloak with her—the corridors were draughty—but it wasn't heavy enough for a long walk.

"I'll take her," Snape said to Hagrid, not sounding like he relished the prospect, but he never sounded like he relished much except taking points from Gryffindor.

"See yeh in class, Harry," Hagrid said, waving to her.

"Bye." She let her hand drop as he loped off toward the caretaker's hut, the snow so deep it covered the tops of his boots. "Where are we going?"

"For the moment we are waiting here."

Snape was looking down the sloping track toward the front gates. Harriet followed his gaze, her stomach clenching and dropping at the same time, because the Dementors were at the gates. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were there.

"I still haven't got it," she blurted.

"The Headmaster has. Watch your footing, the stairs have iced."

He cracked and vanished the ice with a spell. Harriet stepped gingerly down the steps and into the snow, but that was even tougher going: students' footprints had packed it down, and the icy rain had frozen it over, making the walk very slippery.

Snape held his arm out without a word, and she grabbed onto it gratefully and let him tow her down the path.

Professor Dumbledore was standing at the open gate talking with a goblin who was wearing a spruce, old-fashioned suit, the kind with a tailcoat and a lacy cravat. Professor Lupin had walked up the path a little beyond the gates and was staring up at the rainy sky overhead, his wand in his hand.

Harriet didn't feel that drowning cold or hear her mum's voice, not even faintly.

The goblin watched Harriet approach. He was standing next to an enormous, ancient-looking, battered trunk.

"Oh," she said as the penny dropped.

"This is Griphook, from Gringott's," said Dumbledore to Harriet as soon as Snape had steered her down to them.

"Name?" asked the goblin. His eyes were almost completely black, only a sliver of white showing at the very edges, and they looked both clever and merciless.

"Harriet Lily Potter."

Griphook pulled a scroll out of a pocket that looked much too small to hold it: the pocket was barely wider than his hand, and the scroll was at least a foot long and quite thick, sealed tightly on both ends with scarlet wax.

He held it out to her. Cautiously, she took it—and almost dropped it in surprise when her hand tingled all over, as the entire scroll shimmered in an explosion of golden sparks. The wax on the top end cracked straight down the middle.

"We are satisfied that you are who you say you are," said Griphook. "You will find your inheritance in precise order. Should you have any further questions, they may be directed to our public relations office. Good day."

He did not bow; he just vanished without a crack, only a ripple in the air.

Harriet blinked a few times.

"Goblins are always so refreshingly to the point," Dumbledore said cheerfully.

"How is she supposed to get that monstrosity up to the castle?" Snape asked.

Harriet had to agree with him. The trunk was almost as big as she was.

"But it won't weigh anything to her," Professor Lupin said.

"And I suppose that's every logistic taken care of," Snape said. "All the snow melted away and the path easy going. The goblins have enchanted the trunk _and_ solved every difficulty of the weather."

"Why won't it weigh anything to me?" Harriet asked, before he could really get going. "It's _enormous_."

"Because it belongs to you," said Dumbledore, smiling. "Try and lift it."

Feeling silly with all of them looking at her, Harriet bent and tugged on one of the handles. To her great surprise, that end of trunk lifted well out of the snow. The whole thing weighed about as much as a stack of parchment.

"Cool!"

"It's too bulky," Snape said. "How is she supposed to carry that?"

"I'm rather surprised Griphook left when he did," said Dumbledore. "He deprived himself of all the enjoyment of watching us dither."

"We'd have asked him to help, that's why," Snape said. "He can _imagine_ it well enough."

"We could transfigure a wagon," Professor Lupin offered. "It's a Muggle—"

"I know what a wagon is, Lupin. A toboggan would be better, with the snow."

"The trunk cannot be charmed or enchanted," Dumbledore explained to Harriet, while Professor Lupin hunted for a piece of wood suitable for transfiguring and Snape rejected them all as not being good enough. "And if any of us tried to lift it, we could not get it off the ground so much as a centimeter. Even Hagrid could not."

"How did Griphook get it here?" Harriet asked, looking at the trunk with greater respect.

"Goblin magic." Dumbledore twinkled. "The magic of goblins is as different from ours as a house-elf's or a centaur's."

Harriet wished they taught more about the different types of magic in school, more than the nothing that they did teach.

"Would he really laugh at us?" she asked, thinking of Griphook's shrewd eyes.

Dumbledore glanced at the other professors: Professor Lupin had accidentally transfigured a sled instead of a toboggan, and Snape was describing the difference between the two in a sarcastic, carrying voice, while Professor Lupin listened with polite interest. Dumbledore's mustache twitched.

"Their sense of humor is. . . singular. But I think this is a scene that might be enjoyed by many."

Finally the sled was transfigured into a satisfactory toboggan, Harriet pushed her trunk onto it, Professor Dumbledore conjured rope to lash it down, and, walking in the snow and not on the ice-path of doom, she was able to tow her things quite easily up to the castle. Other students looked at them curiously as they passed by, on their way Herbology.

At the doors, Professor Lupin had to excuse himself to make his first class. He gave Harriet an odd smile as he left. She remembered what he'd said, and Hermione too, about it being difficult to talk about her parents. Did that mean remembering them, too? Even seeing their things?

Snape didn't appear concerned with getting away. He must have his free period first.

(If _he_ was bothered by the idea of her mum's jewelry, she couldn't tell.)

"I believe we've made you quite late for class, my dear," Dumbledore said. "Which do you have first?"

"Divinations, sir."

"Then Trelawney will already have foreseen it," Snape said coolly, giving Harriet an odd sense of déjà vu: it was exactly what she herself had said a while back. "Which is just as well, because she's now got to get it to Gryffindor Tower."

The three of them looked up the endless vault of staircases. It went up so high, you couldn't see the ceiling from the ground floor.

"Maybe I'll just start living down here," Harriet said.

"I'm sure there are smaller boxes within the chest," Dumbledore said. "The key should be in that scroll Griphook gave you, Harriet."

She picked the split seal open and dropped the halves into her pockets. When she tipped the scroll, a large gold key with an intricate head and complex teeth slid into her palm. It tingled her hand and shimmered like the scroll had. So did the padlock when she touched it.

The inside of the trunk smelled like nothing at all, and was neither damp nor dusty. Dozens of smaller boxes were packed inside, in all different colors, some leather, some velvet. Harriet picked up the one on top, a case made of old, cracking leather, and opened it.

"Whoa," she said at the sight of enormous rubies set in a leafy gold metalwork.

"Sixteenth century, unless I am mistaken," Dumbledore said. "Though _Potter_ was not the family name as yet, I think."

Sixteenth. . . that meant this necklace was _four hundred years old._

Head spinning, she very carefully shut the case and placed it with extreme care back where she'd got it.

"If the individual pieces can be transferred to another receptacle," Snape was saying to Dumbledore, "that could easily be given to the house-elves."

"Why didn't we think of that earlier?" Dumbledore said merrily. "But I wouldn't have given over the toboggan scheme for anything in the world."

In the end, Snape's idea worked: Harriet moved the cases into another trunk, which two house-elves came to transport to Gryffindor tower. Only Harriet could take anything out of the trunk to put into the new one, though she could hand the cases off to anyone. Once the Gringott's trunk was empty, anybody was able to move it.

Dumbledore seemed delighted with the whole process. Harriet enjoyed it, too. She'd been picturing a little, shallow metal box owled to her, and instead she'd got an enormous trunk, delivered by a condescending goblin, enchanted so that only she could touch or handle it. Missing Divinations was just a tiny bonus, really. She _loved_ magic.

And if opening the trunk and handling the jewelry had left her feeling a little like she was both so happy and so very sad, well. . . maybe she could understand Professor Lupin's silence a little better. But not entirely. She'd much rather have the trunk—and that feeling—than nothing at all.

* * *

Harriet was rather distracted all the way through Transfiguration, and somehow transfigured her sow's ear into a seashell instead of a silk purse. Professor McGonagall assigned both her and Neville extra work for homework, after he made _his_ start singing a soprano opera.

"You missed _such_ a lot in Divinations," Hermione said as they sat down to lunch. The look on her face was so sarcastic, Snape might have awarded a point to Gryffindor if he'd seen it.

"Please tell me we're done with Palmistry soon," Harriet groaned. "I'm sick of her flinching every time she looks at my hands."

"Since you weren't there, she was picking on Neville."

They both glanced up the table to where Neville was sitting a little apart from the others, staring into his bowl. He scooped up a spoonful and raised it to his mouth, but most of the stew slipped off the spoon without his noticing, and he stuck the empty spoon in his mouth without any change in expression.

"She's so _heartless_ ," Hermione said, her eyes blazing. "Why everyone can't see what a horrid fraud she is, I'll _never_ understand, but they _enjoy_ listening to her foretelling you and Neville—where are you going?"

"Come on." Harriet picked up her bag and her bowl, and scooted down the table to sit next to Neville.

"Hi, Neville," she said when he went on poking at his stew without seeing they'd sat down next to him.

He looked up, blinking owlishly, and then went brick red. "H-hi."

Harriet searched for something to say, and realized she didn't know much more about Neville than she did about Asteria. Despite sharing a House with him for more than two years, all she really knew was that he lived with his grandmother and was scared of Snape more than anything else in the world.

"How's Trevor?" she asked, feeling very feeble.

"Sluggish," he mumbled, his face still very red. "He doesn't like the cold. It's hard to get him to come out of the bed. . ."

They chatted (a bit awkwardly) about Trevor until lunch was over and it was time to head for Magical Creatures. Neville had a hunch-shouldered way of walking, like he was trying to make himself shorter.

Harriet saw Asteria as she was leaving the Great Hall, caught her eye and waved. Asteria went as red as Neville. Daphne, who was with her, made no sign that she'd seen Harriet at all.

As they all struggled through the snow to class, Harriet saw a glow below the horizon: Hagrid had built up a huge bonfire for them, full of salamanders who basked right in the flames.

Harriet realized hadn't had much contact with Hagrid this year. The secret of Snuffles, and the threat of Sirius Black, had kept her rather away; and what with growing apart from Ron, and Hermione being so busy, there had been almost no time for visits with Hagrid. Looking at his tired, unhappy face, Harriet felt a sudden, intense surge of guilt.

As everyone collected dry wood to add to the fire, she waded over to him.

"Hi, Hagrid," she said, wishing she could think of a better opener.

"Harry." He patted her gently on the shoulder. Hagrid's gentle pat was still like a soft wallop. "Yeh doin' okay?"

"I'm fine." Though now she felt worse, at _his_ asking _her_. "You look tired."

"Ahh, well." He wiped his nose with his coat sleeve. He could have just been cold, but she thought it was something different.

"How's Buckbeak?" she asked, with another dose of déjà vu.

Hagrid sniffed louder than ever.

"H-he's—poor Beaky—"

Harriet patted him worriedly on the arm. She felt a flash of anger when she saw Pansy Parkinson looking over with an expression of malicious pleasure on her face.

Hermione walked past Pansy with a load of firewood in her arms, and _accidentally_ clipped her on the ear with a branch.

"Watch where you're going, Mudblood," Pansy snapped. Hagrid, who was blowing his nose in a handkerchief as large as a small tablecloth, didn't hear.

"I was," Hermione said coldly, with a look of pure disdain, and strode over to the bonfire to add her wood to the growing pile. Ron, standing a little ways off, watched her furtively, an unreadable look on his face.

"What's wrong with Buckbeak, Hagrid?" Harriet asked, keeping half an eye on all her friends (and enemies).

"I don't want ter worry yeh," Hagrid said, mopping his eyes. "Yeh've got enough on yer plate, what with Sirius Black an' all—"

Harriet wasn't sure she'd ever felt so small. It didn't have anything to do with Hagrid's being so much taller than herself.

"I'll worry anyway, especially if you tell me you don't want me to."

Hagrid's eyes leaked. "Not here, love," he said gruffly. "We'll. . .we'll have tea on Friday, or Saturday. It's nothin' that'll change between now an' then."

Harriet nodded. "How would the afternoon be? On Saturday, I mean. I have to do a project for Sn—Professor Snape in the mid-morning." _First_ thing in the morning was Quidditch practice. Bloody Oliver.

"That's fine, love. Yeh need to take care of yerself. What project has he got yeh doin'?"

She explained about Asteria. When she'd done, Hagrid looked rather thoughtful.

"Professer Snape normally don't let anyone handle his Slytherins but himself. He's been known fer it from the start. Yeh should feel proud, Harry. Migh' not seem like it—and Professer Snape's often seems like—well—but yeh ought ter feel proud."


	36. Unlocked

Severus was restless.

It wasn't an unfamiliar state. He often felt restless. The persistent tedium of his life would sometimes send him walking the hills surrounding the castle for hours on end, if he didn't have something to occupy him. Since Harriet Potter had come to Hogwarts, the walks had risen in frequency and lengthened in duration. It took more to distract and still him, now.

This month's Wolfsbane was finished, the first dose delivered. All the articles that had inspired his response even slightly had been written and sent off, and none of his books, new or old, could hold his attention.

Tonight, especially, his head was filled with visions of rubies set in gold. The sight of them had reignited his old jealousy of Potter's legacy, leaving an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth that lingered after hours gone by. But there was a staleness to it, in any case.

It put him in as fit a mood as any to attack a lingering pile of marking. The batch on top were Gryffindors—good.

He was annoyed to find the very first essay was Miss Potter's. He never bothered even looking at her work; he always assigned her B's. Ah, good, the next essay was the youngest Weasley boy's.

A soft knock on the door momentarily distracted him from abusing Weasley's rampant abuse of the comma.

"What?" he barked.

"I was hoping you'd be here," said that mild, hateful, falsely pleasant voice.

"I'm hoping _you'd_ be anywhere else," Severus said, not looking up from Weasley's essay, even as it occurred to him that this punished Lupin a lot less than himself.

"I'd wondered if you knew anything about this spell."

Severus glared up at Lupin, who was holding out an ancient-looking volume that must have come from the Restricted Section. The title blurred and warped as he looked at it.

"I'm interested in the Locating Spells," Lupin said, as if Severus had asked rather than just stared.

Severus saw himself informing Lupin where to bloody well shove it, and turning with superior disdain back to his marking. But he _found_ himself taking the book from Lupin and scanning down the page.

"How were you able to read this?" he asked, momentarily distracted.

"Oh, I learned a trick or two," Lupin said. "Here and there."

"Can you ever be arsed to give a straight answer?"

"Sometimes," Lupin said gravely.

When Severus looked at him in disgust, Lupin's mouth quirked in a little smile, slightly different from his regular shield of politeness. Severus felt that familiar twinge of unease and helpless rage at not being able to tell what the werewolf was thinking.

"If you're set on pursuing this course of mistaken wit—" _You can piss off_.

"Not at all, Severus. I'll be quite candid. I'm trying to find someone who doesn't wish to be found."

"Sirius Black, I suppose." He felt his lip curling. His hand was tight on the book's cover. "Is this part of some ploy to get me believing you're really as divided from him as you claim?"

"You can judge for yourself, Severus. I thought you might like to help me with it. I can _read_ that spell," Lupin nodded at the book, "but casting it is utterly beyond me."

Severus recovered from his astonishment enough to say, "What makes you think I'm capable of it?"

Lupin smiled, a different one yet again. "Am I mistaken?"

"This spell is illegal, Lupin, as well you know."

"So I might be trying to trap you, to remove the threat of your suspicions, and let Sirius Black into the school?" Lupin acted like he was mulling this over. "But do I need to do that, Severus? I have Albus' trust."

Severus was within half a muscle movement of throwing the book at the werewolf's head when Lupin added, "And so do you. Besides, if we were discovered doing a Dark spell together, I'd be just as guilty. I'd probably get the worse punishment, being a werewolf."

"Is _that_ meant to tempt me into agreeing?"

Lupin's smile looked almost spontaneous. " _Do_ you think that one would do the trick?"

Severus didn't know whether Lupin meant the spell or the idea of his incarceration, but he said, "How am I to know? A spell of this level would take a heavy toll on the caster, and we don't know whether it's worthwhile, having no idea what's keeping him from detection."

". . .But I do know," Lupin said quietly.

He looked truly grave this time, not merely faking for humor's sake.

Severus felt his heart begin to beat sharp and quick, his skin prickling hot and cold, from his scalp down to his does. An oppressive weight seemed to be compressing his lungs. On the shelves round them, jars began to rattle.

"If I tell you, Severus, you must promise to keep it to yourself—"

Severus shoved himself to his feet, slamming the book onto the desk as a bottle of ink exploded, splattering across the essays. Lupin didn't even blink.

"I'm not keeping ANY SUCH fucking—"

"Without _him_ , there's no proof," said Lupin in a low, steady voice, "no proof of what I'm saying he can do. We all kept it a secret."

Severus was amazed, enraged, jubilant—and torn. He wanted, so badly it _burned,_ to haul Lupin by the skin of his neck to Dumbledore's office and demand he hear what his precious favorite had concealed, in the face of all his great assurances. See, see how he violated your trust, see how he lied, see how I was right—

But. . . he also wanted to _know._ He'd always doubted, he'd always been certain, the others had thought it was only a grudge. . . he deserved to know first. . .

And a small, reedy voice inside him was wondering if Dumbledore would believe him even now, if Lupin withdrew his confession.

" _I was right_ ," Severus hissed. His head ached from the pressure of clenching his teeth so tightly together. "All this time, you've been _helping him—"_

"Your word, Severus."

There might have been some kind of repressed pain in Lupin's face, but his gaze was clear and steady, far steadier than it ought to have been. Severus breathed out, quick and fast. He wanted to swear to it, so Lupin would tell him. . . but he _couldn't_ make himself say it. . .

"For the spell," Lupin said. "If you swear to help me perform the spell, I'll tell you."

Severus knew he ought to get upstairs right now, find Dumbledore, and tell him he'd heard, from Lupin's own lips, a confession of concealment and tacit conspiracy. Even if he doubted that Dumbledore would hear him, he should still pursue the possibility. He knew he ought.

He knew, just as clearly, that he would do no such thing.

It wasn't entirely resentment that stopped him, or a petulant desire to prove the old man wrong because he'd trusted Lupin, who'd never given him any reason, who was now proving untrustworthy in the extreme, while he mistrusted Severus himself, after all he'd done for his good opinion. It wasn't only the promise of powers long denied, whispering to him out of that cracking, ancient book. It was more than wanting, needing, to destroy Sirius Black himself; more than despairing that Dumbledore's negligent disregard for Severus' judgment had placed Miss Potter in danger.

He _wanted_ to do it.

"I swear to it," he said, his voice cold and absolute.

"On your wand," said Lupin, steady and grave.

"On my magic." He saw Lupin's eyelid flicker. "I so swear to it."

Lupin breathed out. "And I swear it on my own," he said, as Severus had guessed he would. "Upon my magic, I place the burden and the honor of keeping to my word."

Severus felt something intangible closing around him, feather-soft, in an indefinable place deep inside. Perhaps Lupin was feeling the same. He was silent for a moment—and then he looked Severus straight in the eye.

"He's an Animagus. That's why no one can find him. He can turn into a rat."

* * *

"Oh, my goodness," said Hermione. "I just—my _goodness."_

Harriet nodded dumbly.

She was inventorying her jewelry. _The_ jewelry. It was almost impossible to think of it as _hers_.

The scroll contained a list of everything in the trunk. When Harriet unrolled it, the bottom of the parchment brushed the floor.

The inventory was categorized and cross-referenced, the boxes numbered, both by the type of metal (gold, white gold, platinum, silver), and the type of jewel (diamond, ruby, sapphire, topaz, opal, pearl, amber, amethyst, emerald). Next to each entry was a little label (16th century, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th).

"Lavender and Parvati are going to lose their _heads_ ," Hermione said.

"There's no way I can keep all this here. Look at these bloody diamonds. . . How much do you think this _cost_?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's priceless, honestly."

"I don't even want to touch it." Harriet shut the box and placed it with utmost care back in the trunk the house-elves had brought up to her, the one nobody could lift but herself. "Professor Lupin's right, I can't possibly wear any of this. . ."

"What about these little diamond earrings? But—no, you don't have pierced ears, do you?"

Harriet glanced at the earrings: two little round ones, with a teardrop shape hanging below. She choked. "Can you imagine the look on Professor McGonagall's face if I walked into class wearing that?"

"Or Pansy Parkinson's. . . ooh, I'd give anything to see her face if she saw even _half_ of this."

"Nice branch-work today, by the way."

Hermione blushed and looked halfway pleased and half guiltily self-conscious. "I shouldn't have done it. She just makes me so angry, the, the _cow_."

Harriet ran her eyes down the scroll. It had been done in a very elegant handwriting. Was it her mum's? Her grandmother's? Somehow, she had thought she would be able to tell if it was her mum's, but she couldn't.

"It's odd, really," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Thinking of you as coming from this sort of family—an old, magical one, I mean. It's almost like you're the granddaughter of an earl or something."

Harriet knew what she meant. This stuff did remind her—more strongly than anything else had done, because she often forgot—that she was part of a real family. It was even stranger to get that feeling from a list of jewelry, written by someone she'd never met whose name she might not even know, and never to have got it from her own aunt.

But how real was that family, if Harriet was the only one left?

"Can we sort of—not tell anyone about all this lot?" she asked. "I'd rather. . . I'd just rather not."

"Of course." Hermione carefully closed up a necklace of cascading orange topaz. "At best, Lavender and Parvati would drive you mad, wanting to try it on every hour of the day."

" _You_ can try any of it on if you want. I bet the topaz would look really good on you."

"Oh, no, I'd be too afraid of breaking it," Hermione said, blanching. "Should we go down to dinner, do you think?"

"We can just ask Dobby to bring us something. What?" she asked when Hermione frowned.

"Oh—nothing."

"You've got on your It's Something Face. Go on."

"I. . . you did free him, I know that," Hermione said, speaking at first slowly, and then very fast. "And he seems to like you very much."

_Dobby's life would be worth nothing if Harriet Potter should die and Dobby live._

"But?" Harriet asked, shaking that memory away.

"I only—well—do you. . . do you think it's right to always ask him to—to do extra things? I mean, he has his regular work, doesn't he? It's—don't you think it's maybe—treating him like a, like a servant?"

Harriet had no idea what to say.

"I, I don't mean to. . ." Hermione said, and bit her lip. She didn't seem to know what to say, either—because she'd said it already. She _did_ think Harriet was treating him like a servant. That was clear.

Harriet felt extremely confused. Was Hermione right? Dobby was always so pleased to help. . . he acted _devoted_ to her. . . like all he wanted was for her to tell him what to do. . .

"Okay," she said at last, not at all sure what she was feeling. "We'll just go down to dinner. I'll pack this stuff up first."

Hermione nodded silently and helped. They didn't speak.

"What's in this last one?" Hermione asked, when all that was left sitting out was one big box, larger than the rest.

"Dunno. We'll get to it later."

"I can bring something up to you, if you want to stay—"

"I can get it myself," Harriet said coolly. She hadn't meant to—not like that—and it made Hermione go bright red.

Then Harriet realized she _was_ angry. She didn't know _why_ , but the feeling kept on, even after she'd understood what it was. She tried to quash it, to be friendly, but the anger continued burning like a low, hot flame.

She packed the final box back into the trunk, locked it, and placed the key in her dresser. She and Hermione walked down to dinner together in total silence.

* * *

After leaving Snape, Remus made it back to his rooms, shut himself inside, and collapsed into a chair. He felt weak with relief and the feeling of danger still coursing through him. Danger to himself meant very little, but to Sirius—

It wasn't entirely over, however. Snape could still tell. The oath had been only for his help. If he told, could Remus repeat the same lies to Albus? Did he have it in him, in either determination or in skill?

He didn't know. He didn't particularly want to find out.

The only thing to do, now, was to wait and see whether Snape's desire to take matters into his own hands would eclipse all other considerations.

What he would do when the spell found Peter and not Sirius was a bridge Remus would have to cross when they came to it.

* * *

By next morning, Harriet's anger had blown away, like rain clouds moved by the wind in the night, and guilt had settled into its place. She decided she'd been angry with Hermione because she suspected she was right: Dobby was so pleased to be in her service that she'd put him into it, calling him at her own convenience, without regard to his. She resolved not to do that anymore: if she needed to talk to him, she'd go down to the kitchens and find him. She didn't want to be like Malfoy, even the tiniest bit.

Hermione didn't try to talk to her all Monday evening, though she didn't ignore her, either. But that was Hermione's way: though she rowed and bickered with Ron (when they were speaking, which they still weren't), she never quarreled with Harriet. Their tiffs always came about because Hermione said or did something that Harriet's temper didn't like. But Hermione never apologized, either: she was always firm where she felt herself to be right, and always relieved when Harriet's anger blew over and they were friends again.

Harriet was sure they'd rowed more this year than all the years before (all two of them). She didn't know why she was angry so often now, so easily upset. Even if Sirius Black _was_ out there, trying to kill her, that wasn't nearly as terrible as a single hour with the Dursleys.

To make up for her temper, after dinner on Tuesday, Harriet took Hermione down to the kitchens to meet Dobby.

"How did you find this?" Hermione asked as Harriet tickled the pear.

"Oh. . . just exploring," Harriet said, concentrating on pulling open the painting so that Hermione wouldn't see her blushing. "One of the Hogsmeade days, you know."

"Oh!" Hermione gasped as they stepped into the bright, enormous kitchen.

The house-elves were as thrilled to see them as ever, and straightaway whisked over some hot chocolate on a silver tea service.

"How often do you come here?" Hermione whispered. Harriet couldn't tell whether she was disapproving or not.

"I've been a couple of times," Harriet said casually. "Thanks very much," she told the house-elf who was handing her a porcelain cup topped with a mountain swirl of whipped cream.

Hermione accepted a cup with a firm thank-you. Harriet could see her thoughts clicking away as clearly as if she was looking at an open clock with its gears turning.

"Please, can you tell me if Dobby's here?" she asked the elves.

"Dobby is out, Miss," said the butler-elf with a low bow. "Would Miss like Dobby to be called?"

"No, thanks, it's fine. . . do you know when he'll be back?"

"We is sorry, Miss, that we does not. Dobby is often out, Miss, tending to his duties, but Miss may call him whenever Miss pleases. We shall send for him if Miss wishes!"

Harriet fought against the sense that agreeing would actually please them more than refusing. A hairline frown was cutting across Hermione's forehead, and Harriet had the sinking feeling that this visit might be making things worse.

"Is it all right if I leave him a note?" she asked.

The note couldn't have made them happier, and they promised, with many bows, that Dobby would get it as soon as possible.

She and Hermione finished their chocolate and left. This time, Hermione was the one who was distant and preoccupied, while Harriet was waiting, with a prickly, agitated feeling, to see what she'd say.

"Are they always like that?" Hermione asked eventually.

"Like what?"

"So. . . _fawning_."

Harriet felt her prickly agitation turning to thorny anger and struggled to control it. "I think they're really lovely, as a matter of fact."

"But doesn't it make you _uncomfortable_ how eager they are to do whatever anyone tells them?"

Harriet thought of the way Dobby would hit himself round the head for saying things he shouldn't; how he'd talked of punishing himself for warning her about the Chamber of Secrets. She didn't know what to say. Hermione was silent, too, looking straight ahead.

They climbed the stairs to the Entrance Hall, but as they to cross it, Hermione stopped dead. Harriet stopped, too, looking round for what could have startled Hermione, and saw Snape coming out of the Great Hall. The candlelight from the open doors cut a patch of light on his cheek, but the rest of his face was in shadow.

"I need to go to the library," Hermione said abruptly, and Harriet realized she hadn't seen Snape at all.

"I've got some stuff to make up for Divs," Harriet said. "So I'll see you later. . ."

They walked up the stairs together, splitting off on the first floor, Hermione headed for the shortcut to the library. Harriet glanced down the stairs as she turned to go, and saw Snape looking up at her. But—maybe she'd only imagined it, because he slipped into the doorway that led down to the dungeons and was gone within a moment.

* * *

Harriet _did_ have make-up work for missing Divination, but she didn't sit down immediately to complete it. Lavender and Parvati were gabbing at one of the common room tables, its whole surface spread over with books for that Divs spell they were so excited about. If they were busy with that, Harriet could look into the last box of her jewelry.

She went the long way round their table so they wouldn't see her, and slipped into the girls' stairwell.

The last box was deeper than the others, and had a little lock whose key was taped to the bottom. When Harriet unlocked it, she found _more_ separate boxes, covered in fuzzy velvet. And they had a separate list. . .

With a lump in her throat, Harriet unfolded it.

 _My darling Harriet_ it began _._

Her mum wrote her g's the same as she did.

Harriet sank slowly down onto the bed, her eyes locked to the list like they'd been spelled there.

The first time she read it, Harriet wasn't sure she took in a word other than those three, _My darling Harriet_. The loops and lines of the handwriting were all she saw.

When she let it fall to her lap, she realized she'd been crying.

Now she knew why Snape and Professor Lupin didn't want to talk about Sirius Black. She didn't even wish he was dead. She wished he'd never existed.

She picked up the letter again and read it until she lost count of how many times.

* * *

_My darling Harriet,_

_I've put in this box here everything I think might be of value to you one day. Some of it is_ very _fine—your dad bought it for me, and it's a great deal finer than I have any chance or excuse to wear, especially with a little angel on my hip, who pulls at everything—and others are just little pieces that I bought for myself, or inherited from my mother, your grandmother._

_I hope I have a chance to give them to you myself. But if I don't, you must remember how much I love you. I'd give you everything in the world, if I could, and still it would never be enough._

_Mum_


	37. In the Beaten Way of Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from Shakespeare, and translates to "for the sake of the well-trodden path" etc.

Harriet opened her eyes to her canopy. The dorm was silent. That meant that Lavender and Parvati, at least, were still downstairs. They were _incapable_ of being quiet.

But. . . _someone_ was in here.

Pushing herself up on her elbow, she saw Dobby hovering anxiously next to her bed. As soon as her gaze fell on him, his face glowed with happiness.

"Harriet Potter! Dobby has come as Harriet Potter is wishing."

"Hi, Dobby." She took off her glasses and rubbed at her face, trying to hide that she was wiping any tear stains away. "How've you been?"

"Dobby has been most honored to receive Harriet Potter's note!" he said, making Harriet's insides squirm with guilt, embarrassment, and confusion. "How can Dobby be helping Harriet Potter?"

"How—how's Snuffles?"

"Snuffles is eating and eating, Harriet Potter. He is being angry because traitor-wizard is hiding from him, but he is sure to be finding him soon." The drooping ends of his ears lifted as he brightened. "Also, he is meeting his old friend Moony, who he has not spoken to for very, very, many years, and Moony is having a plan to catch the traitor-wizard. Harriet Potter's Snuffles does not know what the plan is being, but he is happy, because he and Dobby is not having much luck, Harriet Potter."

Harriet would have paid a mint to sit in on one of Dobby's and Snuffles' conversations.

"You remember what I said, right?" she asked. "To be careful? This. . . traitor-wizard, he's dangerous."

Dobby nodded, his eyes shining with unshed tears, his little face a mask of devotion. Harriet felt more embarrassed than ever, but didn't want Dobby seeing it for the world.

"Dobby is remembering. He is telling Harriet Potter's Snuffles, too, that Harriet Potter is wanting us both to be safe. But Snuffles is saying that there is no one in the world he would protect before Harriet Potter, not even so much as himself. He is saying it is just like Harriet Potter to want to protect us. It is just what Prongs would have done."

"Prongs?" Harriet repeated faintly.

"Dobby does not know, Harriet Potter. Snuffles is often talking of Prongs and of Moony. He is caring for them very much. He is always saying Harriet Potter is like Prongs—but not like him."

"You didn't have to come all the way up here to meet me, you know," she said. "I could've come to meet you. But it's okay," she said hastily when Dobby's ears drooped and a look of hurt came over his face. "I was just thinking—if it's inconvenient for you—"

He looked blank. "Dobby is a house-elf, Harriet Potter."

This reply was not perfectly satisfying, but Harriet let that go, too. "Well. . . thank you. I wanted to ask you—do you know anywhere in the school I could take someone who's not in my House? Someplace warm, where we could hang out and nobody would bother us?"

When Dobby beamed, his ears stood straight out from his head.

* * *

It was just as well that Severus had finished up most of his work and been sifting restlessly for something to do when Lupin approached him, because after Monday he couldn't concentrate on anything else. The promises and difficulties of the spell ate up his mind, his attention, his interest; everything else was insipid, unimportant, and useless. Every moment he couldn't spend working on it so increased his impatience that if his preoccupation hadn't made him inattentive, he might have damaged some of his working relationships forever by giving vent to his frustration.

But he _liked_ feeling this way. Not irritated (he always was; it had no novelty at all), but impatient to be doing something in particular, something he _wanted_ , something he enjoyed; something that stimulated and intrigued him.

And Dark magic. . . it had been so long since he'd felt it. . .

Owing the recurrence of this beloved feeling to Lupin, of all fucking people, annoyed him all the more, really. First the Wolfsbane, and now this.

He was inconceivably angry with Lupin for concealing this much about Sirius Black, but he _could_ have been angrier. His reserves of rage knew almost no depth or bounds. That he wasn't more enraged—that Lupin was still breathing—was an outcome Severus could only attribute to his suspecting the truth all along. He'd known Lupin was hiding something, and he'd been right. The only shock was that Lupin had finally come forward—to himself.

He wasn't convinced that Lupin was being straight with him. The fact that Lupin was now "owning up" was deeply suspicious. He was certain only that Lupin wanted the spell performed; as to why, the real truth of it, he was far less sure. Why wait till now to come forward? To approach Severus with this plan? Even if he was only doing it to trap Severus somehow, to put him in Dumbledore's bad graces, why choose _now_?

Did Lupin and Sirius Black have a plan for getting into the castle that needed Severus out of the way? But he'd have to be turned out of Hogwarts for _that_ to work, and Dumbledore wouldn't sack him for doing a Dark Locating spell. He'd be furious, disappointed, and unpleasant, but he wouldn't terminate their association.

It was no good asking Lupin, whether for the truth or for another lie. The bastard's secrets were too securely wrapped. Severus was only, perhaps, _closer_ to the truth because Lupin had offered it to him.

It was galling.

So he threw himself into study of the spell to learn what he could of either Lupin's faithlessness or his unexpected candor. What he learned confused him more than ever. He owned a copy of this book, and the spell Lupin had found in the library was identical to the one in his own; a spell to find someone who did not wish to be found. Lupin had altered nothing to mislead him.

After determining that, Severus knew he would have to steel himself to do what he normally would never have submitted to: spending time with and talking to Lupin.

He would get to the bottom of this, one way or the other.

"Take this thing back with you," he said on Tuesday evening when Lupin arrived at his office. He dropped the library book onto the desk; it was so heavy the whole desk vibrated, rattling all his quills and ink jars. "I have my own copy."

"Cheers," said Lupin, "I'd been wanting to study it more. How have you been getting on?"

Oh, _Christ._ The faint gratification, the pretense of honest interest— This was going to be even more of a trial than Severus had originally thought.

" _I_ know what I'm doing, Lupin," he said with icy rudeness.

"Do you think it will really work? From my understanding of Dark and Light magic, I thought it would, since it's not bound by the limitations of similar forms, as Light spells are, but—"

"Obviously I think it will work or I wouldn't be wasting my time."

"How badly will it hurt you to cast it?" Lupin asked after a pause, _almost_ like the thought bothered him. How _touching._

"You can spare the pretense of concern and stick to what you'll need to do. For it to really be reliable, we'll need something of Black's as an anchor."

"I have something," Lupin said, and looked like he wanted to change the subject; so Severus didn't let him.

"What have you got? We'll need hair at the least, but blood would be best." _Now, let us see how you will finagle your way out of_ that.

"Lucky us, then, I've got blood. Now, Severus—"

"I beg your pardon? I'm not sure I understood. You're saying you have a _twelve-year-old_ sample of blood."

"I have something he bled on. An old scrap of cloth, that's all. I was thinking that we could—"

For Christ's sake. Even the most mushy-headed fucking Hufflepuff wouldn't accept that at face value. "I will want to see it," Severus interrupted.

"I thought you might," Lupin said, as calmly as ever, and pulled a little bag out of his pocket. From it he withdrew an old scrap of cloth, which Severus snatched from him. Sure enough, it was spattered with a few drops and smears of what looked like old blood.

"You've treasured a piece of _blood-stained cloth_ for twelve years," he said, his tone sagging with sarcasm.

"Not treasured it, no. I found it again. When Sirius went to prison, I boxed up most of his things and put them into storage in his Gringott's vault. I had some of it sent to me, when I found this spell, to see if there was anything we could use."

Merlin and Morgana, this was really getting ridiculous. "You _stored his things_ away for him. Why not just throw them away?"

"I couldn't bear to."

Something in Lupin's face and voice was almost like real emotion—grief, regret, loss—emotions Severus knew better than any others. He knew them so well it was impossible to mistake them; he even knew they were being faked; and this seemed like. . .

"You just have open access to Black's vaults, do you," he said, hardening his voice.

"He co-signed them over to me ages ago," Lupin said, appearing to consider it a matter of complete indifference.

Severus found himself without any reply to make. If Lupin were telling the truth, it indicated a pride that was masochistic to the point of being nearly suicidal. No one who looked at Lupin could think he had lived any life but one of extreme poverty and hardship. To suppose he could have had access to the wealth of the Blacks and had chosen to deny himself the use of it all these years was ludicrous.

"You realize this spell will not harm its object," Severus said, collecting himself. "It will only lead us to Black and trap him until I cancel the binding."

"Yes," said Lupin. "Though I'm more worried about it hurting _you_. I know the backlash to even simple Dark spells can be debilitating, and— How powerful is this one?"

"It is fairly powerful," Severus said, pleased to appear as unconcerned about that as Lupin was about inheriting and discarding Black's wealth.

"But his being so close at hand, that won't make it easier to cast?"

"That has nothing to do with it. The spell will find someone, anyone, no matter what class of being he is, anywhere in the world. To the power required to set the _spell_ in motion, his nearness is a matter of absolute indifference."

Lupin looked troubled.

"I have cast spells as powerful as this before," Severus said, annoyed. "And more besides. I can live through it, Lupin. You can store your scruples back wherever you normally keep them."

"I don't like being the means of you hurting yourself."

"You may not like it, but saying so is only an attempt to assuage your guilt. If you really couldn't stand to see me hurt, you'd have kept the idea to yourself. Your concern does nothing for me. It does not need to do anything. If I didn't want to do this, Lupin, I wouldn't. You couldn't possibly make me, by any means."

" _That's_ certainly true," Lupin said. He looked thoughtful, however.

Tired of that subject, Severus redirected it. "I see no reason to wait to complete the casting. The components are extremely simple. I can have them collected within a day, two at the most."

All this exigency produced from Lupin was a satisfied nod. "Did I understand correctly that the spell will have the greatest potency for the smaller effort at the full moon?"

"Yes—" Severus repressed all his revulsion. "But you'll have to be on hand to follow the trail to its source, and as a wolf you'll be no help at all."

"But we could do it during the day, couldn't we? I don't transform until the moon rises, and that won't be until after dark."

"And if something goes wrong, you'll be in no shape to right it."

"But we want to catch him as soon as possible. I'll be on the Wolfsbane, Severus, I'll be safe—and you said yourself, the binding will hold him until we get there. We can do the spell in the early part of the day, as soon as you're ready, and have ample time. We'd want to do it before dark, in any case. And. . ." Lupin seemed to steel himself to keep speaking. "I'll be too ill to help you after. We'd have to wait till next weekend, probably, and in that time he might have, he _could_ have done anything."

Severus hesitated—not because he thought Lupin's proposal was entirely sensible, but because he _didn't_ and yet a part of him wanted to agree to it. Lupin's illness could pose all kinds of trouble and delays. . . During the day, it _should_ be fine. . . and he knew, for his part, that the Wolfsbane was trustworthy. . .

The memory of a dark, low tunnel, the smell of earth and animal, throbbed at the edge of his thoughts.

"Very well," he said at last. "We'll hold Saturday in reserve. We can't do it during the week, in any case; it's dark out before we're done with teaching, and we can't be blundering around at night. It will have to be Saturday."

* * *

Harriet received two notes on Wednesday at breakfast: one from Hagrid, inviting her to tea on Friday afternoon, and one from Snape, moving her appointment with Asteria from Saturday morning to Friday evening.

She didn't know whether to be amused that the notes had come at the same time, or a little put out at Snape's moving things around without asking if it was convenient.

She snorted. As if he'd ever.

So she wrote to Hagrid, " _Professor Snape moved my appointment to Friday, can I come for tea on Sat instead?_ " and " _Okay_ " to Snape. Then she scratched that out and wrote, " _Yes, sir._ "

"Snape's so promontory," she said to Hermione as she sent the notes off.

"Peremptory," Hermione corrected, though she didn't look up from her new book, one of the batch she'd turned up with last night just before curfew. It had that horrible middle English spelling, but Harriet thought it said _howfe elfe_.

Harriet spent the rest of lunch without saying a word. Hermione, busy with her book, didn't seem to notice.

In Potions class, Snape was acting strangely. Instead of telling them to be quiet and make whatever potion he spelled onto the board, he began the class by making a rare speech about Truth Serums.

"The most advanced of these," he said, sneering at the lot of them, "Veritaserum, is far beyond any of your capabilities—such as they are. Who is aware of the limitations of this class of potions in general?"

Hermione's hand, of course, was the only one in the air.

"Anyone but Miss Granger," Snape said, not even bothering to look round at her—and Harriet felt a flash of satisfaction that stunned her.

The Slytherins sniggered, Pansy Parkinson even letting out a shrill giggle. At the sound, Harriet, who was now feeling more deeply mortified than she could bear, said in a loud, angry voice:

"They only work on humans."

The silence of complete surprise fell over the classroom. Even Snape stared at her. Harriet glared defiantly back, her face feeling hot.

"Yes," he said coolly. "They do. Any non-human creature—such as a _werewolf_ —will be immune to its effects."

He then set them to working on a revealing potion that left a dark blue stain on the lips and tongue of someone who was lying. The potion was rather fiddly and complex, and, from being so angry with herself, Harriet botched hers completely: what should have been a murky gray color like old dishwater turned out neon green. Hermione's, of course, was perfect, and Ron's came out brownish yellow. Snape mocked him for it, but said nothing at all about Harriet's, even though it glowed like toxic waste across the room.

* * *

At lunch, Hermione didn't open a single book, and seemed to be making an effort to be chatty, which made Harriet feel like a total slug.

"I do wish we were allowed to brew Veritaserum," Hermione said. "I'm sure _we_ could—we made Polyjuice, after all, and they're on the same level—"

" _You_ made Polyjuice," Harriet said, moving some bean sprouts around her plate. She wasn't remotely hungry. "Ron and I did almost nothing."

"It's only a matter of following directions, really," Hermione said, though she looked pleased. "But Veritaserum is restricted, you have to have a license even to _brew_ it, and a court order for its use. . ."

Harriet didn't care about the lawful use of Veritaserum or any potion on earth, but she decided it was her duty to pretend that she did, for being such a fucking horrible friend.

"How did you know?" Hermione asked curiously. "About the potions only working on humans."

"I didn't. I just guessed. I knew their magic was different. . . goblins and house-elves and all that. . . so I thought maybe that was it."

In fact, she'd been pretty sure it was wrong, that everyone would then laugh at _her_ , and she could have hated herself less. But she'd got the answer right when Hermione had been barred from giving it and been laughed at for trying, and that made her feel even more wretched.

"It was very clever," Hermione said approvingly, and Harriet felt she hadn't known before what it meant to feel ashamed of herself.

She had to make it up to Hermione somehow, without her knowing what was being made up.

"I've got something to show you," she said. "We can go after dinner?"

"I wish I could, but I've got to read _half_ this book for Arithmancy, and write a summary of the important points for each chapter. . ."

"All right," Harriet said, feeling depressed. "When you've got some free time, then."

* * *

The rest of the week clipped by. Before Harriet was prepared, she was walking down dinner on Friday, still without having got the chance to show Hermione what she wanted to.

"Maybe tomorrow morning," Hermione half-promised. "I can get some of this out of the way tonight, while you're meeting with Asteria Greengrass."

But by tomorrow, it wouldn't be the same, because Harriet would already have shown it to Asteria. She had wanted Hermione to see it first. But Hermione was still wrapped up in her books. And if books meant more to her than whatever Harriet wanted to show her—

It was strange to be mad at someone _and_ upset with yourself because of what you'd done to them.

Pushing her plate away, she said, "I'll see you," and trudged out of the Great Hall to put her things upstairs before she had to meet with Asteria.

Someone got on the swinging staircase next to her. At first she thought it was Neville—the person was quite tall—but then she realized it was Ron. She stared at him, or rather, at his arm. Ron did not look at her.

She was starting to wonder whether he was going to ignore her the whole ride when he said abruptly:

"She can be a real lousy friend, you know."

Harriet flushed. "What about _you_?"

Ron also colored, an unflattering maroon. For a moment he looked as angry as she felt, and then he ground out:

"Yeah, so'm I, all right."

Harriet was so stunned she couldn't reply. The staircase scraped up against the landing and settled, waiting for them to step off, but neither of them moved.

Ron was glaring at his shoes. "But she won't say sorry, if she thinks she's right, and she forgets other people are alive when she's got something to learn—like being right is more important than anything else."

All Harriet's emotions were balling up together and pressing on her chest, making it impossible for her to speak.

"I miss us all being friends," Ron said, kicking hard at the balustrade. "I bet you two've been doing loads of dangerous and life-threatening stuff without me—or maybe not, because _she's_ always bloody studying and hardly noticing anyone else is alive—"

_"You're_ one to talk, you've been _ignoring_ us for weeks—"

Ron flushed scarlet. "Because her cat ate Scabbers and you took her side! How'd you feel if that animal ate Hedwig?"

" _Crookshanks_ ate Scabbers but _you_ made Hermione cry, of course I took her side!"

"And she's paying you back by ignoring you so she can study about Muggles, who she _grew up with_ anyway." His face was contorted with fury, red to the tips of his ears.

"Oh, what do you care!" Harriet shouted, to get this suffocating weight off her chest. "You were sticking with the boys before Crookshanks ate anyone, it's not like _we're_ your friends anymore anyway! Just a couple of stupid girls—"

"You know what," Ron bellowed, "forget it! Just— _fucking_ forget it!"

He stormed down the stairs, but on getting to the bottom realized he was trapped; the connecting stair had swung away, leaving him with an empty drop. Swearing more foully, he stormed back up, shoved past her, and barreled off down the hall.

Harriet struggled not to burst into tears. She wouldn't be such a—such a _ninny_ to cry over a fight, just because she she now felt worse than ever.

* * *

"No more coffee. . . you'll just fucking drive yourself mad. . ."

Severus dragged on his cigarette, even though it was little more than filter at that point. He only had two left after this one. What he'd parceled out all last term had been used up in the last five days.

A soft knock on his office door pulled his attention to the clock. Merlin, when had it got to be that late?

He swept his notes into a drawer that he shut and locked, sent the book flying to a nearby shelf that was charmed so the students couldn't see it, and banished the pathetic remains of his cigarette. Another slight spell eradicated the smell. Nobody would know he hadn't simply been sitting here all the while, vegetating.

"Yes?" he called.

The moment Miss Potter came in, it was obvious she was in a terrible mood. He'd never seen her expression so stormy with pent-up emotion. Her face was red, like she had a temperature, and her eyes were over-bright.

She took a seat without saying anything, although that could have been from not knowing what to say. Nobody could fool themselves that he was interested in chat.

Was she near tears? She looked like it. Shit. What was he supposed to do with that? Should he let her alone or try and say something? Anything he said was sure to make it worse. . . but she really did look poorly. . .

"Are you ill?" he asked at last, trying to keep his voice neutral.

She glared at her knees. "No," she muttered.

Could he leave it there? Of course he could, if he wanted to be pathetic.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

That time she only shook her head.

"Is something an adult should be made aware of?"

"No, sir."

Politeness from Miss Potter—well, polite words; the tone was no great recommendation of her manners—was unsettling.

At last, he said, "Your meeting with Miss Greengrass will require you to be in a better mood than this. As I have something pressing to take care of on Saturday," he wanted another cigarette, "we can't put it off."

" _You_ wouldn't understand," she said, flushing. "You don't even _like_ Ron and Hermione, you hate them. Otherwise you wouldn't make such fun of them in front of everyone."

Had he been particularly churlish to Granger and Weasley today? He couldn't remember.

"What are you talking about, Miss Potter?"

"Like you don't know!" The look her face—he _knew_ he should've kept his fucking mouth shut. " _Anyone but Miss Granger_ —and Ron's potion was so much worse than mine, but you didn't say anything about that, and everyone was laughing—"

Then she _did_ start crying, but it was an irate sort of crying, and she wiped harshly at her face as the tears fell, though that didn't stop them.

"I _hate_ everything about this year! I hate S-sirius Black—and Hermione studying all the time—and Ron's being a git, even though Crookshanks d-did eat Scabbers, and I'd be angry t-too—and it's not my f-fault house-elves are the w-way they are—"

Severus sat motionless, too astonished to do anything about this passionate outpouring that sounded as angry as it did heartbroken. Pretty soon she was completely incoherent, and was sobbing so violently he worried she'd make herself pass out. He stood abruptly to send for someone, but had no idea who. This needed someone tender and motherly, and neither Minerva nor Pomfrey fit that bill. Sprout? No, God no. . .

Feeling both feeble and useless, he conjured a few handkerchiefs and handed them to her, or tried to; she wouldn't take them. Should he offer her a Calming Draught? No; the attempt would probably make things worse. Calming Draughts were best given to people in a state of heightened grief, not anger. When a person was this angry, the last thing they wanted was someone suggesting they calm down. _He_ should know.

It said something about his House that in twelve years he'd never before had to deal with a student in this state, whom he hadn't put there himself. And he hadn't made a student cry since 1982, when he'd learned how to toe that line between "ego-deflating" and "hysteria-inducing."

She was still crying. Good Lord, how long had it been? This must have been bottled up for some time, and some recent event had proved one trial too many.

He decided to send for Pomfrey if she hadn't stopped crying after five more minutes.

He was reaching for the Floo powder he kept on the mantle when Miss Potter's sobs started to die down, perhaps because she didn't have the breath to sustain them. She lay weakly against the arm of the chair, her breath heaving in great gulps, looking wrung out and miserable.

He repeated his silent offer of handkerchiefs. After a moment of not moving, when he thought she either hadn't seen them or would refuse them again, she groped at the air to take one and started wiping at her face.

He should say something, yet he had no idea what. Everything sounded so hypocritical or platitudinous even in his head.

"Weasley will get over it," he said at last, when the only sounds she was making were sniffles.

She started crying again. Mother _fucking_ —

Well, there was one thing he could do. She was in no fit state to help Asteria Greengrass learn to socialize, with or without his blundering help.

"Wait here," he said, feeling foolish, for she probably wasn't strong enough to sit up, let alone go anywhere, and left the office. Maybe she'd feel better for being left alone. Without himself, at least.

Asteria was waiting in the classroom when he got there, holding a letter. She turned eagerly at the sound of the door opening, but shrank back when she saw who it was.

"Miss Potter is unwell," he said. "The meeting will have to be postponed. I will contact you when I've arranged another session."

He left her looking, he thought, sincerely disappointed.

When he returned to his office, Miss Potter had stopped crying again, though she still radiated misery.

"What about Asteria—" she said in a thick voice.

"I've put it off. You're in no state to help someone else feel better about themselves. You had best concentrate on your own peace of mind."

She started to answer, but had to blow her nose instead. He conjured another handkerchief and vanished the first, which now looked disgusting.

Her anger seemed to have gone with the tears, but her misery had only increased.

"You ought to talk to someone," he said, hoping he didn't sound feeble. "Professor McGonagall—"

"I'm fine," she muttered.

"Miss Potter, people who are _fine_ do not burst out crying for," he glanced at the clock, "eight minutes together."

She started pleating the handkerchief, without looking up. Recollecting that he was standing, he returned to his seat.

"You're fighting with Miss Granger," he hazarded, "and Mr. Weasley, so you have no one to talk to."

"I'm not _fighting_ with Hermione." Why should she look so guilty? "I mean, we do fight, sometimes, but that's not. . ."

Severus knew how to elicit a confidence that another person was reluctant to give, but he was not going to use on Miss Potter tactics he'd perfected on Death Eaters.

"I'm. . . _angry_ all the time now," she said, bending her head down so he couldn't see her face. "I wish I wasn't."

"That is part of growing up."

"I'm angrier than _most_ people, though. . . most other people don't get as mad as me."

He was surprised she managed to say that to him without some kind of accusatory look.

"Some people have more vicious tempers than others. Your parents were each prone to emotional outbursts. You've only inherited it." _And you have far more to be angrier about._

"You don't want to talk about my mum, do you."

He supposed this was his penance for making her cry—twice. ". . .No."

"Professor Lupin doesn't want to talk about them either. He told me about the jewelry, but even that was too much, he wrote it in a card he didn't sign. And you didn't tell me about Mum, Aunt Petunia did, I only asked you. Why. . . why don't you want to talk about her?"

There it was again, that desperate, yearning hunger, alloyed with heartache, and he had absolutely no strength within himself to answer her.

"Why?" she said again.

When he still didn't reply, the innocent plea in her face hardened. After a moment of regarding him with that hard stare, she stood, a bit unsteadily, and with a burning look of heartfelt reproach she turned to leave. He realized he was gripping the arm of his chair so hard that he was surprised the wood didn't crack.

When her hand was only inches from the doorknob, he said, "You didn't know her."

She paused but did not turn around. He forced himself to keep speaking, with a superhuman effort that outclassed any he'd called up while dealing with Lupin.

"You don't remember her. You want to know what you do not possess. We," and he could have sworn the wood in his chair creaked, "remember everything. The difference between learning of what you do not know and talking of what you do not wish to remember is—everything."

She stood facing the door for several long moments before turning. He couldn't read the expression on her face, or maybe he was in no state to.

"But you were _friends,"_ she said. "That's what I want to know about, not—how they died. I know that anyway."

He was going to break his hand, holding on like this.

"The reality of their death distorts everything that came before." _And my guilt, my own crippling, crushing guilt_. "When something you have been. . . dreading comes to pass," _worse, worse than you could have imagined_ , "you would rather remember nothing about it at all, whether good or bad."

"Haven't you ever talked about it?" she asked quietly, after a long silence.

"No." _Not more than I was forced to._

"You hate Professor Lupin," she said. "But he was friends with my mum and dad and you were friends with her, too."

"He was friends with your father. I was friends with your mother. She was easier to get along with than I was." The smoking detritus of the years that lay between the truth and that clean, succinct retelling fouled everything. He couldn't tell her.

He wouldn't.

Miss Potter walked slowly back over to the chair and sat down again. It was a testament either to her need to know or to her loneliness that she did not leave. He both wanted her to go and did not, each desire as sharp as the other.

"I found a letter she wrote me," she said, not looking up. "In her jewelry."

Something small and painfully bright dropped through the endless, empty blackness inside him. He closed his eyes.

"It's. . . I think she took a long time to write it, because the handwriting is different in places. I mean sometimes it's kind of wobbly, and others it's steady. . . sometimes the pen pressed almost through the paper, and sometimes letters are almost missing. . ."

The vision of Lily trying to write a letter to a child she thought might not remember her—for he could guess the contents, well enough—getting up to pace, returning to scribble a few words, and then stopping again, unsure how to go on; maybe even called away by the child herself, perhaps by a cry, or by the dictates of her own heart. . .

"I have some photographs Hagrid gave me," she went on, still not looking up at him, for which he was profoundly thankful. "Of her. . . and of Dad. But it's. . ."

"Not enough," he said, his voice barely audible.

She did look up then, and nodded. He had no idea what his face would be telling her. He couldn't even begin to guess.

She sniffed and wiped at her nose with his conjured handkerchief. Whether because she'd run out of the energy to talk or didn't know what she to say next, she seemed disinclined to say more.

"Mr. Weasley spends all Potions class making forlorn faces at you and Miss Granger," he said. "He is ready to make up, whatever happened."

"I know," she muttered. "He tried this afternoon—but I yelled at him. It wasn't fair, but he was still mad at Hermione." She looked guilty again. Ah. . .

"For the same reasons _you_ are angry with Miss Granger?"

His guess hit its mark: she went bright red, with a look of acute shame.

"As long as you don't make up with Weasley to abuse Miss Granger behind her back," he said, wondering how in the name of God and Merlin had come to this, with _his_ counseling someone on friendship, "there's no reason for you to castigate yourself. Whether your hurt feelings are reasonable or justified, you will have them. Everyone is out of charity with their friends at some point, often repeatedly. How you get over it," _keep talking, get it out,_ "means a great deal more than never having an unjust thought _. That_ isn't true of anyone."

She blinked at him, still very red in the face. "But. . . you make fun of them."

"They are your friends, not mine. What does it matter whether I like them or not?"

"You could be less mean," she said, frowning. He would have said giving people handkerchiefs increased their impertinence, except for the fact that Miss Potter had surely been born impertinent.

"And you could be more insipid, or Miss Granger could fail to try answering every question I ask. I am _mean_ , you are temperamental, and Miss Granger is an overachiever. We are who we are."

She did not look pleased with this explanation, as well she shouldn't; but he wasn't going to be reprimanded by a thirteen-year-old girl. Even if she was right, and he hated to be looked at with that reproving disappointment.

"Why aren't you as mean to me as the others?" she asked. "Is it because of my mum?"

He blinked. "Yes."

"Oh." She looked confused. "Is that why you also get so angry when I do dangerous things?"

"It may be. No other student takes danger as far as you do. If I ever discover Asteria Greengrass with a dead Basilisk, I might surprise myself."

She made that loud, watery sniff again. "I can meet her now. I. . . feel better."

"Then you should go make up with Weasley or Miss Granger."

She looked surprised. After a moment, she nodded and stood for the second time to go.

For lack of anything else to say, he handed her the last handkerchief.

At the door, she paused and turned round again. "You know. . . you should try being nice more often." Then she looked thoughtful. "Though everyone might be too scared to believe it."

Was he being teased?

"I tried that once, in 1986," he said coolly, "for three days. Madam Pomfrey told me never to do it again, for the dramatic increase in nervous disorders it caused."

Miss Potter gave him a little smile and slipped out the door.

After she'd gone, he smoked both the cigarettes that remained, one right after the other.

* * *


	38. The Room of Requirement

Out of Snape's office, with all of her anger and misery boiled away, Harriet felt rather ashamed of herself. But now she knew what to do about it, and the determination made her hungry.

The walk to the kitchens was going to be as familiar as the walk to classes, soon.

As she climbed to Gryffindor tower with her picnic basket (small, by her own request), she ate a sandwich to prepare herself. Hermione wouldn't be nearly as difficult to convince as Ron, whom Harriet expected to be angrier with her than ever. If she could even _find_ him, that was. . .

It was times like this she really missed the Marauder's Map. At least she knew Sirius Black had never got hold of it; otherwise she'd already be dead.

She hid her basket in an alcove behind a bust of Hieronymous Bosch just up the corridor from the Fat Lady, wiped her greasy fingers on her jumper, and steeled herself.

But the only Weasley hair in the common room belonged to Ginny, Fred and George, and Percy. Uh oh. It was almost curfew, so Ron couldn't be out, but it was much too early for him to be in bed. . .

"Have you seen Ron?" she asked Dean and Seamus, who were playing Gobstones near the fire.

But Seamus' only answer was a roar of rage and surprise: one of the stones had squirted ink in his face. Dean was laughing too hard to answer Harriet, if he'd even heard her. Rolling her eyes, she let them alone. No wonder Ron had been churlish for so long, if he'd had nobody for mates but these two plonkers.

Neville was paging through his Potions textbook with an air of forlorn confusion.

"Seen Ron?" she asked him, sitting down next to him.

Going beet red, he dropped his book on her foot. "I s-saw him go upstairs round an hour ago. He looked—um—"

"Ready to murder someone?" Harriet guessed. "Thought so. You doing that essay for Snape? You can copy mine if you'd like."

"Oh, n-no," Neville said, progressing to a steaming scarlet. "I-it's fine, I'll be all r-right—"

"What if we made a trade?" Harriet asked slowly, as the idea pieced itself together in her head. "Then you wouldn't have to feel guilty or anything."

"Trade?" Neville squeaked.

* * *

"You won't tell me what this plan is because you know I'm not going to like it," Sirius said. The light of the nearly full moon ran like quicksilver through his matted hair and made his skeletal face almost impossible to read; but his voice was dry. "Am I right?"

"You don't seem to need my confirmation," Remus said, "so sending me this message—Padfoot, it's not safe to meet this close to being done with it. We don't want to fail now."

"I've been trying to imagine what I'd hate so much you'd have to keep it to yourself," Sirius went on, ignoring him. "Can't really think of much, though. Mind keeps wandering. I'm not so good at concentrating anymore."

"What if the Dementors find you?" Remus persisted. "I wouldn't have come tonight if I hadn't thought staying away would make you do something even more dangerous."

"I stay a dog except when I meet you."

"Even that much is a risk. There are a lot of eyes looking out for you, Sirius." _And at least one set on me._ "We still have everything to lose. I'm not foolish enough to suppose we can only lose everything once in our lives. As long as we have something to protect, we have something to lose, again and again."

"Aren't you a ray of optimistic sunshine," Sirius muttered, but his hollow eyes were looking inward at something bleak.

"There's a great deal I'm afraid of," Remus said calmly. "Dying isn't one of them. In fact, it's the least of them. I don't want to outlive everyone I care about, Sirius. Not again. You don't either, I know."

Sirius lowered his head, his ragged bangs overhanging his eyes. Remus forced himself to keep speaking.

"Hate me when the plan is done," he said. "But let it happen."

"I'm not gonna hate you for doing what you have to do to keep Holly-berry safe," Sirius said. "For finding that worthless shitstain of a coward. I don't care what we have to do, at this point. I'd give my soul to get my hands on that fucking son of a bitch."

"Don't say that. With Dementors in the air, it's a wish that might come true too soon."

The light of the gibbous moon shone down on them like an indifferent sun. The idea that werewolves could never see the true, full moon, that they longed for the sight of it the way vampires longed for the sun, was a romantic fiction. This was as close to it as he needed to be.

* * *

Harriet went to fetch Hermione first, since Ron couldn't get up the girls' staircase and she didn't trust his temper to wait until she'd parted Hermione from her first and dearest love, the books.

"Hi, Harry," said Hermione absently (after Harriet had come into the room and stood over her, repeating her name, before she even noticed she wasn't alone). "Goodness, what time is it?"

"Time for you to set aside your books and papers and come along with me. I've got something to show you."

"Harriet, tomorrow morning would be—"

"You're coming with me tonight," Harriet said in her best steely voice, "if I've got to pack you onto that bloody Shooting Star—which makes you go backwards when you try to go forwards—and kidnap you."

Hermione looked up like she was about to protest, but whatever she saw in Harriet's face made her shut her books and follow meekly down the stairs.

When they climbed out of the portrait hole, Harriet saw that Neville had been successful: though looking so guilty and anxious it was a wonder his face could fit both emotions at once, he had managed to finagle Ron out of his dorm and into the corridor.

"Where did you last _have_ Trev—" Ron was saying to him.

Then he saw Harriet and Hermione. His face went red as a tomato and hard as stone. He spun round, preparing to storm off, and Hermione said in a shrill, strained voice, "Really, Harry, I have far too much studying to do—" and turned in the opposite direction as Ron, ready to climb back into the common room.

"You're not going anywhere," Harriet said, grabbing her by the back of her jumper and leveling a finger at Ron. "And nor are you, Ron Weasley. You're both coming with me. Thanks, Neville," she added, and he gratefully ran off, so eager to get away from them that he charged down the stairs and out of sight.

"You _tricked_ me out here," Ron said, still fuchsia in the face.

Harriet chose not to answer this and fetched her picnic basket instead.

"Harriet," Hermione said, frowning deeply at the basket, as if she knew it had been a source of house-elf labor.

"Come on, then," said Harriet to the both of them. "You'll never know if you leave now."

Then she turned away and started walking, so they could look at each other or not, however they chose. She was half expecting Ron to storm off, but Snape was righter than she ever would have guessed: Ron must have wanted very much to be friends again, because he followed them. He jammed his hands in his pockets and goose-stepped a good ten paces behind Hermione, who walked a good five paces behind Harriet, and he glared at his shoes the whole way, but he _followed._

Harriet led them along the seventh floor into the left corridor, where an ugly tapestry hung, showing Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach some trolls how to ballet. They'd all three been down this corridor before, as it led to a hidden staircase they frequently used for shortcuts.

"Here," she said, pointing to a spot on the carpet, to one side of the tapestry. "I think it's best if you stand there, a bit out of the way."

"Harry, what are we doing?" Hermione asked.

"You'll see."

Harriet started walking back and forth in front of the blank stretch of wall, as Dobby had told her to do, thinking, _We need a room where we can make up. . . we need a room where we can make up. . ._

" _The Room of Requirement gives whatever you ask for, Harriet Potter,_ " Dobby had said. " _There is being no limits that we has found, and we house-elves has been using it for hundreds and hundreds of years._ "

She had no idea what a room-to-make-up-in would look like, but on her third pass, Hermione said, "Oh!"

Harriet turned. A door had grown in the wall, a small door with a pointed arch like any door in a medieval castle, except it was made of bright white wood, and its door handle was made of gold.

She turned the golden key in the lock, pushed the door in, and stepped into a room of light.

It wasn't made of light, of course, but it was bright—and yet, as her eyes adjusted, she saw it wasn't that bright, only pleasantly lit, with a soft, warm glow. Trees grew up the walls, framing arched windows whose glass glittered with starlight. In the center of the room was a tidy cooking pit glowing with hot coals, with cushions and blankets scattered around it, and the air smelled sweet, like clean stone and forest.

"Blimey," said Ron's voice behind her. He was standing in the doorway shoulder-to-shoulder with Hermione.

"This is amazing," Hermione said. The light of learning something new shone out of her face.

Both of them seemed to have forgotten they were fighting. Harriet wondered if it was too good to be true that the room had done its job that quick.

But then they tried to step into the room at the same time, bumped shoulders, and looked at each other. _Then_ they remembered. They both stopped, retreating into moody brooding (Ron) and stiff haughtiness (Hermione).

Harriet sighed inside. Of course it wouldn't have been that easy, not even for a magic castle.

"Here." She set her basket down next to the pit and knelt on the blankets and cushions. "I've got some things we can roast. I wonder if it somehow picked that up?"

Ron and Hermione did come inside and sit round the fire, but they did not speak, and they were clearly trying to sit as far apart from each other without sitting on opposite sides of the room. Harriet found herself wishing she'd asked Snape exactly _how_ you made up with two people who were fighting with each other as well as with you, sometimes.

She decided to act like everything was normal until some brilliant idea flashed into her head. Opening the picnic basket, she said, "I've got some sandwiches and meat pies here—bread, muffins—pumpkin juice, hot chocolate—dunno how well those'll go together, though. . ."

"I'm not hungry, thank you," Hermione said.

"Sandwich, Ron?" Harriet asked him. "It's got five different kind of meats on it."

Ron seemed to struggle with himself, or maybe with his temper and his stomach.

"Go on, then," he said at last, holding out his hand.

"Hot chocolate, Hermione?" Harriet asked.

"Oh, all right," Hermione said, not sounding very reluctant.

The atmosphere still wasn't easy and friendly, but at least they weren't being so stiff and stand-offish anymore. They were at least looking at their food and drinks, instead of glaring at opposite curves of the room.

"The house-elves made this up for you, didn't they," said Hermione as Harriet buttered a muffin.

"Yep." Harriet speared the muffin on a long, thin tong that she found in the basket (which was much too small to fit it, despite being able to), and held it over the fire for toasting.

"Houf elfef?" Ron asked, his mouth full. Harriet was rather amused that Ron talking with his mouth full sounded exactly like the title on Hermione's medieval book.

"Did you know that house-elves don't get paid?" Hermione asked abruptly. "And they don't get holidays, or sick days? And they can never leave the service of their masters unless they're released? And the release is a mark of disgrace, and their children are born into the same service, and _their_ children?"

Harriet had known some of this, though not all. Remembering the way Dobby had been so miserable and abused, she suspected that Hermione's books had glossed over some things. Hermione was worked up enough just over the elves' not getting holidays: there was no way she would keep quiet about the self-inflicted abuse.

"What are you going on about?" Ron asked her, though he seemed a lot more interested in reaching for a meat pie.

"House elves!" Hermione said indignantly (Harriet wanted to groan). "Working in the Hogwarts kitchens! Our beds are made, our clothes washed, our meals prepared, everything done for us, by _slaves_!"

"That's what house elves like," Ron said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, reminding Harriet that he came from a magical family like hers; only even _more_ magical, because all his family were wizards and her mum had been Muggle-born.

Wait. . . if her mum was Muggle-born. . . did that mean Snape was, too? Since he'd known her mum as a kid?

Oblivious to these mad ideas, Ron was still talking. "Mum's always saying what she wouldn't give for a house elf, because they do everything and they're so polite and happy about it, not like us, always whinging if we've got to de-gnome the garden or help lay the table—"

"But it's _slavery_!" Hermione said, shocked. "How could your mother want a _slave_?"

"But they like it," Ron said, "so what's the harm?"

"Not all of them like it," Harriet said quietly. "Dobby was thrilled when he left the Malfoys, and he loves clothes and gets paid now, and has holidays and everything."

"But what about the others?" Hermione demanded.

"You've seen them," Harriet said, though she felt uncomfortable. "They're _happy_. You know Professor Dumbledore treats them as good as anything."

" _When_ have you seen them?" Ron asked her, a lot more interested in this information than in Hermione's.

"I figured out how to get into the kitchens. I'll show you later."

"Brilliant," Ron said, looking (as she'd hoped) impressed and not offended that she hadn't shown him before (as she'd feared).

"I don't think we should any of us be going there and making extra work for them," Hermione said—rather bossily, Harriet thought. "We should be trying to _decrease_ their workload, not adding to it."

"All right, then," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "You wash your clothes and make your bed, and then it'll be fine for Harry to show me where the kitchens are. You know, I always suspected Fred and George knew where they were, 'cause they'd turn up at all hours with food and snacks. . . Say, d'you think the house elves could get us stuff from Honeydukes?"

Harriet still hadn't told Hermione about the Map, and it would be suicide to do it now. All she said was, "I wouldn't be surprised if Fred and George knew how to get into Honeydukes on their own."

"You're surely not going to ask the house elves to get sweets for you from the village!" Hermione said hotly to Ron.

"I don't see what ruddy business of yours it is if I—"

"Say," Harriet interrupted, "why don't we all go at least an hour without quarreling over something? Then we can try two hours, and after that, three. Maybe we'll even work up to a day, eventually."

" _She's_ the one quarreling," Ron said, flushing and making Hermione blush angrily, too.

"I am _not_ —" Hermione said, and she went to set her hot chocolate down, maybe so she wouldn't throw it at Ron's head. But as she reached down, a low table that just appeared out of nowhere, at the perfect height for her cup.

They all stared. Ron even stopped chewing.

Hermione slowly withdrew her hand. The table and her mug stayed right where they were, quite in harmony with each other.

"It's the Room of Requirement," Harriet said, amazed. "Dobby told me about it. It becomes whatever we want and need. You just have to walk up and down in front of the blank wall outside three times, really concentrating, and you get. . ." She waved at the room.

"Blimey," said Ron.

"I can't believe we never knew this was here." Hermione twisted round to stare at all the trees and the windows. "It's just down the hall from Gryffindor Tower. . ."

She stood and went over to the trees, running her hand down their smooth, bright trunks. For the first time, Harriet noticed the warm light seemed to be coming from everywhere: the walls, the trees, the windows.

"What did you ask for, Harriet?" Hermione asked, now fingering one of the leaves on a vine wrapped around a tree trunk.

And for once, Harriet decided to be honest. "A place where we could all make up."

Hermione stopped but didn't turn round. Ron cleared his throat and picked a piece of lettuce out of his sandwich. Harriet tried not to roll her eyes.

"What did you think we were doing in here?" she asked.

Hermione turned from the window, a kind of stiffness come back over her. She didn't say anything, though, and Ron was now mashing the top of his sandwich down. Harriet tried not to sigh.

"Look," she said, "we've all had good reasons to start being angry with each other. But now we're all unhappy, so it seems stupid to keep fighting."

Ron and Hermione still didn't speak, but were now staring at the same patch of floor.

"I'm tired of fighting," Harriet went on. "I want us to be friends again. I miss when we were. Is that what you two want?"

Ron and Hermione looked up from their mutual patch of floor and stared at each other, not speaking.

The moment went on and on, and no one broke the silence.

But that was all right, because Harriet knew she had her answer.


	39. The Spell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Just today, I read that JKR's werewolves aren't affected by silver. Said I, "Ah, crap." But it involved just a minor change.

Severus met Lupin in the forest as soon as the morning twilight brightened, when the cold still froze the skin with burning. The ground was thick with snow, and ice hung in glittering crystals off the trees.

Lupin didn't look as if he noticed the cold at all, but he was a werewolf; his temperature always ran much higher than a human's.

"Did you take the Wolfsbane?" was how Severus greeted him.

"First thing this morning," Lupin said, his breath rising in a fog. "I poured it in my kettle, in fact, and thought until I took the first sip that it was tea. Nasty shock, that."

"Good," Severus said curtly. "This way."

At first he followed the faded footpaths that centuries of forbidden excursions had beaten through the trees; but after four minutes' walking, he left even those faint marks of direction behind and struck off where the paths did not tread. Lupin followed, vanishing the tracks they'd left in the faint dusting of snow.

At least that much could be said of Lupin: he wasn't an idiot. He wasn't brilliant, not by a long shot, but he was clever enough to be smarter than most people, and added common sense into the bargain. If only he weren't so fucking irritating and false-hearted, Severus might have been sorry to hear, one day, that he'd dropped dead.

But those thoughts were the scorn of habit. For once, Severus didn't have much space inside his heart to spare for despising Lupin. _Something_ would happen today. Even if the blood on that scrap of cloth in his pocket did not belong to Sirius Black, even if Lupin were leading him into a trap, the spell would work. Whatever trick Lupin had in mind would become clear today. . .

"Here," Severus said after exactly eleven minutes.

He'd cast spells in this clearing before, which was one reason he'd chosen it. The echo of his magic was easy for him to find. Other than that, the place was unremarkable, like any other small clearing: roughly circular, ten paces across, and deep enough into the forest that there was little snow on the ground. The air was still as cold as ever, the ground frozen and hard.

"Stand there. Have you ever seen a Dark spell performed of this magnitude?" Severus asked Lupin as he circled the clearing, tracing his future path.

As unreadable as ever, Lupin watched him, from his stationary place next to the tree Severus had indicated. "Nothing that involved this level of preparation, no. Only wand-magic."

"They used their wands for convenience, because they were used to it," Severus said. "No Dark magic is wand-magic."

"Its power flows through the caster," said Lupin, nodding. "Not through the wand."

Severus was surprised, though he controlled it. Most people, even educated minds like Minerva's, thought Dark magic was simply "magic that hurt people."

"Dark magic follows an entirely different set of principles than Light magic." He started pulling off his gloves. The cold raked across his exposed skin. "Such as how long it takes for the spell to complete itself."

"All right," said Lupin, sounding a bit confused for the first time.

"What I mean is that time will flow differently for me, as I am the caster. If you were inside the spell, the same would be true for you. You'll be outside it, however. You will _stay_ outside it. Whatever you do, you will not step into the circle. Do I make myself clear?"

"It's clear to me right now," Lupin said. "Are you saying you think I'll try?"

"At some point, you might think it's a good idea to help me. It will be a terrible idea. You'll get rid of it and stay where you are." Severus almost didn't say the rest. "There is also folklore that claims that werewolves are affected by Dark magic—in a compulsory way."

Lupin's face and eyes seemed to harden. Wasn't that interesting.

"I don't know whether it's true or rubbish," Severus went on, not changing his tone, "but as your. . . _curse_. . . means you are affected differently than a. . . non-lycanthrope by some things, I would rather not add this to the list. It might jeopardize what we're doing."

"Understood," Lupin said, and once again, Severus couldn't read him at all.

"Here." Severus crossed the gap between them and held out a small paring knife. "I'd advise you to hold it by the blade. If anything happens, the pain should bring you out of it."

Lupin took the little knife by its handle, but be barely glanced at it. "I'm not sure a pain this insignificant will have much effect on me."

"It may," Severus said, and left it at that, because he wasn't interested in arguing with Lupin about anything to do with his curse and Dark magic.

"What if something goes wrong?" Lupin asked.

"It won't."

"Severus, I won't be able to tell. What if I think you're in some terrible trouble, but it's only how the spell is supposed to go?"

"When the spell finds him, you'll know. Until then, you will be patient."

Lupin sighed faintly. "What are you doing?" he asked a moment later, now sounding alarmed.

"Direct contact with the earth is necessary," Severus said, pulling off his left boot.

"It's freezing out here, you'll get frostbite—"

"Don't be an idiot," Severus said. He set his boots and socks against a tree and pulled from beneath his cloak the iron-tipped spear he'd brought.

"I'm guessing I don't need to help," Lupin said as Severus started scratching a circle in the earth with the spear, "or you'd be chivvying me into service."

"In fact, you read my mind. I was just about to ask you to yammer at me while I need to concentrate on what I'm doing."

"Understood," Lupin said, dryly that time, and fell blessedly silent.

* * *

Remus would have expected Dark magic to be more. . . sensational. The spear Snape had produced—quite unexpectedly—had a definite air of menace. But after alarming Remus by taking off his shoes and revealing the spear, Snape simply went about scratching a wide circle on the ground. It took him some time, as the earth was hard from the frosts and he didn't use any spells. Remus had nothing to do but wonder and worry about his feet.

Once the circle was complete, Snape simply tossed the spear aside and knelt in the middle of his circle. Then, without any sensation, he started building a fire with some kindling from his pocket and a flint. He did not seem to use any magic at any point, and it wasn't even a big fire.

Remus had expected chanting, and perhaps packets of herbs, bones, feathers. . . bloodletting. There was none of that yet. Remus was starting to think there never would be.

Now Snape was pulling out an aluminum canteen. He unscrewed its lid and dumped its clear, entirely unremarkable-looking contents over the fire.

Smoke billowed where the fire and water met, gushing across the ground, over Snape's knees, and up into the air—more and more smoke, covering the whole circle, blotting Snape from sight, flowing out across the clearing and rising up to Remus' shins, past his knees—

The earth thrummed beneath his feet. He felt it in his bones. The sky seemed to brighten and dim, and the stars wheeled overhead, white like diamonds in the black sky. The moon rose, full and powerful, its silver light running through his blood, bursting from skin, crushing his mind and blackening his soul with a force that moved the tides and warped the body of the earth—

A pain in his palm, and the world was the color it was supposed to be; the sky was gray and blocked by bare tree branches; the moon and stars were gone; and the clearing was patched with fog clinging along the ground.

Panting, Remus glanced down at his hand. He'd cut a deep, serious gash in his palm. It throbbed—because the knife's blade had been coated with aconite paste.

He didn't know whether to marvel at Snape's ability to be so cruelly effective or. . . something else.

Wait. . . where was Snape?

With a thrill of alarm, Remus realized he couldn't see him anywhere. He took a step toward the circle, and his whole body buzzed.

Cautiously, he curled his injured hand round the knife blade again. The aconite burned, but it cleared his head.

As carefully as if each step caused him pain equal to the knife blade, he took slow steps toward the circle. He'd call out for Snape only as a last resort.

When he saw, through the fog, a black shape lying prone on the ground in the circle's center, he didn't feel relieved to finally know where Snape was, nor did his worry clear even when he saw Snape's eyes were open. Was he breathing? From this distance, it was impossible to tell. Remus watched, but Snape didn't even blink.

_When the spell finds him, you will know. Until then, you will be patient._

So, it was time for patience. Remus sighed.

He'd prefer to stay near the circle, to better see Snape, but the knife was starting to drive him mad. He tried letting go of it—

And felt the earth exhaling beneath him, like the breath from a pair of lungs so enormous it destroyed all his sense of infinity, and the sky warped like a massive ocean rippling—

He gripped the blade and everything returned to normal: simple, dull, cold. His head spun, from pain and from. . . something else.

"Well, Severus," he said shakily, breathing out. "The folklore was right after all. Though I'm not especially comforted, under the circumstances."

* * *

Harriet, Ron and Hermione stayed up so late in the Room of Requirement that they'd fallen asleep, and woken up on down pallets covered with down comforters. When they staggered down to breakfast, yawning and wearing the same clothes as last night, everyone stared at them. A thicket of wide eyes was an unpleasant sight, first thing in the morning.

After breakfast, they changed their clothes, and spent the morning playing Exploding Snap, which all three of them were rubbish at. But it was an unspoken part of their new-found truce, Harriet thought, not to do anything yet to upset things. It had only been a few hours since they'd officially stopped fighting.

At lunch, everyone continued to stare.

"Honestly," Hermione said, eating asparagus with a superior expression on her face, "I don't see what's so terribly interesting."

"You three aren't fighting," Ginny said, sitting down next to Harriet. "It's an amazing sight. Or we're all going barmy. Which is it?"

"Oh, shut it," Ron said, reaching for a plate of rolls. "I'm too hungry to deal with little sisters."

"We're fine, Ginny," Harriet said. "Thanks for dropping in."

Ginny rolled her eyes at them and pushed down the bench to sit with her friends.

Someone was hovering next to the table, looking for a place to sit. Neville had come late to lunch.

"Hi, Neville," Harriet said, and patted the empty bench next to her where Ginny had sat. "You looking for a seat?"

Neville looked ready to faint from hunger, so Harriet tugged him onto the bench and pushed the stew pot at him. Ron choked on a potato, probably from trying to inhale them, and Hermione shot him a look.

"Thanks for your help yesterday," Harriet said to Neville, who spilled stew all over the table.

"Yeah," Ron said, smirking a little. "Thanks, mate. _We_ owe you one." Hermione pursed her lips, but didn't say anything.

Neville squeaked something and tried to eat his stew with his knife.

"Are you all right?" Harriet asked him.

"He's fine," Ron said, still smirking. "Let the bloke eat. What are we doing this afternoon?" He brightened. "You haven't got your Firebolt back yet, have you?"

"No, it's still with Professor McGonagall. She said she'll let me know when it's done. But I've got tea with Hagrid this afternoon. In fact. . ." She checked her watch. "I should get going, I'll need to get my cloak and everything. I'll see you two later, all right?"

Ron nodded and saluted with a potato on a fork; Hermione waved as Harriet left the table. At the door to the Great Hall, Harriet paused and looked back. They were still sitting on opposite sides of the table, but directly across from each other, their heads bent a little down, like they wanted to be closer, or didn't want anyone else to intrude. . .

And somehow, though she'd achieved what she wanted last night, Harriet felt a deep sadness: a sense that she'd brought them back together, so they could move further away from her.

* * *

When Remus heard a rustle in the undergrowth behind him, he gripped the knife so tightly he cut himself where his finger met his palm. But it wasn't from surprise—or at least, none that was entirely unexpected.

He turned as Padfoot came sniffing into the clearing.

"Padfoot," he hissed, stealing a glance at Snape; but there was no change in him, though it had been four and a half hours since he'd covered the clearing in smoke and fallen inert.

Padfoot growled. He was facing Snape, hackles raised, body arched in a frightened, furious pose.

Remus strode away from the circle and backed Padfoot into the cover of the trees. Immediately, Sirius was before him, with his matted hair and rotted prison robes, looking white and livid.

" _This was your fucking plan_?" he hissed. "That's Snape! I recognize his fucking scent—"

"He's helping us find Peter—"

"What did you _tell_ him, Remus?"

"I told him I was trying to find you, and gave him the bed sheet with Peter's blood on it. I studied the spell beforehand. You were safe from it. It finds by blood, not by intent."

"Christ on a fucking broom," said Sirius, staring at Remus almost like he didn't know who he was.

Remus gazed back, unwavering, gripping the knife as hard as if he were standing next to the spell circle.

"I don't know whether that's clever as fuck or just really bloody disturbing," Sirius said at last.

"I figured you wouldn't agree to go through with it if I told you."

Sirius snorted. He didn't reply, just raked a hand through his hair (as far as he could get it) and glanced at the circle. "Dark magic? Knew that tosser was into it."

"We can congratulate ourselves on our moral superiority later," Remus said sharply. "A spell like this will take a great toll on him, Sirius. He's helping us."

"For his own shady fucking reasons, no doubt."

"And if they're anything like our own, 'shady' doesn't begin to cover it. You broke into Hogwarts and stabbed the Fat Lady with a knife, and I've lied to everyone for months."

"Since when are you so bloody defensive of that git?" Sirius grunted.

"Guilty conscience," Remus said calmly. "If we find Peter, we can all abjure ourselves."

"If we find that shit, I'll be doing something a lot more fucking satisfying. How long have you been out here, anyway? Your nose is red. Your nose never gets red."

"Almost five hours. He took off his damn shoes, and he's been lying on the bloody ground. I'm worried he'll get frostbite."

"Can't make him look any worse than he does now," Sirius said—philosophically, for him.

"Yes, because you and I would really win a beauty contest."

"I won every fucking year in Azkaban. Bella's cackling always threw off the judges. They liked my barely sane mystique."

They fell silent, perhaps from that subject matter, perhaps from the situation. The fog still lay in a carpet across the frozen ground, Snape swathed at the center, unmoving.

"Do you think it's gonna work, Moony?" Sirius asked quietly.

"Severus thinks it will," Remus said. "I'm trusting he's right."

"Never thought I'd fucking say this," Sirius muttered. "But let's hope he's more trustworthy than we are, at this point."

* * *

It was boundless everything doors and windows opening to eternity

not like it had always been standing without and looking in for it was looking within and seeing all that lay without

an eternity and yet an instant traversed by longing

He opened the door and stepped through it

* * *

Pain—boundless pain—burning through everything, every thought, every sense—sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch, all were pain—

Severus peeled himself away from it. Agony raged through his body, but he separated his mind from it, placing that conscious, thinking part of himself inside a room with no windows, only a door, and locking the door behind him.

Inside the room, he could do nothing. He had no sense of where he was, or what was happening around him. But inside the room, his sense of self sat untouched, unaffected by physical tortures that had driven others insane.

There he would wait, while his body weathered the pain, until it was safe to come back to himself.

* * *

"What's the fucking matter with him?" Sirius demanded, as Snape's body bent into a shape that ought reasonably to have broken his spine.

"I don't know," Remus said, barely managing to keep a handle on his panic. This was far, far worse than he'd imagined. "I mean—it's backlash, from the spell—"

"Backlash? What fucking backlash?"

"From the Dark spell—you _know_ this, your parents—"

"My parents collected fucking knick-knacks and used their wands for opening doors," Sirius said, watching Snape with a kind of detached fascination. "But. . . but Bella was into this kind of sick shit. She used to bash her head on the furniture and bite straight through her tongue, the batshit bint." He scraped the back of his hand across his mouth, like he was wiping it, still watching Snape as he slumped to the side. "I'd forgot. I remember now. Yeah. Backlash."

The way he said it and the look on his face—that blank interest in his eyes—made something twinge inside Remus. Like forgetting huge chunks of information was normal, and it was nothing new to have it come slowly back to him like this.

"Reminds me of Cruciatus, too," Sirius said, as Snape collapsed from a new, horrific contortion onto his other side, panting, before curling up like someone had kicked him in the stomach.

"He doesn't seem to even know we're here," Remus said. He stood outside the circle, mindful of Snape's injunction to stay there—remembering what Snape had said, too, when Remus asked him to help. . . but of course that was what Snape would think of him, and of course it would be extremely difficult to stand here doing nothing while someone was in so much pain.

And it rather reminded him of days twenty years gone by. He wondered if Snape had someone divined that, or if it was just life's sense of justice at work.

"Trust me," Sirius said, "it's nowhere near as fucking freakish as when Bella'd do it. She'd thrash around like this and look like she was getting her rocks off. Well, it's true," he said when Remus looked at him incredulously.

"Sirius," he said, controlling his temper with an effort, "do you have any memories concerning Bellatrix that would be helpful here, now?"

"You can't do anything for him," Sirius said. "He's just got to get through it."

"He wouldn't tell me how to help him—"

"'Cause you can't," Sirius said patiently. "Trust me, Moony. I've seen 'em go through this. Snape's got to live through it or die trying. Why d'you think most people don't do these spells?" he asked when Remus stared. "Being illegal never stopped 'em. It was dropping dead that did it."

* * *

When he was sure it was safe, Severus unlocked the room and let himself out.

The world flooded with light.

Someone was saying his name, over and over, which was especially fucking irritating right now, especially considering who it was. But thank God he _knew_ who it was, he could recognize that voice. The relief that he hadn't lost his mind after all was almost enough to make him happy to hear it.

"You better not have stepped into the circle, Lupin," he said. At least, he tried to. He wasn't sure how intelligible he'd been. His throat felt raw and torn inside, and speaking was agony.

With a superhuman effort, he pushed himself up on one elbow and looked for the fire. It still burned, at least three feet high now. Good. Thank Christ. If it had gone out, he'd have failed.

He dragged himself close to it. Still on one elbow, he groped inside his pocket and pulled out the strip of cloth with the bloodstains. He dropped it twice before he managed to crumple it and throw it onto the fire.

The fire burst apart, like the petals of a flower flinging itself open, and then curled back into itself before flaring in a thick column into the air. It plunged into the sky, higher and higher, until he couldn't see where the top of it reached.

Then, with a deafening, soundless boom, it shrank back into itself, thinned and twisted, and shot off into the forest, leaving behind a glittering, fiery trail.

He stared at it, his heart beating so hard it felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest.

Then he looked at Lupin, who was staring after it, too, shock and hope so very clear on his face.

Lupin glanced back at him, eyes wide.

"Go," Severus croaked.

"Severus—"

"GO!" Severus panted, his fingers curling on the frozen ground. "I'll—follow—"

And Lupin ran.


	40. The Silver Doe's Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick announcement - fantasiearm drew some super-awesome for a reader who won an art contest last Christmas and requested the Scrabble scene from Chapter 20. If you'd like to take a gander (and tell her how wonderful it is!) it's on deviantArt, by fantasiearm, titled Xanthum Gum, pic ID 352030612.

 

 

 

 

Branches whipping at his face, snow dragging at his legs, Remus barreled through the wood. The spell's trail shot through the forest ahead of him, whipping red-hot around trees and snaking over gulleys, brilliant and glittering and impossible to lose.

He hoped.

"You go," Remus panted at Padfoot, who was running along beside him. "You're—faster—but when you find him, _wait for me_!" he shouted as the dog outstripped him.

Padfoot was the same color as the shadows of the forest, and Remus quickly lost sight of him. But the trail burned fiery bright, and he ran after it.

* * *

Severus waited until Lupin was gone to move. The worst of the backlash had passed but left him weak and nearly helpless. Occasional tremors still wracked him and his bones felt like they'd been turned half to water.

He fumbled from his pocket his crude map of the grounds and forest. With a shaking hand, he scooped ashes out of the dying fire and blew them trembling across the paper.

The trail blazed across the parchment, snaking through the trees. . .

To Hagrid's hut.

He dumped the rest of the ashes on the ground and heaved himself to his feet. His head spun and his body ached like fuck. He fell over four times getting out of the circle, and had to support himself by leaning on the trees.

He wouldn't beat Lupin, but at least he knew where he was headed.

* * *

Harriet couldn't believe it. How could she have been so bloody _blind_?

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I should have asked—"

"Nonsense!" Hagrid said, but he had to blow his nose before he could go on. "It ain't yer fault, love. Why do yeh think I never mentioned it none? Yeh got yer own business to think about, and Merlin love a duck, yeh got more'n enough of _that_."

"But Buckbeak—"

"There's nothin' yeh could've done, and serves no purpose to be worritin' yeh," Hagrid said, mopping at his eyes. "'Sides, it's me own ruddy fault. Teachin' hippogriffs in a firs' lesson—"

" _I_ did just fine with Buckbeak—"

"An' I was a bleedin' fool to let yeh even try," Hagrid said gruffly. "I forget—interestin' creatures—they en't so dangerous to me, but ter little ones like you lot. . ."

Harriet couldn't _honestly_ deny the truth of this: Hagrid's love for "interesting creatures" had included vicious, fire-breathing dragons, man-eating spiders, and three-headed dogs that had tried to gore her two years ago. She'd never met the Acromantula, and she didn't want to. She knew enough of what Hagrid liked to be going on with.

"Malfoy was the only one in the whole class who got hurt," she said stubbornly, "because he thinks he's too good to listen to what people tell him."

Hagrid's sniffle sounded like a car puttering. When he suddenly burst out howling, Harriet spilled her jug-sized teacup, slopping ice-cold tea across her lap.

"L-look at h-him!" he wailed, making her think of Dobby grown to fifty times his size. "P-poor Beaky! How c-could anyone think he's a danger!"

Harriet glanced at Buckbeak, curled up on Hagrid's bed. She only hoped he hadn't stood before the Board of Governors chewing on something matted and bloody, like he was doing right now. Since Hagrid clearly didn't see anything in this picture that would unnerve anyone, she had to hope Buckbeak had finished his lunch before the hearing.

"You said there was an appeal," she said desperately, while Hagrid continued to sob so loudly it was a miracle thatch didn't shake loose from the ceiling. "There's still hope he'll get off—"

"Yeh don't know the Board!" Hagrid sobbed. "They've got it in fer interestin' creatures!"

"We can _try_. What do you need to do, for an appeal?"

But Hagrid only wailed into his handkerchief. Harriet rubbed his arm, wishing she'd invited Hermione. She'd know what to do about the appeal, if nothing else.

After a time, Hagrid recovered himself. "Thanks, love," he said thickly. His handkerchief had become so sodden that he had blow his nose on his coat sleeve. "I worrit about him, that's all. If anythin' happens to him, it's me own fool fault, and that's the worst thing to know yeh've done."

Harriet didn't know what to say to this. "I'll make some more tea," she offered feebly. (Whatever Hagrid had done to the first batch, it had been stone cold from the first. She suspected he hadn't even heated the water.)

She stood up, and it was a good thing she did: a fiery bolt of magic shot through the wall, across the table, passed straight through her chair, and through the door of Hagrid's kitchen cabinet. Behind the closed door, something squeaked clattered.

"Wha' the devil?" Hagrid said blankly.

The thin line of fire hung in the air like a taut wire, not disappearing.

"What _is_ that?" she asked.

Hagrid grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "Don' touch it!" he said gruffly. "There's no tellin' what it is!"

"Don't _you_ know?"

"Haven't got a clue. Never seen the like before—and now that I have, I don' like it. Stay behind me, love."

He reached for his crossbow with one hand and his pink umbrella with the other, and Harriet got out her own wand. Pointing the umbrella at the cabinet, he spelled the door open.

Nothing happened.

Hagrid bent down and peered into the dark. Then he reached inside and hauled out a stone pitcher, which the fire-line had shot straight through without coming out the other side.

He dumped the contents of the pitcher on the table. The fire-line fell with it—wrapped securely around the body of a terrified rat.

_"Scabbers?"_ Harriet said.

" _Ron's_ rat? Yeh sure?"

She'd recognize Scabbers anywhere, though she'd never seen him looking so sick and thin or terrified, even when Crookshanks was after him. "What _is_ that thing?"

"Dunno." Hagrid poked his umbrella at the table, but the fire-line didn't fade or do anything at all. Scabbers was trembling, his eyes were bulging, but he didn't seem able to move or even make a sound. "Some kinder binding spell, though I've never seen the like, nor hearda one that works on animals."

"Is it hurting him?"

"Can' really tell. We'll have ter get a professor to look at 'im, I don' know enough about magic to be able to—wha's that?"

Before Harriet could say _What's what?_ she heard it: a growl, like from an angry, half-mad animal. It made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle like porcupine's quills.

Scabbers' eyes popped even wider.

Buckbeak stood on Hagrid's bed, trying to stretch his wings and knocking everything off the bedside cabinet. Harriet flinched when the front door rattled like a great, snarling weight had crashed against it, growling and scrabbling.

"Wha' in the name of Merlin?" Hagrid said. He banged on his door with the parasol; the door flared golden-bright, and with a yelp and a _thud_ the thing on the other side went quiet.

"Get over there with Buckbeak, Harry," Hagrid said, hefting his crossbow.

Harriet darted over to Buckbeak, bowed quickly, and slipped behind the protective span of his wings.

Hagrid reached for the door, but caught it in the chest when it sprang open with a flurry of snow and icy wind, along with—

"Professor _Lupin_?" Harriet said

"Oof!" said Hagrid.

Buckbeak hissed and ripped a furrow in the bed.

Professor Lupin looked like he'd been running some sort of dirty obstacle course in the forest. His robes were smeared with mud, his hair was streaked with slush; here were small cuts all over him, and his face was wild. He was panting slightly, his eyes wide and inhuman sharpness in his face.

He looked straight at the fire-wire, following it to the table, to Scabbers, and his eyes narrowed with an expression that flashed a chill down Harriet's back.

"Professer Lupin?" Hagrid repeated when he only stood breathing heavily, his eyes fixed on the table—on Scabbers.

Buckbeak was making a hissing, spitting noise in the back of his throat, wings flexing; Harriet tried to get down from the bed and he shrieked, his wing snapping back and clipping her in the shoulder, slamming her against the wall.

"Buckbeak! Down!" Hagrid turned from the door, tossing his parasol and crossbow onto the floor, and took Buckbeak by his collar so that Harriet could get free.

Then Professor Lupin did something even more strange: he strode up to the table and grabbed Scabbers.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," he said to them in an odd voice. "I've been looking for this."

"That's Scabbers," Harriet said, scrambling over to the table.

"I'm afraid it can't be," Professor Lupin said, still in that odd voice: that calm tone paired with the wild expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Harriet, but this rat belongs to me."

"It's _Scabbers_ ," Harriet said, "there's been some mistake—"

"The spell was to find a very particular rat," said Professor Lupin, still quite calm, though his eyes were not. "And it's found him. I'm sorry, Harriet—Hagrid—but I have to go now."

"Wait!" she said desperately.

"Harry, maybe yeh mistook the rat," Hagrid said, still hanging onto Buckbeak. "Yeh said that Scabbers—"

"That _is_ Scabbers!" she said hotly.

"Harriet," Professor Lupin said, his voice now sounding strained.

"I'm coming with you," she said. "That's Ron's rat. I can prove it—he's missing his smallest toe on his right paw!"

Lupin looked down at her for a long moment, almost as if he were looking at her from very far away.

"Very well," he said at last. "We can discuss this in my office. All right? Hagrid, I'll take her back up to the school. . . You've got your hands full—I apologize for upsetting him—"

"Weren' yer fault," Hagrid said, looking worried. Harriet thought this was an odd thing to say, considering it was _all_ Professor Lupin's fault that Buckbeak was shredding Hagrid's only bed.

"Come on, then, Harriet," he said, pushing the door open for her.

She slung her cloak on and followed him out.

It was bitterly cold and quite dark for being only three o'clock or so in the afternoon. The sky was solid with clouds; the grounds looked like they already lay in twilight. Hagrid's hut was so close to the forest that it seemed to sit on the edge of a great darkness.

The snow in front of his door was all churned up, and there were claw marks on the wood.

In the deep shadows, something growled, and a pair of eyes gleamed in the dark.

"Sn-snuffles?" she said. It looked like Snuffles—but it didn't. 

_"Padfoot,"_ Professor Lupin said. Snuffles didn't seem to hear him. He was taking slow, measured steps toward them, his teeth bared, his hackles raised, his eyes glittering.

Harriet's heart beat fast and hard. "He attacked Hagrid's hut."

Professor Lupin put his free hand on her shoulder. "Harriet, I need you to do something for me, all right? I need you to go up to the castle and leave the rat with me. This is very, _very_ important," he said when she tried to protest. "I'll explain it to you later, but right now—"

"She has a right to know."

Harriet did not recognize this voice. It was hoarse, like it hadn't been used in so long, and filled with a depth of hatred she'd never heard. Whoever it belonged to, the voice shocked Professor Lupin straight to his heart—and he closed his eyes.

Harriet looked around his shoulder and was always proud of herself later that she hadn't screamed.

If Sirius Black looked less dead now than on the Muggle telly, it was only because rage and hate were now twisting his skeletal face to life.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Professor Lupin demanded in a tone of voice that made Harriet jump.

"She's got a right to know what that fucking piece of shit did," Black said, his voice low and snarling, like the growl of a—of a—

"Where's Snuffles?" she asked, battling a feeling of terror and something else. . .

Professor Lupin's hand gripped her shoulder. And then she realized what that "something else" feeling was: the sense that something was very, very wrong here. . .

"Remus," Black said.

Professor Lupin looked at him for a long moment, not speaking.

Then he put his arms around Harriet, lifting her off the ground, and she screamed with a jolt of terror; except he must have been expecting that, because he'd put his hand over her mouth before she made a sound. She thrashed as he carried her into the trees, but even being so thin and frail-looking, he was still a great deal bigger than she was.

Over her shoulder she heard the door to Hagrid's hut opening, and she thrashed harder and tried to bite Professor Lupin's hand so she could call out for him.

"I'm sorry," Professor Lupin whispered, shouldering aside low-hanging branches. "It'll all become clear—we aren't going to hurt you—"

Harriet didn't believe that for a second. She tried kicking him, tried being angry, because she was so scared—

She heard the whine of a dog, and thought _Snuffles_ with an elation so sharp it pierced—saw him scrambling along beside Lupin, and willed him to bite him—

But then Snuffles changed into Sirius Black right in front of her and hissed, "Fucking Christ, Remus, put her down, you're scaring the shit out of her!"

"You're the one who transformed into a mass-murderer in front of her!" Professor Lupin sounded angrier than Harriet had ever heard him.

"She wasn't going back up to the castle, no one in their right bloody mind would've. She deserves to know—"

"And if you get caught, the only thing _you'll_ know is the Dementor's Kiss!"

"At least put her down," Black said, "or let her breathe."

Harriet held quite still. Why did Black care whether she was scared? He was supposed to want to kill her.

None of this was anything like what she would have expected.

It was still fucking scary, though.

"I'll be good," Harriet promised as soon as Lupin slowly withdrew his hand.

"I doubt that," he said, almost like he was trying not to laugh, but in such a sad way. "You'll hex us both at the first opportunity, I'm sure."

But he set her on her feet. Harriet didn't recognize where they were. All trees looked the same to her, especially in the near-dark, and in the Forbidden Forest they looked dead and menacing. She tried not to shiver, but it was so cold, especially now that Professor Lupin had put her down. He gave off as much heat as a space heater.

And he'd brought her into the forest, alone, except for a mass murderer who'd killed her parents and wanted to kill her. And Scabbers.

She forced herself to look them in the eye.

Professor Lupin was wary and still cradling Scabbers in the fiery rope. And Black. . . there was an expression on his face that reminded her of Snuffles: hungry and lonely and yearning and so, so sad. Even his matted hair and filthy robes made her think of Snuffles' fur.

Her knees felt wobbly. They might not look it, but they were going to kill her. Black was clearly mad, and so was Professor Lupin, if he was helping him. And she'd sort of trusted _him_. And Snuffles—

She wobbled, groping for something to sit on.

"Harriet," said Lupin, like he was worried, and she wanted to scream at him to shut up.

"I—" She teetered away from them to lean against a fallen log. She sucked in lungfuls of air, bracing herself.

Then she leapt over the log and took off running as fast as she could.

She heard one of them swear. She ripped off her cloak, dropping it behind her, so she could run better—ducked a low-hanging branch, jumped over a fallen tree, swerved around a trunk—

And plowed into someone, knocking them both off their feet and her glasses off her face.

"Miss Potter?" hissed Snape's voice. His hand clamped down on her shoulder like iron, probably bruising, but for the first time she understood what it meant to be so relieved to see someone that you wanted to cry.

"Sirius Black!" she gasped.

Snape shoved her glasses onto her face. In focus, he looked—ill. And enraged, like at the Dursleys—no: like in the Chamber of Secrets, when he'd come out of the gloom with his eyes glittering and his teeth bared, like he was hanging onto himself by the tips of his fingernails. There was a wild look on his face, like Lupin's, like Black's, anger and madness and something she didn't understand.

"Are. You. Injured?" he hissed, and she got the impression that he was clenching his teeth so he wouldn't scream at her.

"I—" But she stopped, her heart, too, when she heard the growling of a dog and the snapping of the underbrush close by.

Snape dragged himself to his feet using the trunk of a tree, and hauled her up with him. He pulled her underneath his cloak and stared toward the sound, a sharpness in his eyes that would have made Neville faint if it was aimed at him. His whole body was shaking, and his clothes were damp.

"He's the dog," she whispered, digging her fingers into Snape's robes, as Snuffles' gleaming eyes and teeth shone out of the dark, "he's an Animagus—"

Snape hissed, a long-drawn out sound that reminded her of a snake.

Black-the-dog stalked closer, almost as angry as when he was fixed on Scabbers.

"He and Professor Lupin are in league together or something," Harriet whispered frantically. "They did some spell on Scabbers—"

"Scabbers?" Snape said, though he didn't take his eyes off the slowly advancing dog.

"Ron's rat."

"You know him by another name, though, Severus," said Lupin's voice.

He brushed out of the trees, still holding Scabbers in his hand. Lupin's face was eerily calm, but Snuffles snarled.

"You remember Peter Pettigrew," said Lupin, like he was introducing an old acquaintance.

"You had me do that spell to find a _fucking rat_ ," Snape said, his arm so tight around Harriet it almost hurt.

Snuffles had turned into Sirius Black again. "We haven't got time for this," he snarled at Lupin.

"I should think we have nothing but time," Lupin said. Then to Snape, "I had to tell you it was Sirius I wanted to find because you'd never have believed the truth." He looked down at the rat. " _I_ haven't even had the proof yet."

An odd expression passed over Black's face—almost like hurt—and then hatred crushed it out of sight.

"Then let's do the fucking spell."

Harriet realized Snape was trying to get her attention.

"Take that," he said, his voice barely more than a breath, and pressed something into her hand beneath the cloak. She clamped her fingers around a piece of parchment.

Lupin nodded at Black and bent to set the rat on the ground.

A violet-colored bolt of light shot out of Snape's wand and hit Lupin in the chest, slamming him backwards into a bush. Snarling, Black started toward Snape, who hexed ropes around him, wrapping him so tightly that he overbalanced and crashed to the ground.

Snape shoved Harriet out from beneath his cloak. "Get going!"

"But you're hurt!" she said as he almost fell over.

"Miss Potter, do as you're fucking told, for once—"

"Watch out!" she cried, as she saw Professor Lupin raising his wand and pointing it at them—

A flash of blue-white light erupted from his wand and enveloped Scabbers lying on the frozen ground. He bulged in size—and then kept growing, to the size of a small dog, then a child—

Then the spell-light faded, and lying where Scabbers had been was a man, with a look of terror on his face and the fiery rope still wrapped tight around him.

They were all frozen: Harriet, Lupin, Black (still trussed up), even Snape.

Who then really did fall over. Harriet darted over to him. He looked exhausted, but his glare could have gutted a rhinoceros. He tried to push himself up but couldn't manage it without her help.

He slumped against a tree, panting, sweat glistening on his face. Harriet crouched next to him.

Lupin climbed to his feet, looking down at the man who'd been Scabbers almost as if he'd forgotten anyone else was there.

"Hello, Peter," he said.

Scabbers only stared up at him in heart-freezing terror.

Every part of him wrapped in the ropes, even his mouth, Black thrashed.

"Can I let him out, or are you going to hex me if I try?" Lupin asked Snape.

" _Fuck_ you, you lying piece of shit," Snape said. He tried to stand, but collapsed again. He broke out with a wave of cursing so creative Harriet didn't even know what half of it meant (though what she _did_ understand blistered her ears).

All Lupin did in reply was to put his wand away and hold out his hands, as if in surrender.

"What's going _on_?" Harriet asked. She'd have taken an answer from anyone, with or without cursing. "Who _is_ that?"

"It's Peter Pettigrew," said Lupin. He wasn't making a move toward either Scabbers-the-man or Black, or even toward Harriet and Snape.

"But who _is_ that?" Harriet demanded. The name, though, was niggling at her. . . _where_ had she heard it?

"Don't you recognize him, Severus?" asked Lupin.

Snape just swore at him, which Harriet took for a yes. Lupin must have, too, because he nodded and said to Harriet, "How much do you know—"

Black, trussed up in Snape's spell-rope, growled. Lupin moved toward him, but Snape raised his wand, hand and voice shaking, and snarled, "You fucking stay where you are, werewolf."

Lupin's eyelids flickered. If it hadn't been for that, Harriet might have been too distracted to notice.

"Werewolf?" she repeated blankly, looking from Snape to Lupin, who seemed to shrink away from her. "You're a werewolf?"

He only closed his eyes. Bewildered by this reaction, she looked to Snape for understanding, but he was glaring at Lupin with undisguised loathing.

"If we can get back to the matter at hand," Lupin said, like he was trying to be calm, though it seemed to be costing him more of an effort than anything before. "This is Peter Pettigrew, whom Sirius supposedly killed twelve years ago. Like Sirius, he's an Animagus, and has been posing as your friend Ron's rat."

Harriet stared. Black's eyes were slitted with hatred, fixed on Scabbers-the-man. _His_ eyes were rolled back in his head, like it was all he could do, trapped and terrified and apparently voiceless. She looked to Snape for help. The expression on his face echoed Black's, down to the last millimeter of hatred.

"Did you lose a map, Harriet?" asked Lupin. "Around Christmas?"

Harriet blinked.

"There is so much to tell," he said, "I don't know where to begin or what all to cover." He glanced down at Black. "The Map, as you no doubt saw, Harriet, will show the location of anyone in Hogwarts. Sirius and I thought to use it to find Peter—whom Sirius broke out of Azkaban to find—but by the time we were able to get the Map—to steal it from you, I'm afraid—Peter had faked his own death and vanished off its edges. I believe Hermione has a cat who was accused of eating him?"

"I told you that," Harriet whispered.

"Yes. And that Peter's blood was found on Ron's bed sheet," Lupin said. "Dobby got that bed sheet for me, and I gave it to Severus, for a powerful locating spell—and it's found him."

_A dangerous traitor-wizard—Harriet Potter's Snuffles—he and Moony are hunting—his friend Moony, who he is not seeing for many, many years—_

Harriet's head felt so heavy. She was confused—if she were cleverer, like Hermione, she'd surely understand—but she wasn't clever, and it was all too much.

"What are you saying?" she asked. "What does that even matter?"

"It matters because if Peter is alive, then Sirius wasn't the man who betrayed your parents. Peter was."

"The _fuck_ he was," Snape snarled.

"Severus—" Lupin tried.

" _Dumbledore_ gave evidence he was their fucking Secret Keeper! The Dark Lord had a spy following them, shadowing everything they did, they'd never have placed their faith in _that_ —" He made a savage swipe with his wand at Pettigrew, whose eyes rolled with terror. "—when there was Black, who Potter worshiped to the ends of the _fucking_ earth—"

"Severus," Lupin repeated.

"Even after we knew there was a spy, the Dark Lord was still getting all the information he could ever fucking want! It had to be someone they trusted blindly, someone whom they couldn't keep their fucking mouths shut for love of, and that was Black, not Pettigrew—"

Harriet stared at him, at his face petrified with grief and rage. Some understanding was building in her chest, as strongly pressing as the anger-weight, but very, very different—something so big she was struggling with it, as she'd struggled with the truth—simpler, yet incredibly complicated at the same time. . .

"They thought the spy was me," Lupin said, and Harriet heard the pain in his voice like she could see it in Snape's face. "They all did."

Snape's heavy breathing was the only sound in the clearing.

"And why should I believe you now," he said, "when all you've done since you set foot in this school is fucking _lie to everyone_?"

Lupin tossed his wand over. It landed on the frozen ground near Harriet's foot.

"If you'll take the spell off him so he can speak, we can interrogate him together."

The silence stretched and stretched. Snape's face hurt to look at, and yet she couldn't turn away.

"Miss Potter," Snape said at last, like miles of ice with something burning underneath. "Help me up."

Almost too numb to be astonished, Harriet did. On his feet, braced against her shoulder, Snape took staggering steps toward the triangle of Lupin, Black, and Pettigrew. He looked down at Pettigrew just the way Lupin had in Hagrid's hut: as if from far, far away.

Pettigrew didn't seem to know which of them to keep an eye on. His frenzied gaze rolled from Lupin to Harriet to Snape and around again. Black lay bound, still, and silent.

Then a tiny burst of light flared in Snape's eyes, and a gold-black shimmer flowed over Pettigrew's whole body. The fiery rope disappeared. He sucked in breath, gasping and squeaking and sounding like his rat-self.

"Hello, Peter," Lupin said again.

"R-remus!" squeaked Pettigrew. He cringed on the ground, his gaze rolling across all three of them. "I-it isn't true! Wh-whatever h-he's been telling you, it i-isn't true!"

"What who's been telling me?" Lupin asked.

Snape had not moved or spoken. Though that spell-light had faded from his eyes, a different kind of light was taking over his face, one that made Harriet shiver.

"S-sirius Black! He tried to k-kill me twelve years ago, and h-he only wants to do it again!"

"Why should he want that, Peter?"

"Because—because—" But Pettigrew did not seem to have a reason.

Snape made a jab with his wand. Pettigrew squeaked and flinched, but it was the ropes holding Black that vanished like steam thrown on a hot stove.

Black climbed to his feet. Harriet wouldn't have been surprised if Pettigrew's heart stopped from terror.

"I'll tell you why, _Wormtail,_ " Black said, menace pouring out of him. "I want you dead because you sold Lily and James to Voldemort."

Like little flashes of light, thoughts streaked through Harriet's head:

_Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are proud to present the Marauder's Map—_

_He is saying Harriet Potter is being just like Prongs—_

_He and your dad were friends—_

_Potter worshiped Black to the ends of the fucking earth—_

_Did you lose a map, Harriet?_

"It wasn't me!" Pettigrew squeaked. "It wasn't me! Everyone knows it was _you_!"

"That was certainly where all the evidence pointed," Lupin said. Snape hadn't said a word, hadn't moved except to free Black. "All evidence, of course, except your survival. . . it's curious to me, Peter, that an innocent man would be in hiding as a pet rat for twelve years."

"Because I put the Dark Lord's spy in prison!" Pettigrew panted. "Th-there are still Death Eaters out th-there, and they would have been after my blood, same as he is!" Was it Harriet's imagination, or did his eyes flicker to Snape then?

Black barked a laugh, sounding like a dog again. "Oh, you're right there. Azkaban is full of people who'd fucking love to cut your throat—but not because you put _me_ away: because the information you gave twelve years ago took Voldemort down. They think the double-crosser double-crossed them. . . nobody likes a traitor, Wormtail, and that's. Not. _Me_."

"R-remus," panted Pettigrew, his teeth chattering. "Y-you can't believe him—"

"The more I hear, Peter, the more I find myself doing just that," Lupin said coldly.

He glanced at Snape, then. "Severus?" he asked, a bit warily. "What do you think?"

Black gaped at him, but Lupin continued to look at Snape, who had been staring down at Pettigrew the whole time. Pettigrew regarded him with a terror as great as any for Sirius Black.

When Snape spoke, his voice seemed to come from someplace deep and dark and cold.

"None of the Dark Lord's followers would have dared call him by his name. And they are the only ones who refer to him as _the Dark Lord._ "

Lupin and Black both looked surprised, Pettigrew shocked and frightened. Then, in a panic, his eyes landed on Harriet.

"H-harriet," he said. "Y-you don't believe it—h-he's tried to k-kill you, but I—"

"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HER!" Black roared, making Harriet jump; Snape gripped her shoulder, painfully hard. "AFTER WHAT YOU _FUCKING_ DID TO HER—"

"I've never tried to hurt her in twelve years!" Pettigrew cried.

"When there was nothing for you to gain," Lupin said.

"No, no—"

"You don't have any right to her pity," Black snarled, his face somehow both livid and heartbroken. "You don't deserve to _live_."

"He was taking over everywhere!" Pettigrew gabbled, sobbing. "Wh-what was to be gained by refusing him?"

"What was to be _gained_? Only innocent fucking lives!"

"You should have known that if Voldemort's followers didn't kill you, Peter, we would," Lupin said almost gently, though there was nothing gentle in his face.

Pettigrew started hyperventilating. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the dark, for night had fallen entirely, though the moon had not yet risen. He shook his head from side to side, mouthing soundlessly. Harriet felt sick and dizzy.

"Together?" Lupin was saying to Black, who nodded, looking more than ever like death walking.

Snape suddenly pressed Harriet's shoulder, like he was trying to pull her away. "Miss Potter. This way."

"No," she said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud.

"Miss Potter, you are not to witness this."

"I mean, they can't kill him."

Everyone stopped. Even she was a bit surprised to hear herself say it—but as she did, something painfully tight in her chest seemed to loosen.

"Harriet. . ." Lupin said, though he didn't seem to know how to go on.

"You can't," Harriet said, more firmly now because she knew she was right. "You can't do this—like this. It's not right."

"Holly-berry, this piece of fucking shit is the reason you've got no parents. He sold them to Voldemort for less than a song, and you with them. Your whole _family_ meant less to him than his own worthless fucking life."

"I know," Harriet said, refusing to let her voice shake. "But it's not—killing him, it won't make anything right. It'll only make it worse."

Lupin and Black stared at her, and then at each other. Pettigrew lay curled on the ground, whimpering.

"It's never a good idea to show mercy to those who have shown you none," Snape said.

"You're as fucking cheerful as I remember," Black said.

"Says the man who's planning murder in front of his thirteen-year-old goddaughter," Snape snarled, violent red sparks dropping from the end of his wand as he gripped it.

"In front of his _what_?" Harriet said.

Lupin winced.

"You _knew!_ "

_"Please,_ Harriet, you can be as angry with me as you like, later; right now, we need to get this taken care of. She's right, Sirius—from a moral standpoint, and from the practical. His corpse won't clear you half as well as his testimony."

". . . Fine." Black stared down at Pettigrew with absolute hatred. "You owe your life to the girl you tried to kill. You think about that, you worthless shit."

Lupin spelled familiar-looking ropes around Pettigrew and handed the ends to Black. "I'll let you do the honors."

"Gladly." He hauled on the ropes, dragging and bumping Pettigrew across the cold, uneven ground. Harriet winced.

"Severus," Lupin said. "Do you need—?"

"Sod the fuck off," Snape said.

They started off, Black in the front, dragging Pettigrew, who whimpered as he thumped along; then Lupin, since Snape wouldn't move until he started walking first; and lastly Snape, bracing himself against trees. Harriet stayed with him in case he needed to lean on her (though he ignored her help). His breathing was heavy and harsh, like every step hurt him.

Lupin was clearly trying not to outstrip them, but Black was getting ahead, even dragging Pettigrew behind him.

"Sirius, hold up, would you?" Lupin called after him.

"Don't linger on my account," Snape snarled.

"I'm not leaving Harriet to deal with all the trouble, should any arise," Lupin said.

"And your testimony will have more credibility if I'm with you."

"There are still the Dementors," Lupin said quietly.

"And you're still a fucking barefaced shit of a liar."

"I know," Lupin sighed, rubbing at his neck.

Harriet squinted up at the branches overhead. She wished the moon would come out—then they could see better. . .

Full moon. . . full—

She gasped.

"Harriet?" asked Lupin.

"You're a werewolf!"

"Yes," he said in a strained voice.

"It's a full _moon_."

"Oh. Yes." He kept rubbing his neck. "I'll transform soon. The moon's almost up. . ."

"But—um—" She didn't know how to politely say 'Won't you rip us to shreds?' She glanced at Snape, whose gaze had suddenly fixed on Lupin.

"Lupin." Snape's voice made all the hairs on Harriet's neck rise. "You said you took your potion."

"I did." But he was shivering, an odd light in his face, and he looked almost frightened. "I know I did, Severus—"

"You said you mistook it for your tea. Do you put sugar in your tea?"

Lupin blinked. Then heartsick horror dawned on his face. "Oh, God—"

Without another word, he turned and ran. "Tell Sirius!" he shouted over his shoulder.

The forest snapped and cracked around him and swallowed him in the dark.

"Wh-what's that mean?" Harriet asked.

"He takes a potion to make him sane during the full moon." Snape raised his wand, his whole arm shaking. "But sugar makes it useless."

A stream of red-orange light shot from his wand like welding sparks, first high in the air and then straight along the way Black had gone.

"Miss Potter, for once in your disobedient career, you are going to do what I say."

"Not if it involves leaving you here by yourself," Harriet said immediately.

"It is up to me to decide what it involves, not you," Snape said, menacingly, "and that is _exactly_ what you're going to do."

"No!"

"What use do you imagine you'll be against a fully grown werewolf?" Snape grabbed her by her collar and gave her a little shake. "You'll be less than none, Miss Potter, you'll be a dead weight to me. I will be better off not having to worry about you, so you will go with Sirius fucking Black if I have to transfigure you into a dormouse!"

Black crashed back into sight, thumping Pettigrew behind him. "The fuck, Snape? Where's Remus?"

"He's transforming, idiot, what night do you think it is?" He shoved Harriet toward Black; she stumbled. "Take her and get the fuck gone!"

"He said you were making him a potion," Black said sharply, looking round at the black solid around them, broken only by the tint of the moon shining through the branches.

Off in the distance, in the darkness of the forest, rose a howl that threaded its way out of somewhere deep and dark inside Harriet's heart.

"Earlier he _negated_ it," Snape said. "Get her _out_ of here!"

"I'm not leaving!"

"Miss Potter, don't be a _fucking_ idiot!"

Black swore as well as Snape did (including an order not to fucking talk to his bloody goddaughter like that, you prick).

"Transform him for me." He kicked the whimpering Pettigrew in the side. "My control's gone to shit, I can't do it myself."

Snape aimed his wand at Pettigrew, Immobilized him, and with another spell-flash turned him back into a rat.

"You can't leave him here!" Harriet said to Black.

Off in the trees, but far, far too close, something snapped and crashed and snarled.

Black grabbed the rat and threw it at Snape, who caught it with a blank look.

"It's not the way I'd've chosen to make up for being twelve years in prison," Black bared his teeth, "but the broom didn't make it. Hobble faster, you tosser." And he transformed into Snuffles and crowded close to Harriet's hip.

"Miss Potter," Snape said, "give me your wand."

Confused and frightened, she pushed it into his hand. He shifted it so that he was holding his wand in one hand and hers in the other.

"This way." He dragged her off to the left. They stumbled down a rocky slope, slipping on tree roots.

When the howl came again, it was much, much nearer.

Snape tripped; Harriet tried to help him, but she misjudged her footing and fell, tumbling down the bank, banging her hip and shoulder into roots and only just managing to stop herself before she slid off the edge of a ravine. Scrambling, she pulled her feet back from the edge of a dark drop; but she could see the moonlight gleaming off a frozen wood lake far below.

Snuffles leapt down beside her, whining, and Snape half-fell, half caught himself on the root-strewn ground just a little out of arm's reach.

"I-I'm okay," Harriet said shakily.

"You can. . . stand? Walk?" Snape panted. When Harriet nodded, he shot more red sparks high into the air above them.

Snuffles' ears pricked, and a growl built low in his chest.

An answering growl rumbled on the slope above.

Harriet raised her head. The wolf's shoulders would have been taller than her head if she'd stood next to him. His front paws rested on the lower slope and his teeth were bared, his fur tinted heartless silver by the moonlight.

Her heartbeat felt very faint and faraway inside her.

Snuffles launched himself up the slope at the same moment the wolf lunged toward them. Snape surged up from the root where he'd been resting, grabbing Harriet by both arms.

"I need you to trust that I know what I'm doing," he said in one breath.

He twisted round so he could keep the wolf in sight, just in time to see Lupin fling Snuffles into a tree. The dog yelped and flopped to the ground, at least partly stunned, and with a snarling growl the wolf turned on them.

Snape picked Harriet clean off the ground and tossed her away from him.

She landed with an agonizing jolt, and then realized it was the whole earth shaking as the wolf bounded down the slope.

A fiery lasso looped round the wolf's head and jerked it back when its claws were so close that they scored the ground next to her head and its breath passed hot over her face. The wolf rounded snarling on Snape, who gripped the other end of the rope, and lunged at him.

With his left hand—with Harriet's wand—Snape pointed at the earth beneath his feet own and it exploded. Earthy debris and rocks and roots hurtled into the air; the ground rumbled as it collapsed in battering chunks; and with a yelp the wolf disappeared from sight. Harriet clung to the nearest root, feeling the earth drop away from beneath her right shoe.

When everything stopped shaking, an eerie quiet swallowed the wood.

She heard a whine and pulled her head up, shaking, to find Snuffles nosing her hair. He turned into Sirius Black, who said, "Motherfucking shit," and touched her hair for just a moment with a shaking hand. "Are you hurt, Holly-berry?"

"I-I don't know." She clenched her teeth on an angry sob. "W-where'd Snape go?"

Black peered over the drop. He turned back into a dog and cocked his head. Then the man was back again. "I think Moony took off. I can't hear anything. Shit."

He strode along the edge of the ravine, finally spotting a way down.

"Holly-berry, maybe you should stay up—"

_"No,"_ Harriet said, shaking all over but absolutely determined.

"All right. . . hang onto me—I'll get down easier."

When his feet touched the bottom of the ravine, he let her down and transformed back into Snuffles, sniffing his way along.

When Harriet saw Snape, she tripped rushing over to him. He was lying half-buried beneath a mound of rubble, one hand stretched limply out, her wand lying beside it.

"Professor?" she said in a shaking voice, but he didn't move. She groped frantically for a pulse and sagged with relief when she found one. But relief vanished when she pushed his hair off his face and her hand came away streaked with something dark and sticky. "He's bleeding—"

Snuffles whirled, barking, pressing his nose to the earth, pacing savagely back and forth.

"Wh-what is it?"

Black transformed back into a man. "Peter," he said, white faced. "He's _gone_. Snape's Immobulus cut off when he was knocked out. Motherfucking _SHIT_. I've got to—"

Then he stopped. A look came over his face that Harriet would never forget, that she felt echoed in her heart, as a drowning cold fell over her. . .

The moonlight rippled.

"No," Black whispered.

Harriet looked up. Through a clear patch in the trees overhead, she saw their cloaks streaming across the face of the moon.

She gripped Snape's hand. From far away, like a voice calling from the other end of the forest, she heard it start. . .

Snape's fingers flexed weakly in hers. She looked down, but his eyes didn't open.

"Holly-berry," Black croaked as he took staggering steps away from her, stumbling down the bank to the lake.

Harriet saw the Dementors bleeding down through the gap in the trees, so many of them, their skeletal fingers unfolding, their sightless hoods darker than the darkest part of the forest.

"No," she whispered, or maybe she didn't, because all she could hear was _Not Harriet, please not Harriet,_ and maybe she said that instead.

Black sagged to his knees, clutching his head. Harriet wanted to go help him, but she couldn't leave Snape, she couldn't move—

_Lily, take Harriet and go! I'll hold him off—_

—if only she had learnt the Patronus, if only she'd been clever enough—

_Not Harriet, please, I'll do anything—_

She stretched out her hand for her wand, but she couldn't see it. The world was filling with icy fog, the color of rotting light, and all she could see was the Dementor flowing to hover over her, its cloak bleeding down around her, its scabby, festering hands lifting to lower its hood. . .

_Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now._

The Dementor had no features, only dead skin stretched over bone, empty eye sockets and a gaping mouth. Something foul and cold as death passed across her face like the breath of despair. Her mother's voice was going to be the last thing she ever heard—

_Have mercy, have mercy—_

And with a soundless explosion, the world filled with blue-white light.

The Dementor reared away and Harriet collapsed, shaking all over. She saw a brilliant glittering silver ball of light cantering down the bank in a wide circle, the Dementors surging away from it as if burned. The brilliant thing made a full circle, until all the Dementors had fled, and then it turned toward her.

Now Harriet knew what a Patronus looked like.

The silver doe's calm and gentle gaze was the last thing she saw before she passed out.


	41. One Down, One to Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Teensy bit of canon dialogue in this chapter.
> 
> -Without meaning to, I reproduced something from my Snily fic in this chapter. Apparently I *really* think it's the way Snape would act.

Harriet awoke on a soft bed in a quiet place.

For a moment she lay staring blankly up at nothing, because her glasses were gone. Then panic surged through her and she shot upright only to sag dizzily back to the bed.

"Oh, no you don't, Miss Potter," said Madam Pomfrey's voice out of the blurry dimness, scaring Harriet half out of her wits. "You'll lie right there until I say so."

"What happened? How'd I get here?"

"Hagrid found you, Professor Snape—and Sirius Black—lying unconscious on the ground in the forest. That's the _how_ ," Madam Pomfrey said tartly, "though as to _what_ happened, we were hoping you could tell us."

"Are they okay? The Dementors didn't hurt them?"

 _"Dementors?"_ said Madam Pomfrey. A sunlight-colored spell flared from her wand, stinging Harriet's eyes. "Well, if that's the case, you all escaped unscathed, though that won't be true of Black for long. The Dementors will be administering the Kiss shortly."

"What? No!" Harriet struggled to stand, though Madam Pomfrey held her down. "Let me go, I have to— Where are my glasses?"

"Miss Potter, what did I say?"

"He's innocent! It was Pettigrew—Snape knows—where is he?"

"Professor Snape is unconscious," Madam Pomfrey said. "He was very badly injured."

Harriet found her glasses and shoved them on her face as roughly as Snape had done. Madam Pomfrey looked grim, and there was blood smeared on her apron. Harriet's stomach vanished.

"I-is he going to be okay?"

"I am doing my best, Miss Potter," was the sort of reply Harriet didn't like at all. Panic was balling up in her chest, from so many different sources she wasn't even sure what they all were—except the one that said something irreversibly dreadful was going to happen and she didn't know how to stop it, only that she _had_ to.

"But he—you have to stop them—Sirius Black didn't do anything—where's Professor Dumbledore?"

As if summoned by the sound of his name, he walked in through the swinging doors. Harriet hadn't paid much attention to the Headmaster that year, but she was almost as happy to see him now as she'd been to see Snape in the forest. _He'd_ be able to stop this terrible thing from happening. Everyone said Dumbledore could do anything, everything.

She hardly heard Madam Pomfrey replying, "Never you mind, Miss Potter, you are here to heal and rest— _Miss_ _Potter_!"

"Professor Dumbledore!" Harriet ducked beneath Madam Pomfrey's arm and skidded in front of him. "Please, Sirius Black can't—"

"Headmaster, this isn't good for her!" Madam Pomfrey said. "In her condition, getting overexcited—"

"Forgive me, Madam Pomfrey," Professor Dumbledore said, "but I'm afraid this cannot wait." He held up a hand. "I will do my best not to upset Harriet further, but it is vital that I speak with her."

Madam Pomfrey looked like she wanted nothing more than to turn him out on his ear—but she only curtseyed and strode away to the back of the ward. A moment later, Harriet heard a door shut with a snap.

"Sir, Sirius Black, he's innocent, it was Pettigrew—"

"Forgive me, my dear, but I must forestall you," Dumbledore said. "Sirius has told me the whole story," he went on when Harriet opened her mouth to argue.

"But then he's—"

"A fugitive from the law, with no proof." He laid his hand on Harriet's shoulder when she started to protest. "Harriet. I believe him, but my faith is no proof at all, and without proof, Sirius will receive a fate worse than death."

"But there has to be something we can—"

"There is nothing I can do to convince anyone," Dumbledore said. "Powerful though I may be in many respects, here I can have no influence. Nor, I fear, can you, not with the Ministry."

Harriet struggled for a protest that would convince him and found none, neither in the dark spaces of her imagination nor in the knot of dread in her chest.

Dumbledore squeezed her shoulder gently. "Isn't it curious? We have both saved and served our world well, and yet they will never accept our word above their own beliefs. Humans are curious creatures."

"He's going to lose his _soul_ ," Harriet said, though she wanted to shout, _What the fuck do I care how curious people are_?

"We often forget, too," Dumbledore went on, "that sometimes power comes from the unlikeliest of places. Why, there are numerous creatures in this very castle whose tireless love for all of us, however little we may deserve it, makes it possible for you and I to have this discussion with little care for questions such as, oh, when the laundry will be done, or how much time the washing up will take."

Harriet raised her head slowly to stare at him. Dumbledore smiled.

"Very curious," he said. Then he patted her shoulder. "If you'll excuse me, my dear, I need to have a word with Madam Pomfrey. Severus does nothing by halves, and I'm afraid his courage might have got the better of him this time. . ."

He turned away, but then stopped, holding up a finger. "Ah, yes. When I am through, we'll invite Hagrid in to see you. He's the one who found you—Severus' clever sparks, you see—and he's been waiting anxiously outside to know you're well."

Then Dumbledore swept off the way Pomfrey had gone, opened a door, and let himself quietly in, shutting it softly behind him.

Harriet was alone in the ward. And outside. . .

She breathed in and out again, thinking through what she would do.

"Dobby," she whispered.

He appeared with only the softest _snap_ in the air, eyes wide and imploring.

"Can you take me to Sirius Black?" she whispered.

* * *

Apparating with Dobby was a very different experience than Apparating with Snape. That had felt like being squeezed and shot through a tube at a speed that nearly took her skin off. Dobby's Apparition was like moving through a sheet of softly falling water. She closed her eyes in the hospital wing, and when she opened them one blink later, she stood in the eerie dungeon classroom she'd thought much too gloomy, with Dobby's cool, leathery hand slipping out of hers.

Curled in the corner, Snuffles raised his head from his paws. When he saw her, he changed back into the man with matted hair and skeleton-skin.

"How," he croaked, staring out of those half-dead eyes.

"Come on, you've got to come with us." Harriet was breathing quickly. "Dobby, can you take two of us at once, or—?"

"There is being no limit, Harriet Potter," he whispered. "If Harriet Potter's Snuffles and Harriet Potter will be holding hands with Dobby and each other?"

She took Dobby's hand and held out her left for Black. His skin was icy, and his bones rippled against her palm.

"We're going to Hagrid's," she whispered to Dobby. "On the edge of his pumpkin patch, near the trees, where there's some cover."

Another soft movement, like a gentle sigh of space and time, and they were in the exact spot she'd described. Madam Pomfrey had taken away her jacket and her shoes, and the cold was powerful, the moon bright and full above the trees. More than one reason to shiver. . .

She couldn't see any Dementors blotting out the stars, and she didn't hear the echo of her mum's voice in the cold. Good.

"Dobby, can you tell me if the hippogriff is in Hagrid's hut?"

Nodding, he flashed away.

"Holly-berry," said Black, in his hoarse, disused voice, and Harriet wished she had time to ask why he called her that.

"Buckbeak needs rescuing, too," she said instead. "You can escape together."

Before Black could reply, Dobby returned without any fanfare. "The hippogriff is being inside, Harriet Potter."

"Thanks, Dobby. Come on," she said again to Black, and when she slipped through the trees to Hagrid's door, he followed without a word.

Dobby opened the door from the inside. Buckbeak raised his head from the remains of Hagrid's bed, looking forbidding in the sunken light. Harriet bowed. Black did the same, and they pulled Buckbeak out of the hut and led him down to the forest. He was too restless for Harriet to hold, tossing his head and flexing his wings, so Black took his reins and stroked the feathers on his head.

"Settle down, boy," he muttered, and to her wonder, Buckbeak did.

"The Dementors can't find you again," Harriet said urgently. "You've got to get away—"

"I will." But instead of flying straight away, he sank down in front of her, leaning on one knee. "First I've got to say I'm sorry."

Tears stung Harriet's eyes. "It's _my_ fault—"

"How the hell do you work that out?"

"If I hadn't stopped you and Professor Lupin from killing him—"

"You'd be a different person." He gripped her shoulder. "It's what Prongs would've done."

"My dad," she whispered.

"He'd have done exactly what you did. And he'd be proud of you. Your mum, too."

Harriet had never had such a difficulty not crying.

Black put his hands on either side of her face. Up close, his eyes looked neither dead nor half-mad, but very real and very sad, like he was watching something precious slip away.

"I'll see you again," he said. "When I went to Azkaban, I made that promise, and I'm making it again. I'll see you again, Holly-berry." Then he clapped Dobby on the shoulder, almost knocking him over. "You, too, mate. Thanks, for all of it."

He mounted Buckbeak and guided him round. Buckbeak's wings stirred Harriet's hair.

"When you see Remus again," Black said, "tell him I'm shit at goodbyes, or I'd have said something better."

He urged Buckbeak from beneath the trees into the moonlight, first to a trot, then a canter. With a spread of his massive wings they took flight, shedding silver light until they were a silhouette against the moon; then a black spot, like an inverted star. . . and finally were gone.

* * *

When she and Dobby reappeared in the ward, they both leapt a foot in the air at a nearby horrible, teeth-clenching _CRASH._

Harriet didn't see anyone demolishing the infirmary or any windows exploding, which is what the noise had sounded like. But no sooner had she failed to find the cacophony than it came again, with muffled shouting.

Her eyes fell on the door Pomfrey and Dumbledore had disappeared through.

"Thank you, Dobby," she said. "I owe you."

"Harriet Potter may be calling on Dobby at any time, for any thing, and Dobby is answering." Then with a low bow, he vanished.

Harriet ran to the back of the ward and tested the doorknob. It turned. When she eased the door open, the muffled voices became ear-ringing shouting—Snape's voice. Her heart did a somersault-collapse with relief. If he was yelling like that, it meant he wasn't that badly hurt. . . right?

Actually, she could picture Snape swearing someone's hair white with his leg hanging half off.

She pushed the door all the way open into a hall she'd never been to. It was darkish and lined with doors, but the first on the left stood open, light pouring out and some bottles smashed straight across the floor in the corridor.

"DON'T TELL ME TO _FUCKING CALM DOWN_ ," Snape roared. "THERE WERE A HUNDRED _FUCKING_ DEMENTORS, YOU TELL ME _RIGHT NOW_ WHERE SHE—"

Harriet stared into the room. Snape was trying to get off his bed but having little luck: Dumbledore was holding him back, while Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to want to get any closer. She had her wand held out defensively in front of her, but Harriet saw why: Snape had overturned a cart of potions and supplies, exploded the window, and smashed a cabinet; wood and broken glass and multicolored smears of potions stained the floor.

Harriet ran to the edge of the bed. "I'm here!" she said. "I'm fine—"

"Miss Potter, out!" Madam Pomfrey cried.

"There now, Severus," Dumbledore said, "you can see for yourself that Harriet is perfectly well."

Snape stared at Harriet, his face wild, almost possessed, his chest heaving like he'd run a marathon race.

Then he said, "Five million points from Gryffindor," and passed out: his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over in a dead faint. If it hadn't been for Dumbledore catching him, he would have crashed to the floor.

Harriet would've gone to him, but Madam Pomfrey pushed her back and started running spells over him, as Dumbledore eased him down to the bed. The lights from Madam Pomfrey's wand flashed like the aurora.

"Is he going to be okay?" Harriet asked, her throat tight.

"If I am left to do my work in peace, undisturbed," said Madam Pomfrey tightly, "he may yet come out of it. Return to the infirmary, Miss Potter, and do not come back in here!"

"He was looking for _me_!" Harriet said, her own anger flaring.

"And you acted promptly, my dear," said Dumbledore before Pomfrey could round on her. "If he wakes asking for you again, we shall send for you. In the meantime, Madam Pomfrey needs to concentrate. Please return to the ward. I will join you when I am done here."

Harriet went. Her skin felt hot all over. She didn't know whether she felt chastened or just angry and sick with worry, because Snape looked dreadfully bad off.

" _What use do you think you'd be against a full-grown werewolf? You'd be worse than a dead weight to me."_

Guilt churned at her fear and anxiety. He'd told her to get away and she'd refused, and he'd half-killed himself saving her. But—how could she have left him there, alone? Had he had a plan? Or had he tried to send her away to save her? He had that life-debt to her dad. . . and he and her mum had been friends. . . and. . .

"Harry? Harry!" whispered a familiar voice.

It took her a moment to realize Ron and Hermione had crept into the infirmary and were inching along the rows of beds, looking frightened but determined.

"Thank God!" Hermione squeaked, falling on Harriet and throwing her arms around her.

"Pomfrey not here?" Ron asked, looking up and down the ward. "Lucky for us, or she'd turf us out."

"What _happened_?" Hermione was white to the lips. "Colin Creevey said he saw Hagrid bringing in you, Professor Snape and _Sirius Black_ , all dead and covered in blood—"

"We were just unconscious, that's all—"

"You mean he really _did_ —"

The infirmary doors banged open yet again and a portly man in a green suit, wearing a cloak and clutching a bowler hat, hustled in, Professor McGonagall with him.

"Dumbledore!" said the bowler-hat man. (Ron and Hermione jumped.) "Where is Dumbledore? Thought he would be here! Said to look for him—"

"What now?" cried Madam Pomfrey, emerging from the back. "Minister, whatever it is, surely it can wait—"

"No, it can't!" retorted the Minister. "Sirius Black has escaped—"

" _Escaped_?" said Madam Pomfrey, while Ron said, "Bloody hell! Ouch!" as Hermione kicked him.

"Into thin air," Professor McGonagall said shakily.

"Had him under lock and key, in the dungeons!" said the Minister, looking harassed. "Door never opened, no sign of magic used, can't Apparate on the grounds—but he's _gone—"_

"If he could escape from Azkaban, I suppose Hogwarts would pose no great challenge."

Dumbledore had also come out of the back. Madam Pomfrey whisked herself away to Snape's room as Dumbledore approached the knot that had formed around Harriet's bed: the Minister (for _Magic_?), Professor McGonagall, Ron and Hermione.

"But, Dumbledore, this is serious!" said the Minister in a blustery tone. "Black escaping twice—you and me here—the papers will have a field day, particularly that woman—if we don't want to be a laughingstock—" He seemed to realize Harriet, Ron and Hermione were listening to all this, because he suddenly cleared his throat. "Well. . . I'd better go and notify the Ministry. . ."

"And the Dementors?" said Dumbledore quietly. "They'll be removed, I trust?"

"Oh, yes, they'll have to go—attempting to administer the Kiss to an innocent girl. . . completely out of control—I'll have them packed off back to Azkaban tonight. Perhaps we should think about staffing dragons at the school entrance, with Black _still_ at large. . ."

"Should you make such a decision, I know exactly who would love to be responsible for them," said Dumbledore, smiling slightly.

He left the ward with the Minister, Professor McGonagall hurrying after them. Ron and Hermione clustered next to Harriet's bed.

"Harriet," said Hermione, clutching her hand, "what happened?"

"Well. . ." Harriet said wearily. "Just so you know, it's a long story."

* * *

"I let him sleep in my _bed_ ," Ron kept saying over and over.

"Oh, Ron, let it go," Hermione said, but her heart wasn't really in it. She was still very pale, and she was clutching Harriet's hand so tight it hurt.

Madam Pomfrey came to shoo them away.

"It is _past_ curfew, you two ought to have returned to your dormitories long ago. Why the Headmaster didn't send you away—"

"Harry needs us," Ron said, looking mutinous.

"What Miss Potter needs is a good nights' rest, Mr. Weasley," said Madam Pomfrey, but she wrote both him and Hermione passes and did not glare at them quite so sternly as before as she saw them out and locked the doors behind them.

"With me, Miss Potter," she said.

She took Harriet into the corridor in the back, past Snape's room to the door just across the hall, and let her inside. The room was stark and bare, with an impersonal-looking bed, battered cabinet, and wash basin.

"Why are these rooms here?" Harriet asked.

"This is the quarantine ward, Miss Potter. You'll be sleeping back here for the time being, so I can have both my patients in one place."

 _And keep an eye on me,_ Harriet thought.

Once Madam Pomfrey had gone, Harriet sneaked across the hall and tried the handle of Snape's door. It gave her a small _zap_ like a static shock, making her yelp. Before Madam Pomfrey could catch her, she darted back to her room and shut the door, fuming. They'd warded it against her! What did they suppose she was going to _do_? She just wanted to _see_ him.

She drifted over to the frosted window. The moonlight made everything in the room and outside it look even more stark and bloodless. She thought of Lupin running the forest, his howl threading the darkness, and shivered.

The moonlight, cold and draining, didn't remind her of the silver doe at all. The silver doe was beautiful, warming. . . joyous.

She wondered how Snape was able to make it, when she'd never even seen him smile.

"Please be okay," she whispered. "Please let him be okay."

* * *

Harriet slept badly. She had twisted, ugly, frightening dreams—a figure in a rotted cloak flying toward her, and one by one everyone she cared about threw themselves in front of her and died—her mum and dad, Hermione, Ron, Dobby, Hagrid, even Buckbeak, for some reason—and finally Snape, blood running across his face, his eyes rolling back in his head and his body falling like a dead weight, trapping her, and she couldn't get up, she didn't want to, because if they were all dead what was the reason to live? She was tangled up in his cloak, falling, falling—

She woke up wincing on the floor, trapped in her sheets.

It was early, early morning, somewhere around dawn; maybe just before, or just after. Snape's door was still warded. Hand stinging more sharply the second time, Harriet curled up in bed, because it was cold and she didn't feel like she'd rested at all.

"I want to see him," she told Madam Pomfrey when the matron brought her breakfast.

"Certainly not," Madam Pomfrey said. "Professor Snape needs rest, Miss Potter. How many times do I have to say it?"

"I just want to be sure he's all right," Harriet said, feeling both fretful and angry.

"You may take my word for it."

"If he was, I could see him!"

" _No_ , Miss Potter," said Madam Pomfrey, heartlessly, and shut the door behind her with a snap.

Harriet pulled a Snape and threw her porridge bowl at the wall. It shattered and left her with nothing to eat, and the flare of satisfaction she felt was swallowed in a burst of misery.

"Mother _fucking_ shit," she said.

* * *

Remus awoke alone.

The forest was cold enough that even he felt it, curled up beneath the sheltering roots of a massive oak. His body was stiff and aching, but not as bad as it often was. It was more a languid sort of ache, as if from long, exhaustive exercise.

His mouth tasted of blood.

He retched. Again. And again.

Even more than that, he was alone. He shouldn't have been alone. Padfoot would have been there, if he could. That he wasn't meant something had gone wrong.

For a long time, Remus couldn't move for weeping.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey let Harriet leave the infirmary at noon that day, though she refused to the bitter end to let her into Snape's room.

So Harriet made her excuses to Ron and Hermione and went to see Dumbledore. He'd written her a message that morning: "Last year, I believe Severus told you I am fond of sherbet lemon. This year, I find myself with a taste for butterbeer."

Last year, Snape had taken her and Hermione to Dumbledore's office. There had been a stone gargoyle to whom he'd said, "Sherbet lemon," like having to say it annoyed him as much as his students did, and a spiraling stone staircase, the door carved with the image of the four founders.

Everything looked exactly the same.

"Good morning, my dear," said Dumbledore, and Harriet felt herself calming without meaning to. "Although it is afternoon by now, isn't it?"

He handed her a mug of some foamy, caramel-colored drink. "I don't believe you've had a butterbeer, have you? That unfortunate business with Hogsmeade. . . Perhaps now that matters have so altered, we may find a way for you to join your friends. Sirius Black is certainly a threat to you no longer—though, in fact, we've found he never was."

Harriet wondered how she'd feel about everything that had happened—everything that had turned out to be true—when it was a little more distant from the present.

She sipped the butterbeer. It was sweet and light and filling, but not filling enough. It made her think of drinking chocolate that summer after hearing her mother's voice for the first time.

"How are you feeling?" Dumbledore asked her gently.

Harriet opened her mouth to say, _Fine, thank you_ , but what came out was: "She won't let me see Snape."

"That sounds like our dear Madam Pomfrey. Well, being me, perhaps I might do something about that. You're very worried for him."

"I just want to see he's okay." She spilled butterbeer down her hand, but ignored it. She could tell Dumbledore, he _liked_ Snape. "He saved my life—only he wouldn't have needed to, except I wouldn't listen to him. It's my fault he's hurt."

"Do you think so? I wonder. You see, I have known Severus for quite a long time, and I've never known him to do anything he didn't _want_ to do. He never does things simply because he ought. He is the least dutiful man I know."

"I-I don't understand."

"I'm not surprised." He smiled. "Severus is a deeply complicated man."

Wasn't that the truth. She didn't understand Snape at all. "When Professor Lupin changed, Snape told me to go, he could do better without me there—but I wouldn't. Only he was right, he was worse off because of me—"

"Really? How do you know this?"

"He got _hurt_."

"Severus had been doing some very powerful, potentially deadly magic before you found him in the forest. Sirius told me. Severus and Professor Lupin had arranged it between themselves, you see. So Severus was already injured."

"But he had to protect me from the werewolf, and he hurt himself, and then the Dementors. . ."

"Ah, yes, the Dementors," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "What happened there? Can you tell me?"

She told him—and about the Patronus.

"That was his, wasn't it?" she asked. "I mean, I thought he was unconscious—he _was_ —but his hand did move when I was holding it. . ."

"Severus' Patronus takes the form of a doe, yes," Dumbledore said slowly.

"Then he saved my life twice." _And my soul._

Dumbledore was silent a moment. "Severus is, as I have said, a deeply complicated man. . . and fate is capable, even on her simplest day, of complexity to stagger our understanding. We do not know what could have happened had you left the forest. It is possible that Severus had some clever plan that could only have been enacted were he alone. It is possible, too, that he had no such plan at all, and would have died alone, in great pain. Out of concern for him, you did not leave—an impulse any Gryffindor would understand implicitly, but a Slytherin, perhaps, not so much." A distant twinkle shone in his eyes; but then it faded, leaving him deeply serious again. "And left alone with Sirius, it is possible, too, that the Dementors would have set upon you both, and without Severus' Patronus to save you. . . two innocent lives would have been lost that night."

Harriet swallowed.

"It is an unfortunate lesson," said Dumbledore, "that what we do out of care for others can give as much pain as aide. But it's only in the aftermath that we see what our actions have led to. We cannot know beforehand. Some would say our heads are the best guide; others, our hearts. It is up to each of us to decide where we place our faith. Gryffindors tend to follow our hearts; Slytherins, their heads. It is perhaps one reason we understand each other so little. We each think the other is acting against our very natures.

"I will speak to Madam Pomfrey," he said, "so that you may see Severus. You shall receive my owl before long, I promise you. Now, my dear, I shall let you return to your friends. I'm sure you'd rather be catching up with them than listening to the prating of an old man."

Harriet knew she said something—or she hoped she did; something appropriately polite or grateful—but her head and heart were both so full that if they'd tried to lead her in opposite directions, she might have burst. She wandered away from his study with no very clear idea of where she was going.

Dumbledore had said Snape was not dutiful, and he did only what he wanted. But after Quirrell-demort had tried to kill her, Dumbledore had said Snape was protecting her because he owed her father a debt. That sounded like duty. So either Dumbledore had it wrong, and Snape _could_ act for duty. . . or, for his own reasons, Snape _wanted_ to protect her.

The way she'd seen his face in the forest. . . and the way he didn't want to talk about her mum. . .

It left her with a great deal to think about while she walked the halls without noticing, as the winter sunlight broke against the glass, the endless fog round the castle parting, the Dementors all gone.


	42. Flowers, Tea, and Lack of Sympathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -"Tea and a Total Lack of Sympathy" is the title of a Will & Grace episode.

Snape would not wake up.

And Madam Pomfrey didn't want to let Harriet in.

"I'm here to see him," Harriet said stubbornly.

"I think it's an excellent idea," Professor Dumbledore said. "I should think Harriet's presence would have a healing effect, wouldn't you say, Madam Pomfrey?"

"What he needs, Headmaster, is rest." Her arms were tightly crossed, and she'd starched up her cap and apron. Or maybe the house-elves had done it. Harriet imagined her grimly tying on the apron and cap to meet them, like she was going into battle. "Unbroken, undisturbed rest. That, and the proper spells and potions, will have the greatest healing effect I can give."

"I have every faith in your excellent healing skills," said Professor Dumbledore. "I know Severus could not be in better hands. But—if you'll indulge an old man—I'm afraid I grew up with the idea that a little friendly compassion is a good addition to the best medicine, and I cannot quite get it out of my head."

Madam Pomfrey didn't budge. Harriet tried not to dance from foot to foot. Hadn't they already decided this? Why were they delaying?

"Very well," Madam Pomfrey said at last, as if it was anything but. "But only one visitor at a time, and _no one_ but the two of you. I won't have an endless parade of gawpers tramping through his room. The Lord only knows what all he was out there _doing_ to himself."

"Thank you, Madam Pomfrey. Harriet and I are in your debt."

Pomfrey looked like she'd cash that debt in now to keep them out of Snape's room, but she unwarded the door and let them in. "Which of you first?"

"Harriet may go first," said Professor Dumbledore. "I am quite content to wait out here."

"In with you, then, Miss Potter."

The room was identical to the one Harriet had slept in two nights ago, down to the horridly impersonal furniture. The window had been repaired and an ugly armchair added—and there was Snape.

He was unconscious. He hadn't been awake since he'd collapsed after seeing Harriet, Madam Pomfrey had said. The fall had broken his back in three places, one of his hips, and numerous other bones, and he'd apparently done enough dangerous magic to drain himself into a coma. Although Pomfrey had put him into a healing sleep to let him rest while his bones healed, it should only have lasted twelve hours.

Those twelve hours had passed yesterday morning, when Harriet was smashing her porridge bowl.

Feeling oddly trepidatious, she approached the bed. Snape looked. . . not small, exactly, but smaller than he usually did. It was easy to overlook when he was frightening everyone, but he was not a tall man. His hair fell back from his face, which didn't look peaceful but careworn and hollow, and his skin was a worse color than usual.

The spell-light that mapped his heartbeat hung above his chest, brightening and fading like it was sleeping with him. If it weren't for that, Harriet might have thought he was dead.

"I wish you'd let me send for a few Healers from St. Mungo's," Pomfrey was whispering to Dumbledore.

"The confidence I expressed in your abilities was not idle flattery, Poppy."

Harriet was glad she'd come—the relief of seeing he was really alive went as deep as blood and bone—but she didn't know what to do now that she was here. She'd never been to visit anyone in hospital. Maybe it was only the fuss Pomfrey had made, but Harriet was now nervous of doing something to make him worse off (though she had no idea what that could be).

"I think that's enough, dear," said Madam Pomfrey. "You've classes to get to."

But Harriet didn't want to leave without doing _something_. She touched his hand where it lay on the blanket. The veins on the backs of his hands stood out, stark and eerie.

"Thanks for saving my life," she whispered, hoping neither Pomfrey nor Dumbledore could hear exactly what she'd said, and pulled her hand away.

"I want to come back later," she said as Pomfrey shooed her out into the hall.

"Miss Potter—"

"A fine idea," said Professor Dumbledore (Pomfrey pressed her lips together, McGonagall-like). "I'm sure he will appreciate the company, in his own way. Have a good day with your classes, my dear."

* * *

Mondays, Harriet brooded as she trudged down to the Great Hall, were bad enough without worrying about someone being in a coma, maybe forever, because they'd saved your life (especially when you were still worrying they'd have been safe if you'd only listened to them).

She found Ron and Hermione by habit, or maybe by some sort of homing signal: as she sat down at Gryffindor table, barely noticing what she was doing, she realized Ron was next to her and Hermione across the table.

"Was he all right?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"No change."

Ron cleared his throat but didn't say anything. Harriet knew he didn't care what was wrong with Snape, but he'd had the surprising tact not to say even that much. Really, his silence was quite considerate.

She put her head down on the table. "Please tell me one of you has got good enough at Divs to foresee we're not going to have class today."

"I say we skive off," Ron said.

"I don't think all three of us could pass that off," Hermione said skeptically.

"Come again?" Ron asked, as Harriet rolled her head to one side to stare. "Are you, Hermione Granger, _not_ skinning me for suggesting we ditch a class?"

"It's Divinations," Hermione said coolly. "And anyway, the last thing Harriet needs right now is that _woman_ predicting Professor Snape is going to pop his clogs for an hour and a half. You _know_ she will. She won't be able to resist, especially now that she's lost the possibility of Sirius Black—well."

"We could say some Slytherins hexed us," Ron said, "and left us lying in a dark corridor with tentacles and boils all over our faces. She ought to eat that up."

They hid in the Room of Requirement until it was time for Transfigurations.

"I still can't believe I had some creep sleeping in my _bed_ all those years," Ron said, as he'd done some eighty-seven times since Saturday night. "It's—brrrrrrr. Gives you a chill up your bloody spine, it does."

Hermione shot him a sharp look and mouthed something that Harriet couldn't work out, but she didn't try very hard.

"Have you heard from Sirius Black?" Hermione asked.

"No. . . but it's only been a day. . ."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Hermione said timidly. "About—him being your godfather. I was going to—until I saw how upset it made you, just knowing he and your dad were friends. . ."

"It doesn't matter," Harriet said quietly, leaning her head against the window pane. The newly returned sunlight glinted white-gold off the lake.

They arrived to Transfigurations in time to join everyone else in the corridor.

" _There_ you are, Harry!" said Parvati.

"Where _were_ you?" Lavender asked.

"We told Professor Trelawney about— _you_ know," Parvati said, dropping her voice to conspiracy level. " _Our spell_."

Harriet had forgotten all about it.

"She's _quite_ excited," Lavender said, eyes shining. "She said she'll give us extra points!"

"Brilliant," Harriet said dully.

"Bet you wish you were participating _now_ , Hermione," Lavender said, smug.

"Somehow, I'll live," said Hermione.

"What spell?" Ron asked.

"It's girls only," said Parvati primly, as the door to Transfigurations opened to expunge Professor McGonagall's N.E.W.T.-level class.

"It's a Divs spell," said Hermione to Ron as they all filed into the classroom. "You wouldn't be interested anyway."

Harriet did quite poorly in the lesson, which was about—about—well, even as the bell rang and they were all packing away, she couldn't say. Turning something into something else. Probably.

"Miss Potter," said Professor McGonagall over the sound of scraping chairs, "do stay behind. Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, you run along."

"We'll wait for you," Hermione whispered.

Resigning herself to a lecture on attentiveness, Harriet trudged up to Professor McGonagall's desk.

"You look exceedingly glum, Miss Potter," said Professor McGonagall. "Well, here's something that might cheer you up."

It took Harriet a moment to realize Professor McGonagall was holding out a broomstick, one with brilliant gold lettering on a gleaming handle. She blinked a few times, but it didn't disappear.

"It's _ready_?" she said.

"Not a thing wrong with it that we could find," said Professor McGonagall, smiling faintly. "You have a very good friend somewhere."

Something tickled the back of Harriet's thoughts. . . something recent, about a broom. . .

" _It's not the way I'd've chosen to make up for being twelve years in prison, but the broom didn't make it."_

"Thank you, Professor," she said slowly.

She found Ron and Hermione loitering on the landing. Everyone else had already gone down to lunch and the corridor echoed with the silence.

"What did she—" asked Hermione as Harriet walked up, and then she saw the broom. "Oh!"

"Bloody hell, that's it," Ron said in a hushed voice.

"I forgot to tell you," Harriet said to Hermione. "You were right. Sirius Black did send it to me."

* * *

News traveled through the school as fast as spell-light. The spectacle of Professor Snape being carted into the school unconscious and bleeding by that great oaf Hagrid—with famous Harriet Potter and mass-murderer Sirius Black—was witnessed by a great number of students, quite a few of whom were in Slytherin. Since Professor Snape was not allowed visitors Under Any Circumstances, his Slytherins had to resort to discussing his welfare as often as possible.

"But did he look like he was going to be all right?" Daphne asked.

"Was all over blood," said Millicent. "That sound like he'll be all right?"

Asteria looked as pale as if Professor Snape were standing next to her. There was blue paint smeared on her hands. She'd been disappearing a lot lately. When Daphne asked what she was doing, Asteria would only shake her head.

"It's got something to do with _Potter_ ," Draco said.

"Well, she _was_ carried in with him," Tracey said coolly, making Draco flush.

"And Sirius Black," Millicent added.

"Sirius Black was trying to finish Potter off," Draco said, "no great pity if he did—and somehow Professor Snape got caught up in it. I bet you anything that's what happened."

"Why should Professor Snape give a rat's arse if Black wants to blast Potter into a million bits or two?" Tracey asked. But for once Daphne could barely be bothered with Tracey: she was far more curious about Asteria, who, at Draco's words, had gone bright red and shot him a look that was almost. . . _angry_.

Asteria didn't get angry.

"They were all brought in together," Pansy said in a voice that really meant, _Stop criticizing my dear Draco, Davis, if you want to keep all your hair on._ But Tracey wasn't made of porcelain. She ignored Pansy, addressing Draco:

"If you'd said Professor Snape had been out for a walk, and run into Potter, or dragged her out to the forest for a detention, and Black attacked them _then_ , I might believe it."

"Who's to say that didn't happen?" Draco asked. "All I said was Professor Snape was hurt _because of_ Potter. If Black jumped the both of them, and Professor Snape was only in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's still Potter's fault for not taking one of those million chances she had before and popping off—"

There was a _bang_ as Asteria's chair clattered. She'd stood up so fast she'd knocked it down. With a burning look at Tracey and Draco, she fled from the table. The both of them looked, for a moment, quite shocked.

"Nice _going_ ," Pansy called after her (as a deadly insult it lacked depth).

"What's got into your sister?" Draco asked Daphne, recovering his bravado. "She's jumpier than normal."

"Excuse me," Daphne said, and followed Asteria out of the common room. She caught up to her one floor above, where Asteria had stopped to lean against the wall.

"Tell me what's wrong," Daphne said. Hearing her own voice saying it just like that in that old, familiar way made her remember a hundred thousand times before, in winters and in summers, down at the rocky seashore or up on the cliffs, beneath the cypress tree that twisted out of the earth in their yard. Asteria was a runner; when her heart was too full, she took off, faster than anyone could follow.

And Daphne would always walk after her. She always found her, eventually.

Asteria shook her head, but turned round, wiping at her eyes. "How can they talk about someone _dying_ like that?"

"It isn't serious, Aster. It's only their way of expressing their feelings. We're all worried about Professor Snape—"

"So am _I_ ," Asteria said, "but to say she should have _died_ —can't you see how terrible it is, even to say such a thing?"

"Of course I do," Daphne lied, because Asteria couldn't bear to hear anything less.

But Asteria looked at her steadily, as if seeing to the very back of her.

"No," Asteria said. "You don't."

Something twinged in Daphne's chest. "All right," she said, preserving her calm even though her heartbeat fluttered with alarm. "You're right. I don't care if Draco and the others talk of Potter dying. It's only talk, Aster."

"And you none of you like her. You all hate her. Admit it." Before Daphne could say a thing, Asteria went on, " _Why_? She's a lovely person—she's the _only_ one other than you who's been kind to me in this dreadful place, when all those people in there, your _friends_ , have been cruel and heartless—oh, how can you wish her dead?"

Daphne had known Asteria was unhappy, but to hear her call Hogwarts "dreadful"—and her own friends, whom most days she really did consider to be such, named cruel and heartless, and Harriet Potter praised—

"When has she been kind to you?" she asked. Asteria lent disproportionate weight to things both kind and cruel; it was probable Harriet Potter had really done nothing, and she could be brought to see that.

"She was the one who saved me from those horrid boys," Asteria said, lifting her chin, as if she knew—again—exactly what Daphne was thinking. "And when Professor Snape had me meet with her, she was extremely thoughtful and, and good to me."

Those _meetings_. There had been just the one, to Daphne's delight, but it seemed to have done enough damage. Daphne had had no idea how much, till now.

"Well. . ." Daphne said. "Well—that's—I'm glad to hear that. It's only talk, Aster."

But from the look on Asteria's face, Daphne knew that for the first time, she had failed to put an end to what was troubling her. If she hadn't made it worse, she had confirmed some dark suspicion lurking in Asteria's heart, some poison working against her.

And the suspicion darkening her own heart, that if Harriet Potter had been there, Asteria would have turned to _her_ —

The wish that flared inside her, echoing Draco's words, did not feel quite so idle, then.

* * *

Monday turned into Tuesday, which flowed into the rest of the week and eddied into the weekend without a murmur. Harriet continued to visit Snape, who continued to not wake up. On Wednesday she thought to bring him flowers, though with him so deeply unconscious, they were more for her own comfort. The room was so barren and cheerless.

But he'd see them when he woke up.

If he did.

On Saturday, when the anemones had dried out, Snape had been unconscious for a week. There hadn't been any change at all.

The Slytherins seemed to feel his absence along with Harriet, but nobody else did. The Gryffindors, in fact, were particularly cheerful. Their good spirits roused Harriet's sleeping dragon of a temper, so she avoided the common room as much as possible. There was a lot of going to the library to humor Hermione and going down to the Quidditch pitch to fly the Firebolt with Ron.

The Firebolt galvanized the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and the sight of it reduced Oliver to silent, overjoyed weeping. . . every time. The first time Harriet mounted it and kicked off, rising quicker and lighter into the air than she'd ever felt, she thought back to the summer and trying to make a Patronus by flying.

She wondered why Snape hadn't wanted to tell her what they looked like—that he could cast one strong enough to repel dozens of Dementors—that he'd sent it to her when she was in hospital last year, after falling off the stairs, and during the summer when she couldn't sleep.

She wish he'd wake up so she could ask him.

In the meantime, there was someone else she wanted to talk to. _He_ was awake, but avoiding her.

She knocked on Lupin's office door. He answered it promptly enough, but when he saw her, his face became even more guarded, and he didn't seem to want to meet her eye.

"Harriet," he said. "I'm sorry, but now's not the best time—"

She gripped her hands into fists. "Excuse me for saying, but you owe it to me to talk to me."

He didn't answer. But after a moment, he opened the door enough to let her in.

She walked in and sat down with loads more assurance than she felt. Hands behind his back, Lupin paced down one side of the room, still not looking at her. He seemed as unsure of himself as could be.

Breathing in to steady her courage, she said, "Sirius Black told me to tell you, 'When you see Remus again, tell him I'm shit at goodbyes, or I'd have said something better.'"

That made Lupin finally look at her. She was taken aback to see his eyes gleam with—tears?

"He's right about that," he said hoarsely after a long moment, and she thought he was almost smiling. "That's the worst good-bye I've ever heard."

She didn't know what to say to that or how to go on. He lowered himself slowly to a chair behind his desk, staring at thin air.

"Why didn't you tell me he was my godfather?" she asked eventually.

When he looked at her again, his face was grim. For the first time, she noticed the fleshy marks on his face, like heavy scars healing over.

"For many reasons," he said, his voice rough, "several of which were intensely selfish. . . But also because I thought it would hurt you more to know. Your parents' friend was a blow enough, but your godfather. . ."

Hermione had said the same thing.

"But you knew he was innocent," she said.

Lupin shook his head slowly. Something painful etched across his face. "I didn't know. . . not until I saw Peter. It never felt right, but I accepted it—for twelve years I accepted it, because all proof pointed to Sirius. . . But when I saw him again, I wanted to believe in his innocence. . . a great deal more than I should have, considering all the danger," he said bitterly. "I sometimes wondered if I was only convincing myself that the doubtful truth felt righter than what I had to believe was true. . ."

He was looking out the window now, where the faint sunlight remaining from the afternoon glinted on the glass. Harriet wondered how much of what he was saying was really meant for her. She wasn't sure she really understood all this.

"But doubt," he said, very quietly, "is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother."

Harriet didn't know what to say to that _._

"He loved you very much," Lupin said, still watching the window. "When you were a baby—and still."

Was that what all that sadness had been, in Black and in Snuffles? Love?

She didn't know. She didn't know what it felt like to be loved.

"Why does he call me 'holly-berry'?"

Lupin smiled, but from the expression on his face, he might just as easily have cried. "That was always his nickname for you. It drove Lily mad. She had first planned to name you Holly, but when you were born she suddenly changed her mind. . . Sirius can be very stubborn."

Harriet felt like her entire body was holding its breath. _This_ was what she'd been trying to get out of him and Snape all these months: the world of her parents' life, beyond the last moments they'd been alive. In the Mirror of Erised she'd seen them for the first time, but it wasn't knowledge, it wasn't. . . this.

"I'm sorry," Lupin said, and she really did believe him that time. "I should have tried to—I shouldn't have pushed you away this year. I feel I've left it too late, now. . ."

The bottom seemed to drop out of her chair. "You're _leaving_?"

"Professor Dumbledore has refused my resignation," he said, sounding oddly bitter.

"You _resigned_?"

"I could have killed you, or turned you. I may very well have turned Severus."

Harriet had not known this—had not realized, though she felt very stupid for not thinking of it before—and no one had mentioned it, not even Dumbledore."Snape got _bit_?"

"Madam Pomfrey wasn't able to find any indication that I did bite him, but she's waiting till the next full moon to be sure. If he turns, it will ruin his life. Not even Albus Dumbledore will be able to keep me—either of us—here for long." He scrubbed a hand across his face. Those thinly healed wounds stretched across his skin, like the marks of claws and teeth. . .

If Harriet had thought she wasn't fit for helping Asteria, it was nothing to what she felt now. She wondered if she ought to excuse herself and go, but she still had things she wanted to ask, and she was afraid that this might be her only chance; that he might start pushing her away again.

"I hear you've been visiting him," said Lupin after a long pause.

"Oh. Yeah. He saved my life." It was a bit awkward to say here, because Snape had saved her from _Lupin_ ; but he only smiled, looking very sad.

"Here," he said, and pulled a piece of folded parchment out of his pocket. "I thought you might like to have this back. Perhaps I'm wrong to give it to a student. . . but I know James would certainly have considered it part of your rightful inheritance."

Though the parchment was blank, she knew what it was.

"It was yours, wasn't it? You're all Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. . ."

"Yes. Our nicknames for each other."

"You called Sirius Black 'Padfoot,'" she said. "And Pettigrew 'Wormtail'—and my dad was Prongs? Was he an Animagus, too?"

"A stag." Lupin smiled again in that sad, complicated way. "We used to call him King of the Forest as a joke. . . Lily would only call him that when he was being an arrogant prat.

"Would you like some tea?" he said abruptly a moment later, and Harriet knew then that he wasn't going to turf her out.

"Yes, please."

Lupin made tea and talked to her, at long last, while it grew dark outside and the fire lit so softly in the grate that neither of them noticed.


	43. Didn't See That One Coming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -From what I understand, Hecate is not actually a goddess of time and fate, as Lavender and Parvati's spell names her.

On Friday morning, Harriet was dragged from sleep by a frantic hand on her shoulder shaking her back and forth.

"Wha—?"

"Harry, wake _u-u-up_!" It was. . . Parvati? "You've got to see if you got yours!"

Got her. . . what. . . ? Since the dorm didn't seem to be under attack, Harriet rolled away from her. "B'ger off. . ."

"Both Lavender and me started our cycles today! You've got see if you did, too!"

" _That's_ what you woke me up for?" Harriet said, coming fully awake in outrage. "For fuck's sake—"

"Harry!" Parvati said, scandalized.

Harriet refused to satisfy the whims of nutters who tried to drag her up before dawn for some stupid fucking Divs spell, and kicked Parvati out of her fourposter. But with _those_ two already awake, it would have been easier to go back to sleep in an elephant's bath house. All she could do to thwart them was lie stubbornly in bed, feeling tired and annoyed.

When she finally deigned to get up, she was satisfied to find that she hadn't started yet. But by lunchtime, she was feeling much less smug: her whole lower body was aching, and a trip to the loo before Charms made her very disgruntled.

"Tell Professor Flitwick I'm going to be late, I've got to run to the dorm," she said to Hermione, and dashed up the many staircases to Gryffindor Tower, where she'd left Snape's potion in her dresser.

She was just rooting it out of her drawer when the door to the dormitory flew open, making her jump and drop the bottle. It smashed all over the inside of her drawer.

"Dammit, Hermione! That was the only bottle I had!"

"Sorry," Hermione panted. She looked out of breath and her face was flushed, like she'd run all the way to the dorm. "Sorry—I didn't mean to startle you—I just had to tell you—whatever you do, _don't_ do that spell!"

"What?" Harriet pulled a goopy hairbrush out of her dresser, and swore when she cut her hand on a shard of the glass. "Mother _fucker_."

"The Divinations spell, with Lavender and Parvati—you can't do it, please swear to me you won't—"

"I'd rather not, you know," Harriet said as she rooted for something to wrap round her cut. All she could find was that handkerchief Snape had given her. "I'm not planning on telling them I got it today—ugh, this is such a rotten mess. Look, I've got to see Madam Pomfrey now, I'll see you later—"

"Promise me!" Hermione said urgently as Harriet stomped out of the dorm.

"What are you on about?"

"I—I've just got this horrid feeling something is going to go very, very wrong," Hermione said desperately.

"Professor Trelawney must be getting to you," Harriet said. "It's just a dumb old spell. I've got to run—aren't you going to be late to Charms?"

And she took off, leaving Hermione looking stricken and frustrated. She knew it was spiteful to feel a bit satisfied, but because of Hermione and her Divs-prejudice, Harriet felt even more like crap now.

"Miss Potter, what _now?"_ asked Madam Pomfrey, staring, as Harriet walked in holding her bandaged, bloody hand at a careful angle.

After Pomfrey poured her a standard analgesic and knitted her hand, she ordered Harriet to lie down. "Just in case _this_ somehow manages to incapacitate you, after everything."

Now Harriet had time to regret brushing Hermione off like that. What had that been about, anyway? Where had the panic come from? Hermione's attitude toward the Divs spell had always been annoyed and condescending, not fearful, like it was a second Firebolt. And. . . hang on, when she'd burst into the dorm, she'd been missing her tie and cardigan. . . and books and school robe, come to think of it. . . like she'd dumped everything to run after Harriet and rave about things going terribly wrong. But if it was so urgent, if she was in such a hurry, why had she stopped to take off her tie?

Harriet was so busy trying to puzzle it through that she forgot to ask about seeing Snape until Madam Pomfrey came to tell her she seemed bonny enough, miracle of miracles, and could be off.

"Could I see—"

"Not now, Miss Potter. It's time for dinner, and it's important you eat at regular times, especially today."

She looked awfully pleased to be able to say that.

By the time Harriet climbed onto the bench at Gryffindor table, Hermione had composed herself. There was no trace of the not-so-repressed panic from earlier, and she'd dressed herself properly again, even re-knotted her hair.

"You okay?" Harriet asked as she sat down, at the same time Hermione said, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," said Harriet, while Hermione said, "Why wouldn't I be okay?"

Harriet peered at her, but Hermione only looked bewildered. Tired, but not freaking out. Maybe classes had just overloaded her? She was still taking all of them, despite sneering at Divinations and fuming about Muggle Studies several dozen times a day.

"Well," Harriet said, "if you're not still—"

She broke off as Parvati and Lavender squeezed onto the bench next to her, almost dislodging Ron to the floor.

"You got it, didn't you!" Parvati squealed.

"Got what?" Ron groused.

Face flaming, Harriet grabbed her rabbit-brained dorm-mates by their sleeves and dragged them away from the table.

"You aren't going to say a thing in front of Ron!" she hissed.

"Of course not!" Lavender looked affronted. "He's a _boy_."

"We'll do it tonight," Parvati said delightedly. "I've got everything ready!"

"Great," Harriet groused.

Hermione didn't go into panic-mode when Harriet returned to her seat, only looked sardonic. Well, at least _she_ was feeling better. Harriet decided to let it be.

After checking to make sure Lavender and Parvati were deep in discussion over teensy slices of strawberry pie, Harriet sneaked away—to visit Snape. They wouldn't think to look for her there. She'd leave _eventually_. . . just not right away.

When she pushed open the infirmary doors, she stopped dead. It wasn't exactly because a group of Slytherins had all turned to glare at her so much as the fact that they were _there_. It was always a nasty shock, seeing them when you hadn't prepared yourself.

"Back again, Miss Potter?" said Madam Pomfrey from the center of the group that had Malfoy, Pansy, Tracey, Daphne, and Millicent in it.

"Yes, ma'am," Harriet said, responding to Pansy's insolent stare with her own contempt.

 _"She_ gets to see him?" Malfoy demanded.

"It is none of your concern, Mr. Malfoy," Madam Pomfrey said in freezing tones.

"You said Professor Snape wasn't receiving visitors," he said aggressively. "Is he or isn't he?"

"I have just said that is none of your concern. If none of you is ill, you will all clear out of here to make way for those who _are_."

"And who is exactly is _that_?" Pansy asked insultingly. "There's no one even here!"

On cue, the infirmary doors banged open and a group of boys blundered in. One of them had a giraffe neck, one had sprouted leeks from his ears and nose, a third had soap bubbles coming out of his mouth, and a fourth was shouting, "I won! I bloody won, you tossers!" while a fifth (with walrus fangs) dragged him in a headlock.

"Sit down!" Madam Pomfrey shouted at all of them, and, "Oh no, you don't!" to the Slytherins, who had started a surge toward the quarantine door.

"It's an unfair bias!" Malfoy snapped. "Just because she's the _famous_ Potter—"

"Out!" Madam Pomfrey barked, her wand in hand. "Before I propel you out myself!"

The Slytherins went, making no effort to hide their muttering, and each giving Harriet a look of purified hatred as they passed her. As if _that_ was intimidating, after werewolves and Dementors.

When Madam Pomfrey turned to deal with the dueling boys, Harriet slipped into the quarantine ward.

Snape looked the same as ever. He never even turned in his sleep. Though, her wishful thinking made her imagine his heartbeat-light looked brighter.

Thirteen days, now.

"Some of your Slytherins tried to visit you," she said. "Malfoy and the girls in my year. They weren't too pleased when Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let them. Not that I blame them, honestly, I threw a right fit when she wouldn't let _me._ You probably wouldn't have been too pleased to see her turf them out like that.

"Sorry, I forgot to bring flowers this time. This last batch is on its way out, too. . . But— hang on, maybe I can make some. . ."

She pulled out the notes Hermione had given her on the work she'd missed in Charms. The spell, _Floria_ , was supposed to conjure flowers; any sort, so long as you were focused. Hermione had made violets, forget-me-nots, camellias, and hibiscus (Ron had got weeds).

After three tries, Harriet wound up with a handful of scraggly looking thistles. Remembering the old Muggle superstition, she blew the down off the head and into the wastebin, thinking, _I wish he'd wake up and be okay_.

Another try produced a few peaky-looking daisies. She tried one more time and managed a single daffodil.

"Kind of girly," she said, but she emptied the mignonette and sunflowers that had gone dry and replaced them with the daisies and the daffodil.

"Parvati and Lavender have got their hearts set on doing this stupid Divs spell," she said as she filled the vase with water from the sink. "Hermione wouldn't do it with them—actually, she had a major freak-out about before Charms, though she's fine now. . . Anyway, I said I'd do it, though I can't remember why now. I'm wishing I hadn't, I dunno why, I just don't want to, anymore."

Snape, of course, made no reply. He probably wouldn't have said anything even if he'd been awake. This couldn't possibly interest him. She just had to say something, to fill that pressing silence.

His heartbeat light glowed and dimmed, glowed and dimmed.

"It's rather vague, too." She arranged the vase in front of the window, twisting the daffodil round so it looked across the room. "Though, most magic stuff is. I can't _believe_ none of those bloody books told me Patronuses look like animals. This spell is something to do with seeing the truth within ourselves, or whatever. I'm sure I won't see anything, I'm rubbish at Divs. I've never been able to predict what I'll be having for lunch when the food's sitting right in front of me."

She tried to tell herself the daisies and daffodil looked cheerful, but they only looked lonely.

"Best I can do," she said glumly. "Well. . . I'd better go. Madam Pomfrey will be looking to toss me out, soon.

"Good-night," she said, and shut the door after her.

* * *

Severus opened his eyes once the echo of the shutting door had faded, though at first he lay without moving. From the moment he'd crested into consciousness (in stages, like waves that carried you ever closer to shore), he'd been aware of pain that ran so deeply through him it seemed to define him. It felt, possibly, like being turned inside out. He couldn't move, could barely think. Someone was talking, but he couldn't make out the meaning. Was the voice a distraction, or did it make the pain worse? He couldn't tell. . .

When he'd finally recognized Miss Potter's voice, some of the malevolent agony inside him ebbed for a moment.

Perhaps he should open his—no. Christ, no. They were shut again now. But that hurt, too. Lying here hurt. Existing hurt.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. He rolled his head on the pillow, or started to, then stopped as agony shot through his neck like lightning. He'd seen enough, though. That must be what Miss Potter had meant by girly: the little white vase with scraggly daisies and a sad-looking daffodil in it.

He was bewildered but accepting. It didn't seem like the first time he'd seen her since he'd hurled his Patronus at the Dementor fluttering over her. . . There was a scrap of memory somewhere in there, of her white face and more-than-usually disheveled hair, and he thought she'd said, _I'm here. . ._ but when. . .?

Well, he'd survived, and so had Miss Potter, if she was chattering about Divinations spells with her vapid dorm-mates and conjuring flowers. He was almost ready to thank her for happening to be on hand when he came to. Now he didn't have to raze the roof down in a panic to figure out if she'd survived.

He forced his eyes open and took stock of his surroundings. It was after dark; the little window (which he could barely detect from the corner of his eye) was black in the wall of this bare, impersonal room, bleak except for Miss Potter's conjured flowers.

This was one of the quarantine rooms.

And then he recalled something of great significance, as to why he might be in a quarantine room. . .

He closed his eyes again, but opened them a moment later when the door swung open and Pomfrey rushed in.

"Ridiculous child!" she exclaimed. "Not telling me you'd finally awoken, what was she _thinking_? I ought to have her head—"

"She didn't realize I was awake," Severus said—or meant to. Nothing came out. He coughed and tried again. "I was. . . playing dead."

Pomfrey whisked her wand over him. "Well, then I'll take _you_ to task. That poor child has been here every day, hanging over you and hoping you'd be all right in the end—"

"Is she poor. . . or is she ridiculous?"

"Hush. How do you feel?"

 _Like absolute shit._ "Did that son of a bitch bite me?"

Pomfrey paused. Then she resumed her spell-sweeps. "I've found no evidence of a bite, Severus."

How he _hated_ being soothed, lied to. "Then why the bloody fucking hell am I in quarantine?"

"Because you need rest," she said sharply,. "I just had four students in the ward, spitting bubbles and plants and half-transfigured into bleating animals—"

"Can you tell me," he grit his teeth, " _honestly_ , that you feel there is no danger?"

Pomfrey stopped again. That time, she looked him grimly in the eye. "No. Not to be entirely safe. There is always the possibility that one of your other wounds masked a scrape. But I found no traces of saliva or teeth-marks."

"But I did have open wounds."

"You fell a hundred feet in a rock slide, Severus, you're lucky you aren't paralyzed for life!"

He _felt_ like he could be, at least. "How much of my mobility is likely to be compromised?"

"That remains to be seen. Which is why you will follow my injunctions as if they fell from the lips of Slytherin himself; do you understand me? If you wish to recuperate fully, Severus, there will be no patient-knows-best. Your injuries were extremely serious. I would have removed you to St. Mungo's if Albus hadn't forbidden it, for his own mysterious reasons."

Because Dumbledore knew Dark magic backlash when he saw it. Someone at St. Mungo's would be likely to know more than Pomfrey, whose expertise dealt in schoolchildren, and Severus might have woken up in restraints, scheduled for an interrogation.

"Call him down." _And let's fucking get it over with._

* * *

"This is going to be so _cool_!" Parvati said.

Harriet wished she had their enthusiasm, but she was just trying not to feel stupid.

Hermione wasn't helping. When she wasn't wearing her condescending face, she was reading with a condescending silence. Just now she turned a page in her book: _scra-a-a-ape_. Harriet couldn't decide if it was better or worse than the freaking out.

"Ready!" Lavender climbed down from the chair and dragged it back to her dresser.

The dorm was dark and smoky, their regular lights turned down and a special kind of incense pouring smoke from a burner that Lavender had just finished hanging from the ceiling. The smoke made Harriet's eyes water and her head feel thick and stupid.

"Do you really _need_ that much incense?" Hermione asked suddenly.

"It's to promote clairvoyance," Lavender said in a snooty voice.

"Well, I'm sorry in advance for interrupting your communion with the magical forces by sneezing."

Parvati moved in front of Harriet holding a bowl of paste that smelled like crushed flowers drenched with perfume. Harriet pushed her bangs off her forehead and let Parvati smear a smelly, vertical stripe down the center, right across her scar, which just happened to be in the place where the flowery paste needed to go.

"The past," said Parvati as she drew down Harriet's forehead. Then she drew another line across the palm of Harriet's right hand, which tickled. "The future."

Harriet took the bowl and drew a line down Lavender's forehead and across her right palm, repeating Parvati's words; and then Lavender took the bowl and did the same for Parvati. They both looked thrilled and at the same time deadly serious. They really thought this was going to accomplish something.

With the smell of the incense in her nose and the sticky paste on her palm, Harriet couldn't decide whether she agreed or not.

"Lie down, Harry," Parvati instructed, stretching out on her blankets. Lavender was doing the same, her feet poking up near Parvati's head.

Harriet lay down with her feet near Lavender's head and her own head near Parvati's feet, so they lay in a perfect triangle. She wriggled to get comfortable, and told herself she was being stupid for feeling stupid.

"Now," Parvati said, her voice floating through the near-dark and the smoke, "put your hand toward the center of The Triangle."

Harriet stretched out her right hand—the paste-sticky one—and lay it palm-up on the floor. She'd seen the diagrams: the lines they'd drawn on each other's hands would form a triangle of their own.

"Blessed Hecate," said Parvati's voice in the thick, smoky darkness, "Maiden, Mother, and Crone, Goddesses of Time and Fate, we supplicate thee. Open the windows and doors inside us, that we may know the past within ourselves, and so the future."

Then Lavender repeated it, their voices entwining. When they reached the end, it was Harriet's turn. Their voices swallowed hers. She closed her eyes against the burning incense, saying the words over and over, until they were meaningless, detached in the dark.

She couldn't remember what was supposed to go next. Maybe now they'd just lie here until the others gave up, disappointed, or reported a mystical connection with the Time Goddess. She trailed off, tired of speaking. . . and they stopped, too.

But as she lay there, listening to the dorm around her, she realized she couldn't hear anything. She couldn't hear Hermione reading or sneezing, or the fire settling, or Parvati's loud, whistly breathing. It was like she was in a black, soundless room.

She opened her eyes.

The world roared around her and went white.

* * *

"Do you know the little chapel round the back of the castle, facing over the loch?"

"No," Severus snapped, hating that he had to lie on his back even to have a simple fucking conversation. His fingers ached from clutching the bed.

"When you're better," Dumbledore said, "I shall take you to visit. The Fat Friar tends to, ah, haunt it. Nobody uses it anymore except for him. It's quite derelict, but still beautiful, for all that. . . perhaps even more beautiful, in fact."

"By all means, let's plan a sight-seeing trip _just in case_ we find I haven't lost the ability to walk."

"I've been going there these past thirteen days," Dumbledore went on, "to. . . well, to pray. There really aren't many places in Hogwarts formally set aside for that. We've gotten away from it, in recent centuries. When I was a boy, some of the Muggle-born children would say grace over their meals, but even that's gone."

"You've been _praying_ ," Severus said flatly.

"That you'd wake up again, and be yourself. It seems to have worked," Dumbledore said, twinkling. "Or perhaps not so much for my tireless efforts. . . by the bye, those flowers are quite lovely. Harriet is always bringing them for you—I wonder what they symbolize?"

Severus felt oddly proprietary of his flowers, sad little things that they were. "Muggles bring flowers to the sick in hospital. Never mind that. What's been happening?"

Dumbledore arranged his bell-shaped sleeves. For anyone else, the gesture would have been fidgety.

"How much do you remember?" he asked as he settled. Stalling?

"I remember your _pet_ werewolf almost goring Miss Potter, and nearly killing myself stopping him." And oh, they would be getting to how Severus had always been right about that mongrel, and Dumbledore wrong. "I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew, the Dementors were. . ."

Floating over Miss Potter, its hood pushed back, its face lowering to hers—the doe ripping the last of his strength out of him—blackness welling over him as the Dementor reared away—losing consciousness before he could see whether he'd got it in time. . .

"Yes," Dumbledore said quietly. "A Patronus of that strength is commendable—particularly coming, as it did, with so many Dementors on hand. . . and on the heels of quite a powerful Dark spell."

And there it was: the stern look Severus had been waiting for (though it was strangely softer than he'd imagined).

"It was only middling range," he said, trying to dismiss the itching feeling of being chastised—or of waiting to be, since, to his bewilderment, it really didn't seem he was. "And it was in aide of finding Black. Though that's hardly how it worked out. The werewolf," and the rage pressed against his teeth, "has been playing quite the double game."

"And you were right," Dumbledore said. "I acknowledge it freely."

Severus found that an admission he'd yearned after was hollow for needing to be given at all.

"Remus and I have been talking—"

" _He's still here_?"

"Severus— _Severus_ —don't try to get up or Poppy will have our heads. Yes, he is still here. I need a Defense professor, particularly now that I am temporarily without a Potions master. We are managing to cover your classes for the time being—"

As if Severus gave a bloody fucking damn about his fucking _classes_! "Lupin's carelessness could have cost that girl everything! He is too much indebted to a lucky scrape for his acquittal—"

"Remus did his very best to resign. His arguments were equally as impassioned as your own—"

Severus swore.

"Yes," Dumbledore said firmly, "they were. Remus feels responsible—"

"As well he should, the lying _fucking_ coward—"

"But what he has done has saved an innocent man from a terrible fate. Yes, he is indebted to the event for his acquittal. So are we all."

If Lupin had walked into the room then, Severus would have done his best to kill him, broken back or no. That Lupin should lie to Dumbledore's, to _everyone's_ , face for months, trick Severus into this position for his own purposes, almost get Harriet Potter _killed_ , and that Dumbledore should absolve it all—

"There's some talk of awarding you an Order of Merlin," Dumbledore said. "For your service to Harriet."

Severus didn't know how to react to this, so he decided to fling blame. "A sop to your conscience, is it?"

Dumbledore sighed. "You did a very courageous thing, Severus. You, too, saved an innocent—two of them, in fact. You have helped uncover the truth."

"It's not the only truth I could uncover," Severus hissed.

For a split second, Dumbledore looked astonished—and then his anger rose to the occasion. "Severus. You shall _not_."

"You're claiming to need the werewolf for the children's _defense_ —a lying, sneaking, backstabbing _sub_ human—"

"Severus," Dumbledore said warningly.

"—who has lied and endangered those same children since the moment he set foot—"

"Severus!" Dumbledore's voice would have shriveled Severus' tongue twenty years ago. "That is enough—"

"They can _none_ of them do any wrong, can they? No matter who they threaten, they're still your precious _fucking_ golden Gryffindors!"

Dumbledore was silent, his eyes as hard as adamant. . . but then they softened to a kind of troubled sadness that twisted Severus' insides more painfully than any look of angry displeasure.

"I wish you did not equate kindness toward yourself with cruelty to others, Severus."

It hurt like a knife shoved home through his ribs, straight to his heart.

"Get out," he whispered.

Turning his face away, he heard Dumbledore sigh softly. A moment later, the door opened.

"Leaving, Headmaster?" Pomfrey asked.

"And not a moment too soon," said Dumbledore, "if your appearance is any indication. You look like a woman come to escort me from the premises."

"He needs his rest."

"Don't fucking talk about me like I'm not here," Severus said without looking round at them.

"Severus _Snape,"_ said Pomfrey sharply, "you will watch your language—"

"I'm not a fucking twelve-year-old, and I shall talk however I bloody fucking well please, thank you very fucking much."

"You're just lucky there's no one here right now," Pomfrey retorted, "or I'd—"

"Madam Pomfrey!" cried a girl's voice. "Madam Pomfrey!"

With a warning glare, Pomfrey whisked away. Dumbledore made to follow her, but Severus snarled, " _Wait_ ," because he recognized Lavender Brown's voice.

"It will be about Miss Potter," he said by way of an explanation when Dumbledore turned toward him in surprise. "See if I'm wrong."

And whatever else he'd done or failed to do, Dumbledore walked promptly out of the room. Severus (still locked down to the bed) heard the muffled sounds of a commotion.

It felt like ages before Dumbledore returned, looking pensive.

"You were quite right, Severus. It's Harriet."

* * *

Bubbles. Colorful bubbles, and she was trying to catch them—the man laughed, made a few more from his wand, daddy—

With a sensation like somersaulting in mid-air Harriet knew who she was and that she was inside some sort of memory. She was inside her own body, seeing out of her own eyes, but her hands moved after the bubbles without her doing anything, like her body had a mind of its own.

"Whoops," said her dad, laughing, "almost caught that one."

" _James_ ," and that was her _mum,_ not screaming or panicked, only exasperated and warm, so warm. "She's supposed to be getting ready for _bed_."

Her dad said, " _Now_ we're in trouble," and scooped her up. Then he turned to face her mum.

 _Mum,_ Harriet thought.

"Just _you_." Her mum was smiling, and she stepped forward to take Harriet into her arms at last and kiss her dad on his cheek. Harriet was lightly trapped between them, her mum's hair tickling her face.

She would have stayed there forever.

But Mum was already pulling away, taking Harriet with her. Dad ruffled her hair one last time and then yawned and stretched, turning away to toss his wand down on the couch. Then he was out of sight as Mum carried her up the stairs.

Baby-Harriet touched Mum's hair falling all around her, the light shining softly through it. When her mum hummed, Harriet felt it all through her body.

Her mum carried into a room with a crib and animals and clouds painted on the walls, toys everywhere. Harriet wanted to look round and see everything; she didn't want to look away from her mother for a second; but the body she was in didn't respond to any of her desires. She was a passenger inside herself, and baby-Harriet just wanted to play with her mum's hair.

"Got your favorite toy, then," said Mum, brushing her lips across Harriet's cheek.

Something exploded downstairs, a noise like shattering wood, and her mum's body went completely still.

Through the open door, Harriet heard her dad shout, "Lily, it's him! Take Harriet and go, I'll hold him off—"

And her mum was holding her so tightly all of a sudden, and Harriet could feel her heartbeat racing. She knew what this was, what was going to happen now; she'd heard it before, drowning in the cold.

 _No,_ she thought. _Not this, why do I have to see this?_

Whispering under her breath, cradling her head, her mum was lowering her into the crib and turning to slam the door and throw things in front of it, a rocking chair, a kiddie stool, a whole shelf of toys, flung down. Then she turned back to the crib, and Harriet saw her face—

Mum pulled her out of the crib and pressed her to her chest, whispering, "No, no, please, please, God, no."

 _Let me out_ , Harriet thought, _let me out, I don't want to be here—_

The door crashed open, the things her mum had thrown in front of it scattering. Mum fell to her knees, crushing Harriet to her chest, curling her body protectively over her.

"Not Harriet, please not Harriet—"

"Stand aside, you silly girl," said Voldemort, and Harriet couldn't see his face, her mum's hair was hanging in her eyes. "Stand aside now—"

"Please no, take me, kill me instead—"

"This is my last warning—"

"Please, have mercy, please, I'll do anything—"

"Stand aside, girl!"

And then came the rush of green light that Harriet remembered, and her mum fell down, down, down. Harriet could no longer feel her mum's frantic heartbeat, as if it had simply vanished from her chest. Over the sound of her own crying, she heard footsteps approaching slowly. . .

She looked up into a darkened hood at the sliver of a white face.

" _Avada Kedavra_ ," said Voldemort's voice—

The world filled with green and shattered.

It was like the searing movement of wizarding Apparition without the squeezing; like wind scouring her skin and rushing through her body; like time hurtling through her and space hurtling past her—

Then with a wrench it stopped. This place she also recognized: the Forbidden Forest at night and the moon washing the world with silver and black, only this time she was running and her breath was gushing silver in front of her.

She'd never run in the Forbidden Forest at night. Was she _going_ to? If that memory with her parents was her past, had she arrived at her future?

She was running like she knew where she was going, like her life depended on getting there as fast as she could. Close by she heard the pounding of hoof-beats but the body she was in—her own body?—must have known she'd hear it because she didn't look round.

The woods broke open and she propelled herself onto the shore of a lake, skidding on the rocks. Someone turned from the edge of the water, spun quickly to face her.

It was Snape.

"Do we have to do this outside, where it's so bloody cold?" she asked for all the world like she'd been expecting him.

"Naturally," he replied like he'd been expecting her. "Power in magic means suffering. Have I taught you nothing?"

Snape did look older, more worn, though she couldn't say _how_ old he might be. His hair was still completely black and so were his robes (which weren't his normal teaching robes but somehow fancier and more severe). His face looked like he'd lived a thousand years in one but his eyes were as sharp as ever, maybe even sharper, and seemed to pull all the light from the stars into them.

The body she was in—her own body, right?—if Snape was older, that meant she was older too, didn't it?—he did seem less towering, which might mean she'd grown—this body walked down the shore toward him.

"No shit," she said. "You've got your bloody _shoes_ off, Severus, Jesus."

 _Severus?_ Harriet thought.

"It will be colder in the water," Snape said. His voice was dismissive, but how he looked at her was strange in every way.

"That's the reason to take off your shoes?" older-Harriet asked as she unzipped her jacket and dropped it, while beside her, Snape peeled off his cloak. "Because it's less cold out here?"

"Don't be daft," Snape said, but there was something in his voice that made Harriet suspect he wasn't really insulting her.

When Snape stepped into the water, Harriet winced—both deep within herself, and in body.

"We're gonna catch hypothermia," she said.

"What price the vaunted Gryffindor bravery?" asked Snape sardonically, but the expression on his face was something else entirely. When he held out his hand, older-Harriet took it and stepped into the water with him.

"I can't swim," she said as the frigid water closed over her legs, then her thighs, her waist.

"You did well enough in the Second Task."

"That was the gillyweed. . ."

As the water slid up to her chin, she hooked her arms round his waist and rested her chin on his chest, and he slid his arm round her back. The strange thing was that neither older-Harriet nor Snape seemed to find this strange at all. They were acting like it was the most natural thing in the world, Harriet laying her head on Snape's chest, him holding her against him.

"This is deep enough," Snape said, stopping their forward motion, while older-Harriet's feet floated off the bottom of the lake, already going numb.

"Ok-ka-a-y," older-Harriet chattered. Her heart was beating hard and fast and her insides were all twisted up: Harriet recognized fear and apprehension and worry and something else, something she didn't recognize at all.

Snape brushed her hair back from her face, dripping icy water across her skin, but she didn't flinch. She looked up into his face. The expression there was so un-Snape-like, so confusing, so unfamiliar in every way, that Harriet didn't have a name to put to it.

"If it doesn't work," he said, "you won't be hurt."

She nodded, like he'd said this before.

"If it does work?" she asked, tightening her arms around his ribs. (Lord, Snape was skinny. Did he eat, ever?)

"You'll know," he said quietly.

She closed her eyes. Harriet wished she hadn't, because she couldn't make them open; she was still only a passenger, and she wanted to see what was going on, to figure out what they were talking about.

His arm secure around her back, his hand resting against her face, Snape's breath moved across her forehead, and he began to speak. The words sounded Latin, but unlike most incantations, which were only a word or two, this went on and on, like a litany or a prayer.

When a brightness started to shine behind her closed eyes, older-Harriet opened them.

The water around them was glowing. It was like the blue-silver-white of the Patronus, like a fire lit beneath their feet. The longer Snape spoke, not even taking a breath, the brighter it grew, tingeing with gold. . . but was it spreading across the lake, or spreading up _them_? It was hard to tell—it was impossible—it was filling the world, her eyes, her whole body, blotting out the dark of the wood and the sky and the diamond-glint of the stars; blotting out Snape (and there, a pang, as if he was the only loss that mattered). His voice rolled through her first like falling water, then like the thundering of a waterfall, down from an enormous height into mist and darkness below—into a yawning blackness she'd never known was there until his voice tried to fill it, and dropped down, down, down, echoing through those cold, empty spaces where something dwelt, unseen—

And then, for a third time, the world exploded.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I adapted Harriet's memory of Hallowe'en from Voldemort's memory of the same, in DH.


	44. Time after Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credits in this chapter:
> 
> -"Yesterday is today's memory..." is another quotation from Khalil Gibran.
> 
> -The stuff about Hecate comes from the website Goddess Gift. I paraphrased some of the things they wrote about her.

* * *

it hurt oh god it hurt and she was going to die

harriet harriet can you hear me say something please

hurt it hurts dying fire coming apart shattered broken

lavender's gone for madam pomfrey harriet can you hear

it hurts mum

* * *

"You didn't say the spell was _dangerous_!" Granger kept saying, over and over, her voice only slightly muffled by two walls and partly open doors.

"It's not!" said Patil in a choked, sobby voice. "M-mummy was the one who told me about it! Professor Trelawney—"

"Oh yes, because _she's_ got all the sense anyone could ask for!" cried Granger, and for the hair's-width of a moment, Severus' constant desire to wring her neck suspended itself.

"Oh, shut it about Professor Trelawney!" Brown yelled. "You're rubbish at Divination, only _you_ think if you're bad at something, it's because _it's_ rubbish!"

Severus wanted to shout for Pomfrey to chuck them out of the ward—no, to do it himself—but he couldn't get up, and Dumbledore had gone to see to Miss Potter (Severus had ordered him, on pain of death). He'd left the door open, and Severus could hear every squawk of those bloody squabbling teenage girls, every word that made him want to hex them over and over.

What the fuck had they been doing, that had landed Miss Potter in the hospital wing yet _again?_ If they'd been careless—if she'd been hurt as the result of their stupidity—he'd have them in detention for the rest of their half-witted lives.

He heard Dumbledore's soft, swift footsteps in the hall, saw the shadows warping. Then he heard the Headmaster speaking to Miss Potter's hysterical dorm-mates:

"I very much need the three of you to tell me what happened. One at a time, please," he added, almost before they all three broke out babbling at once.

Patil: "—we did the ritual, just like the spell said, and were doing the chanting—"

Brown: "—don't know what happened, we had our eyes shut—"

Granger: "—I left the room, and when I came back, Harry was—"

Brown: "—bending herself backwards off the floor, it was so scary—"

"Thank you," said Dumbledore, and they shut up. "I understand."

"I brought the book, sir, this is the spell," said Granger breathlessly.

"It sh-shouldn't have gone like th-that," Patil said. "I looked into it, for a _month_. It's not dangerous, it shouldn't have h-happened!"

"Is Harry all right?" Granger asked. Severus pictured her hands twisting together.

"I cannot tell you," Dumbledore said, and Severus' heart seemed to crackle with ice. "We are not even sure, yet, what has happened to her. But we are doing everything in our power."

The silence that followed was thick and choking, broken only by the muffled sounds of Patil, the sniveling idiot, starting to sob again.

"Forgive me," said Dumbledore gently. "I must ask the three of you to return to your dormitory. There is a great deal of work to be done."

"P-please, sir," said Granger in a wavering voice, "may I stay?"

Dumbledore did not answer right away, but when he said, "This once, you may," Severus was not surprised. "You may sleep out here. Madam Pomfrey has been explicit in her instructions that no one may see Harriet before she's satisfied that she's out of danger."

Granger appeared to accept that, for Severus heard no reply from her; and as he could no longer hear Patil blubbering or Brown jibbering, he had to assume they'd gone.

He lay in an agony of agitation, waiting for Dumbledore to return.

* * *

Hermione did think that Divinations was rubbish. Maybe it was only a Muggle prejudice (fortune-telling was so _ridiculous_ ) or maybe it was mostly Professor Trelawney, who was too fixated on dark and disturbing futures, none of which ever materialized, for Hermione to take her seriously; who was in the game to predict death and dismemberment, not honest outcomes; who psychologically tormented her students to titillate herself—Professor Trelawney, who was the first teacher Hermione had ever disliked _and_ not respected. (She didn't like Snape, biased bully that he was, but at least he wasn't an utter _quack_.)

And Lavender and Parvati, with their _stupid_ spell—

She'd made copies of the relevant pages in Parvati's book, and pored over them while Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore worked in the quarantine ward. It was almost midnight, but she did not sleep. She _had_ to figure out what had gone wrong.

It took her a while to realize she'd wound her fingers in the chain round her neck. Not her friendship necklace: the time-turner. And like a wisp of smoke drifting from a snuffed-out candle came the thought: _If I can go back and time and stop it. . ._

She withdrew from it in horror. No—she couldn't—Professor McGonagall had forbidden—

It wouldn't work anyway. If she'd succeeded, Harriet wouldn't be in the hospital wing now. Whatever she did, things would play out this way, because if she could have stopped it, she already would have.

 _True_ , said a cold, unimpressed voice in her mind. _But you're flexing your logic primarily because your first thought was_ a teacher told me not to _._

Tears stung her eyes. She shook her head, but that voice was relentless. _Does Harriet end up in the hospital because you were too_ scared _of what your_ teachers _would say to go back in time, or because you went and there was nothing you could do?_

Gritting her teeth, telling herself to shut up, she flapped the copied pages out straight and shoved them closer to the lamp for reading.

_Yes, go on, do research, stare at a book. That's all you're good for—_

"Shut up!" she cried. Her voice echoed in the empty ward. The _up-up-up_ sounded like sniggering laughter.

"Fine," she hissed a moment later, crushing the note pages in her hands. "I will get into _so_ much trouble, I might get _expelled_ , and it won't accomplish _anything_ , because if it were _going_ to, it already _would_ have—but _fine_! I'll go—"

Before she could talk herself out of it, she twisted the time-turner, spinning the ward back through time.

* * *

"What happened?" Severus demanded, craning his neck to see Dumbledore's face as he entered the room. "What's wrong with her?"

"She appears to have taken part in a spell calling upon Hecate, and using the power of three—twice," Dumbledore said. He looked older than he had earlier. He shouldn't look older, and Severus didn't mean because only an hour or so had passed.

"Do I look like I studied that bloody rubbish in school?"

"Hecate," Dumbledore said, almost as if to himself, "in her capacity of three. . . and three young women pooling their powers, to achieve insight into their pasts and futures." Carefully, Dumbledore laid the book on the same cabinet as Miss Potter's flowers. "I very much regret to say that we may guess what Miss Potter saw."

_You know what I hear when Dementors get close to me? I hear Voldemort murdering my mum—_

With a chill that traveled slowly to every part of him, Severus wondered what it would do to your mind, if you saw your own death.

He closed his eyes.

* * *

When the hospital wing solidified around Hermione again, sunlight filled it to the vaulted ceiling. For a moment, she stood paralyzed with panic, for it was midday, surely she'd be _seen_. How could she have been so _careless_? She _knew_ Harriet had gone to the hospital wing during Charms class—

But the ward was as empty of people as it was full of light. Even Madam Pomfrey was absent (checking on Professor Snape, perhaps).

Not wasting her phenomenal luck, Hermione dashed out of the ward, shoving the time-turner down the neck of her blouse.

She'd spun it too far, gone back too early. What good was she going to be during the middle of the day?

Checking her watch, she saw it was just before Charms. Maybe she could meet Harriet in the hospital wing after all, talk to her, try to convince her. . . ? Not that it would do any good. . .

Wait. _Wait._ Harriet hadn't gone to the hospital wing first, she'd gone up to the dormitory, to retrieve the pain potion she'd stashed there. . .

Hermione took off running. All their shortcuts brought them through areas of the castle that would be densely populated at this hour; she'd have to go the long way round.

Several minutes later, clutching a stitch in her side, she staggered through the Fat Lady's portrait, raced across the empty common room, and hiked up the stairwell. She flung open the door to their room, and blessed her lucky stars to see Harriet was there—swearing, over the sound of smashing glass.

"Dammit, Hermione!" she said angrily. "That was the only bottle I had!"

"Sorry," Hermione panted. "Sorry—I didn't mean to startle you—I just had to tell you—whatever you do, _don't_ do that spell!"

"What?" Harriet scowled as she pulled a goopy hairbrush out of her dresser, and swore in that new way that Hermione absolutely hated, wherever she'd got it from. She held up her hand, which had a long gash on the outside, nasty enough to make Hermione wince.

"The Divinations spell, with Lavender and Parvati—you can't do it, please swear to me you won't—"

"I'd rather not, you know." Harriet had folded up a handkerchief and was dabbing at the cut on her hand. "I'm not planning on telling them I got it today—ugh, this is such a rotten mess. Look, I've got to see Madam Pomfrey now, I'll see you later—"

"Promise me!" Hermione begged, hurrying after as Harriet stomped out of the dorm.

"What are you on about?" Harriet asked in no very welcoming tone. But she _did_ look pale and ill. She'd looked pale and ill for the past week and more, in fact; moody and withdrawn.

"I—I've just got this horrid feeling something is going to go very, very wrong," Hermione said desperately.

"Professor Trelawney must be getting to you," Harriet said, shaking her head. "It's just a dumb old spell. I've got to run—aren't you going to be late to Charms?"

And she took off, leaving Hermione stricken and frustrated and angry with herself, and not a hair closer to preventing her best friend from ending up raving in madness and in fear.

* * *

Hermione retreated back to the dormitory to castigate herself. What a _stupid_ plan (if plan it could even be called, which surely it couldn't). Surely she was cleverer than to think such half-baked rubbish would work! Clearly she failed to stop the spell from happening, because it did happen. However much she hated it, logic dictated as much. And aside from that, she'd been wearing different clothes and acting far too differently than she ought, before or after—

She repressed a stab of uncharitable gratitude toward Harriet's occasional plank-headedness. If Harriet's face-value acceptance of her bizarre behavior led to a paradox's _not_ being created. . .

She had no business putting on airs about her own intelligence, not now. Now, her job was to hide and wait out the intervening hours until she could try again.

She knew she was safe from discovery by Lavender, Parvati or Harriet during Charms, but theoretically, anyone could walk into their dorm and find her where she shouldn't be. She needed a place to stay completely out of sight. . .

Her eyes fell on her wardrobe. She grimaced, but the idea was sound. She needed to be nearby.

But it was stuffy and uncomfortable in the wardrobe. She draped some of her clean school robes on the floorboard to make the space feel not quite so punishing, and propped the door open a crack, to let in enough light so that she could squint over her notes.

She tapped the book with a spell to modernize the language, banishing words like "proiected" and "vncouered": _  
_

_Calling upon the Goddess Hecate, The Spell of Unity celebrates a witch's power and your unique insight into life's sacred cycles. At the height of your magical cycle, when life's forces are in flow within you, and the blood of the past month is expunged to make way for the new, the Spell of Unity may allow you to delve into experiences of your past which are of great moment and illuminate the fate they will write in your future. The memories found and fate projected will depend upon the witch in question, but they will be part of the sacred cycle of your own life, for you are part of the cycle of life itself._

_The goddess Hecate reminds us of the importance of change, helping us to release the past, especially that which hinders our growth, and to accept change and transitions. She may require us to let go of what is familiar, safe, and secure and to travel to the darkest places of the soul._

_New beginnings, whether spiritual or mundane, may fill us with reluctance and with fear, but Hecate places herself as your guide, illuminating the path before you. Familiar with the process of death and dying as well as that of new birth and new life, the goddess Hecate is wise in all of earth's mysteries._

_She loans her farsightedness for you to see what lies deeply forgotten or even hidden, and helps you make a choice and find your path. Oft times she will shine her torch to guide you, in dreams or in meditation. Call upon her, and know the sacred mystery of her guiding hand._

It explained the ritual, the trance-state. There was no part detailing what to do if the spell went wrong.

For the nth time, Hermione saw how stupid she'd been to let Harriet do a spell that opened windows to her past and her future. She _knew_ the Dementors dredged up memories dreadful enough to make Harriet faint (memories of the night her parents died, Hermione was certain, though Harriet had never said); and her future, linked to a defining moment in the past, mapping the course of her life, would surely have to do with You-Know-Who as well. But she'd been so certain that the spell was nothing (not that this stupid book helped), that Divination was a risible branch of magic, imprecise at best, that Lavender and Parvati were talentless ninnies—so certain of all that, she'd been content to sit by and demonstrate how very above-it-all she was.

And now, with this knowledge of her own failure, she'd have to watch herself fail yet again.

They were right, those witches and wizards who'd warned that time-turners were a curse.

* * *

Lavender and Parvati returned first. They came in, grumbling, because Harriet had run off somewhere. Hermione remembered her slipping away after dinner, though she hadn't asked where she was going. To get away from everyone, she'd assumed. The Sirius Black business had upset her so much.

Eventually, she heard _herself_ come back. It was so odd to listen to her own voice and know it wasn't coming from a recording.

 _Idiot_ , she chastised herself. _Idiot!_

When at long last she heard Harriet come back, she learned another lesson: that something you'd been impatiently waiting for could be even more painful than the wait itself.

They started the ritual. Parvati lit the incense and Lavender hung the burner from the ceiling, clanking the chains. Harriet would be sitting on her bed, knees drawn up, watching the other two with a tired, resigned expression. Hermione should have been comforting her, not poring over her Arithmancy book and dwelling on its superiority to Divination. What sort of friend was she? All this year, while Harriet had been under threat of _murder_ , Hermione had been studying Muggles!

Now they were drawing lines on each other's hands and foreheads. . . now lying down. . . now starting that ridiculous chant. . .

The little half-a-heart dug into Hermione's palm when she gripped her necklace tight.

Through the thin gap she'd left in the wardrobe door, Hermione saw her other-self closing her book with a look of thick disgust and finally, _finally,_ leaving the room. Hermione was elated, though she couldn't stop the bitter thought that maybe, if she'd stayed, she could have seen something was wrong from the first and put a stop to it immediately.

Well, that was what she was here for now. Better late than never, they said.

They probably hadn't had time travel in mind.

Lavender and Parvati continued to chant, but Hermione couldn't hear Harriet's voice any longer.

Then, as if a cord had been pulled, the voices of the other two simply stopped in mid-sentence. The sudden silence prickled along Hermione's scalp.

_Now._

Holding her breath—even though she _knew_ nobody saw her—Hermione eased open the door and climbed down from the wardrobe. Her bare feet made no sound. In fact, now their chanting had stopped, there was no sound in the room at all. Parvati and Lavender lay peacefully with their eyes closed, their hands stretched out toward each other.

And Harriet was staring open-eyed at the ceiling, her face frozen and contorted, like she was in agony, like she was seeing something that terrified her; and yet there was a blankness in her eyes, as if they were fixed on something Hermione couldn't see.

Hermione knelt over her and grabbed her hand, trying to wrench it off the floor. It wouldn't go—as if it was locked down in that triangle with Lavender and Parvati's.

Her scar was an angry, blistering red, like it was burning, like there was fire behind it. Her whole body was rigid as bone, Hermione couldn't even hear her breathing.

_I've got to do something—What if I do something wrong? The book didn't say—Then you'll have to figure something out on your own, won't you? Aren't you supposed to be clever?_

The skin on Harriet's forehead was starting to split around her scar, like the shell of an egg.

Hermione gagged; tears splintered her vision. Then, raising her wand, she shot the incense burner down from the ceiling with a spell.

And when Lavender and Parvati jerked up and pulled their hands away, Harriet screamed like she was being pulled apart. Her back arched off the floor, more than a foot above it, so only the crown of her head and her feet were touching, and she screamed and screamed—

"Get Pomfrey!" Hermione shouted, and Lavender was off like a rabbit.

Then Hermione bolted. She jumped into the wardrobe just as she heard her other-self slam back into the room, crying, "Harriet? Harriet!" and Parvati was weeping too hard to notice Hermione was in two places at once—

Hermione slid to the floor of the wardrobe, breathing out through her nose. She didn't know if she'd helped at all. She may not have. How long would it have been before she came back to the room, if there hadn't been that commotion? How long would Lavender and Parvati have lain there, trapped in the spell?

It could have been not long at all.

It could have been ages.

She pressed her forehead against her knees and listened to Harriet wail, like she was so terrified she'd lost control of herself. Tears stung her eyes and blame and grief twisted her heart, because Harriet was the bravest person she knew.

* * *

Hermione was finally free of the wardrobe past two in the morning. When she slipped back into the hospital wing, Professor Dumbledore was sitting beside the bed she'd abandoned, reading the spell-book she'd given him hours and hours ago.

Hermione walked toward him without pausing. She'd never thought she'd face the probability of her own expulsion so stoically—so indifferently. At this moment, she wasn't sure she would even care.

Professor Dumbledore glanced up at her without a trace of surprise. "Well, my dear?" he said. "Any insights?"

"I don't know, sir," she whispered. "I—didn't know what to do."

"All the same," he said gently, closing the book, "it is better that you tried."

"You aren't—angry? Sir, I broke the rules—"

"I always knew you would. It would take a far duller soul than yours, Miss Granger, never to use an object of inherent fascination such as _that_ for any purpose besides study."

But how close she'd come to doing precisely that made Hermione feel deeply ashamed, repulsed with herself.

"How is she, sir?"

"Very ill, I am afraid." There was no trace of a smile on his face. In fact, he looked quite old all at once. "Miss Patil is right; the spell should have been perfectly innocuous. And yet. . ."

 _Maybe what she saw was too much to bear._ A cold shiver rippled through Hermione's heart.

"How ill is ill, sir?"

Professor Dumbledore looked at her a moment, as though debating the wisdom of telling her. Then he said, with a gentleness that terrified her as much as what he said next:

"She may go mad, Miss Granger. She may already have done."

* * *

If Severus had ever cursed anything with as much violence as he did his situation during those next few days, he'd forgotten what it was. Knowing him, there had surely been _something;_ but his fury at the frustration of being trapped flat on a bed, in an agony both physical and mental, while at the same time bereft of all mental stimulation, was matched only by his hatred of his own futility in the same situation. He had nothing to do, there was nothing he _could_ do.

Citing the threat of Sirius Black, Dumbledore did not remand Miss Potter into the custody of St. Mungo's Healers, though he called on them. They tramped through the quarantine ward, bleating uselessly, and Severus didn't even have the option of excoriating them because Pomfrey had locked his door and thrown up a silencing-spell.

So, too, came Mrs. Patil, a so-called Divinations expert. She was luckier than the rest that Severus couldn't get up, or he'd have torn into her for being so witless as to sire daughter so fool-headed she exposed her friends to spells that drove them to the brink of madness, with no indication, after three days, that they might ever return from it.

* * *

"Mrs. Patil," said Professor Dumbledore, "thank you for coming."

Hermione was seldom in awe of people who weren't authority figures or intellectual giants, and Mrs. Patil was only a professional fortune-teller. But there was something so grave about her, and she was so genuinely beautiful and elegant, that Hermione found herself feeling quite shy and inadequate. She berated herself for being such a ninny. What did it matter if Mrs. Patil was beautiful?

_It matters because you aren't.—Shut up._

"Headmaster," said Mrs. Patil, her voice as grave as her eyes. "I am deeply sorry for what has happened."

"Thank you," Professor Dumbledore said, matching her tone. "It is a tragic business. We were hoping you might have some insight into the matter—what could have gone wrong, or what can be done."

Instead of protesting that she had no such intelligence, Mrs. Patil replied, "I would be honored," and followed him into Harriet's room.

Hermione went with them. Professor Dumbledore had allowed it (to Madam Pomfrey's resigned displeasure).

Her heart ached whenever she saw Harriet, who lay on the bed, twisting in the magical restraints Madam Pomfrey had thrown across her, her hair snarled and soaked with sweat, muttering, her eyes half-open, only the whites showing. For three days she had been like this. She didn't even sleep. She just kept on muttering and twitching, occasionally shouting, but no one could understand a word and she never appeared to notice they were there.

St. Mungo's healers hadn't been able to do a thing for her. Even their advice had conflicted. One had said to put her in a healing sleep; another had recommended a potion; a third had said she mustn't be given magical aides to sleep or regain lucidity; and a fourth had advised their calling on him in a few days to see how she was getting along.

"It's beyond me, Headmaster," Madam Pomfrey had whispered to Professor Dumbledore, when they thought Hermione was asleep (although how she could _possibly_ sleep, Hermione didn't know). "I don't even know where to begin helping her."

Mrs. Patil was the next resort.

Hermione tried not to think _the last._

Mrs. Patil sat in a chair beside Harriet's bed and for several minutes simply stared at her. Then she stretched out her hand, fingers spread wide, and passed it through the air a foot above Harriet's body, from her knees to her head. At last she laid her hand slowly, gently, on Harriet's forehead, closing her eyes when her palm at last rested on Harriet's skin.

Hermione halfheartedly scoffed inside, but she was too worried to work herself into a state of full-blown disdain. And if these methods saved Harriet, what did it matter how corny they looked?

"She is trapped in a state of temporal flux," said Mrs. Patil as she opened her eyes.

"You will have to forgive my ignorance in matters of Divination, Ma'am," said Professor Dumbledore courteously.

"There is not only one timeline, Headmaster." Her voice was simple and straightforward, quite unlike Professor Trelawney's misty intonation. "Each living thing has its own store of time—humans, trees, flies, even mountains. In this world, human bodies and minds tend to be anchored in the present, though we always feel the inexorable pull of the past and the magnetic fascination of the future. Time presents an incredible influence over us all. It is important to observe its natural boundaries. Even the slightest variation in our natural timeline can pose a great danger. To put it more simply, when our time becomes disrupted, bad things happen." She brushed Harriet's head off her forehead. "This girl's personal time is in chaos."

"Do you mean that Harriet has no notion of where she is within her own timeline?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

"For one professing such little knowledge," she said, with the flicker of a dry smile, "you master it quickly. Yes. Hers has entangled itself."

"But this shouldn't have happened," Hermione said desperately, "should it? The book didn't say anything about it going wrong—"

"The Spell of Unity often distresses those who have had painful experiences in their past," Mrs. Patil said even more gravely than before. "I wish Parvati had told me she meant to include Harriet Potter. From only the little I know of her past, I would have forbidden it."

Hermione steeled herself to ask the next question. "Could this have happened because I disrupted the spell while Harriet was still under it?"

Mrs. Patil looked at her, and in her silence Hermione read her own condemnation. She couldn't stop the feeling that Mrs. Patil saw a great deal more than Hermione would have liked.

"It could be so," she said at last, "but it should not be. At best, any interference should have left Miss Potter with only a headache. For her to be reduced to this state, the three of them would have needed to channel power enough to overcome the natural influence of time. I cannot possibly comprehend three thirteen-year-old witches being capable of that. The spell does not even require it."

But Hermione felt numb. She'd done this. It was her fault.

"The future can be changed," said Professor Dumbledore, "but the past cannot. We alter our futures with every breath, but we can do nothing for the past. Am I correct, Mrs. Patil?"

"You are," said Mrs. Patil, looking faintly surprised.

"The past can only be learned from," said Professor Dumbledore. "Though it is most commonly revisited with regret. Thank you, Mrs. Patil. Is there anything to be done for her?"

"As I have said, our timeline is anchored in the present. If the damage has not been," the tiniest pause, "irreparable, hers should right itself in time. I am afraid you can do nothing but wait. Our timelines cannot safely be altered by any outside force." She tucked Harriet's hair around her ears. "This you see before you. . . this is the result of that."

"Thank you," said Professor Dumbledore, bowing to her.

He escorted Mrs. Patil away, but Hermione stayed beside Harriet. She filled a porcelain bowl from the sink and carried it to the bed with a flannel, to wipe the sweat off Harriet's forehead.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, and wiped away the tear that fell onto Harriet's cheek.

Professor Dumbledore's voice, though soft, startled her. She hadn't heard him return. She bent her head down so he wouldn't see that she'd been crying.

"If you grow tired of sitting with her," he said gently, "you may call on Madam Pomfrey at any time."

"Yes, sir." _I won't._

"Yesterday is today's memory," Professor Dumbledore murmured. "And tomorrow is today's dream."

Then he left, shutting the door soundlessly behind him.

Now that he'd gone, Hermione wiped her tear-streaked face with the damp flannel. She sniffed. She'd been hoping that Mrs. Patil would make it better. For all her scoffing. . .

But _she_ was the one who'd proved herself weak, ignorant, and ill-judged. She had lied to Harriet about the time-turner because she was afraid of what Harriet might want to do with it, and it was her own actions who'd placed her best friend in this situation.

"Harriet. . ." She soaked the flannel in the bowl and wrung it out, gathering strength, or trying to, from the solidness of it. She laid the flannel on Harriet's forehead. Madam Pomfrey had healed her, but her scar was still an angry red.

Mrs. Patil had placed her hand here, like this. Now, Hermione wondered if it hadn't been part of some ritual or test, but some attempt at giving Harriet comfort.

"Harriet," she whispered. "At the beginning of the year, Professor McGonagall gave me a time-turner. That's how I've been getting to all my classes. She made me promise not to tell you. . ."

And she told Harriet all of it. She pretended it was practice for when Harriet was herself again: that the second recital might be easier, more cleansing, than the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Padma's a Ravenclaw, so I figured her mother might be clever and scholarly as well. I also liked the idea of Parvati's love of Divinations coming from some other source than "cheesy teenage girl syndrome."


	45. Lethe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -As of 3/7/13 this is a remix of the previous chapter... meaning that if you're looking at this and saying, "Eh? This not what I remember reading!" you're right! It has been heavily edited. Some parts have vanished entirely, others were added in, and a few found themselves sliced away and shuffled to the next chapter. I was so overwhelmed by your positive reaction to the original version that I knew I owed it to you to see if I couldn't make it better for you.
> 
> -I had to sacrifice Millicent's POV for the sake of unity, but hopefully one day we'll hear from her again, when it's time. 
> 
> -Thank you ever so much, everyone, for continuing to read! ^-^ And you reviewers (and kudos-ers) - you keep me going, seriously. Writing this stuff is ever so much fun, but it's damn hard work, as I'm sure you know. Thanks for sticking with me, and continuing to let me know how you enjoy it! xoxo *^-^*

When Miss Potter was brought raving into the ward, the sky was empty save the stars. As the days passed and Miss Potter did not improve, Severus watched the moon reappear shyly and sketch itself in, night after night.

He did not leave the quarantine ward. He was not well enough for Pomfrey to permit him to go, but he had little desire to—at times. Others, he'd have jumped from the window if the interfering old martinet hadn't spelled it unbreakable. If Miss Potter hadn't been there to arrest his attention, he might have tried it anyway. Imposed isolation and convalescence left one with a great deal of free time, and imposed a maddening measure of boredom.

Sometimes he thought he might lose his mind from having nothing to do but fret—about his future, his House, the girl across the way. He couldn't even smoke. Pomfrey would never allow it; she disapproved of stimulants of any sort and wouldn't even permit him a cup of coffee. He took his considerable frustration out on her, but she bore it grimly—better than he did. His head ached and his throat, too; he felt constantly on-edge and yet listless, lethargic; angry and depressed. He dreamed of moonlight shining through a prison of branches grown over his solitary window, and imagined he heard snarling in the dark.

The strain he'd put on his magic that night of the full moon had resulted (according to worrywart Pomfrey) in the same effect as a muscle sprain, and must be treated as such: basically, staying off it. She took away his wand and forbade him from attempting any wandless spells, an injunction that was only effective because she had the grim good sense to throw a dampening spell over the room. Severus had no choice but to obey her, as bitterly as he submitted to her injunctions upon coffee and cigarettes.

He didn't see any of his students, but they wrote him and he answered. The Slytherin N.E.W.T. students who'd taken over supervising his classes on rotation reported that they found it almost impossible to make the students behave (though his supervisors from other houses did not seem to be having any problems). His Slytherins were being attacked in the upper levels of the dungeons, on the grounds, in the library; anywhere isolated, and increasingly in view of students from other houses. He wrote angry letters to Flitwick, Sprout and Minerva, and received these replies:

_Severus, you may be most assured that we are all vigilant in preventing unprovoked attacks on any student. I have, of course, spoken to my prefects about policing the students in their purvey and stressed their duty to all of their fellow students. Yrs, Filius Flitwick_

_We're looking into it, old boy. –P.S._

_We're doing everything we can, Severus, but there are four Heads for a reason. Aurora is the only other Slytherin teacher on staff, and you know how rarely she comes down from her blasted tower. Do get well soon, won't you? Everyone seems worser behaved without you. MG  
_

The attacks kept happening, the reports kept coming. With the fear of his reprisals removed _–_ the mantle of his protection _–_ his Slytherins were suffering. Teaching he did not give a damn about, but for damages paid against his house, the rest of the school would soon regret the day he'd ever been born.

When he was back on his feet.

Once Martinet Pomfrey was certain his back was well enough, she let him sit up and move about, but (in spite of his vows of noble retribution) the only thing he was strong enough to do was pace to his solitary window. The view looked over the loch, as Dumbledore claimed his little chapel to do. It was a view Severus had seem times past counting, and yet, to some part of his soul, starved too early ever to fully heal, it was always welcome, always beautiful. It soothed the nightmares of being swallowed by a living forest.

When he demanded to see Miss Potter, Pomfrey sighed but made no demur. She let him into the room across the hall, identical to his own except for its occupant.

Magical binding, wide strips of a muted, transparent glow across her chest and hips and shoulders, held Miss Potter to the bed. She twisted beneath them constantly with her entire body, and her head tossed on the pillow. Her eyes were rolled back but always moving, and her voice threaded the silence in an unbroken, repetitive mutter.

The sight was. . . disturbing.

"She's been like this the whole time?" he asked as an odd feeling knocked round in his chest.

"Yes," Pomfrey said grimly. "And this is curious. Observe." She cast a complicated diagnostic over Miss Potter. A long web of colored lines formed in the air above her, stretching the length of her body and flashing like a lightning storm.

"That's the map of her magical activity?" Severus said.

"Yes—along with cerebral activity." She pointed her wand at an area of the light-web above Miss Potter's head, which he supposed passed for the brain map. "You know, I'm sure, that we use our brains when we spell-cast. It requires concentration and imagination."

 _Which explains why our students have such trouble with it_ ; but the thought passed through his mind without stopping, a throwaway insult he had no interest in at the moment. Miss Potter's magic _and_ mind maps were flickering out of control.

"She seems to be doing a great deal more than concentrating," he said.

"Her magic is all in flux—rather like yours, at present. From what we can tell, she was channeling an enormous amount of power, which seems to have something to do with this. Mrs. Patil's opinion was that Miss Potter's _natural timeline_ has been disrupted."

"Her _what_?"

"I agree, it sounds like fortune-telling codswallop. But under the circumstances, what else is there to believe?"

"People have gone mad from rituals before." But those were Dark spells, usually. Divinations was supposed to be harmless, insipid.

But many things that were _supposed to be_ turned out quite differently in the end.

"Yes," Pomfrey said grimly. "And there is nothing anyone can do. She must wait it out."

"It's been four days." How could her body—her magic—her _mind—_ endure the strain?

"I know," Pomfrey said sadly. When she cancelled her spell and its light vanished, the room seemed that much darker and more bleak.

* * *

Remus watched as the latest draft of the letter turned to black and curled in the grate. Then he dropped his quill and rested his forehead in his hands.

His desk and fireplace were graveyards of failed replies and missives. A few early drafts (mostly words slashed into illegibility), splatters of ink, broken quill nubs, shavings of mended ends, littered the surface around him. The hearth was scattered with flakes of parchment that had fallen free of the fire before burning to ash.

The newest addition to his life, a tiny scops owl, hooted from its perch over the mantel, where it had made itself at home atop his old carriage clock. Trust Sirius to pick the most annoying owl ever mistakenly swindled into the post service.

"Nothing for you, yet," Remus muttered. "Or maybe ever." He couldn't send the owl to Snape; he'd kill it, and probably see it as a prank to boot. As for sending it to Sirius, wherever he was, that was out of the question. It couldn't make the trip.

He'd tried writing to Sirius and to Snape, separately, and achieved about the same results: failure. He couldn't get anywhere, not even with Sirius, not even to tell him what had happened to Harriet. The weight of what he was avoiding pressed his quill to stopping.

What could he say, to make up for what had happened? He knew very well there was nothing he could say, which was why the attempt was useless.

He'd intended to visit Snape. He knew he ought to. But every time he stood up to go, he started to waver. Walking out the door was difficult. Getting down the stairs was a trial, slower for every step. By the time he was within sight of the infirmary doors, his feeble courage deserted him entirely, and he deserted his mission in turn, and fled.

Then the letter-writing commenced again, and failed for the same reason as ever.

Minerva had been to see him, to let him know she was very angry with him. So he was avoiding her, too. He avoided everyone he could, in fact, and most people were avoiding him back. Many of the other teachers, whose approval of his staffing appointment had been tepid from the first, were nearly in outright revolt against him now. They had a right to be.

His usual habit whenever the secret of his lycanthropy was unearthed was to disappear. As a man, he was forgettable. People remembered that they'd met a werewolf, that he hadn't seemed like one, that looks were deceiving, but _he_ was forgotten. He preferred it that way. It was too painful, being known as _the werewolf_.

After every failed letter attempt, he'd look out the window, across the glistening waters of the loch that melded with the horizon like molten metal, and imagine the freedom that would accompany flight. . . The comfort of leaving, even though Dumbledore had adjured him to stay. . . It was what they all wanted, it would be better. . . Staying was his penance, but it put the children in danger—

_Is that why you want to leave, or is it so you won't have to endure their disgust?_

In spite of every hiss of that dark voice in his mind, the desire to roll up his rug, pack away his clock, take up his plant and be gone from there plagued him every hour of the day and night. Everyone would be pleased. . . except Albus. Albus would be even angrier, even more disappointed, than he was now. . .

(There, Remus had been confused. Albus was more upset over his involving Dark magic than concealing the truth about Sirius and Peter. He had not even asked if the spell could be repeated. Remus had offered the information—it couldn't be, for they no longer had anything of Peter's—but Albus had said, "It would be out of the question anyway. Such magic should never be used in the first place.")

He couldn't argue with Albus, not after everything he'd done.

When he found himself reaching for the clock, the plant, the rug, to pack them away, he asked himself: could he face destroying Albus' faith in him entirely? He didn't deserve that faith, so what did it matter if it was gone. . . or did his _not_ deserving it require him to do something, anything, to preserve it? Was it selfish to remain for the sake of that opinion, if it meant endangering countless others? Or was it more selfish to leave, to remove the danger he caused, because he wanted, needed, to remove himself from their loathing?

He didn't know.

It was the height of irony that, after the uncertainty of the past six months had finally been resolved, he should be mired in uncertainty of another kind.

But that was life, wasn't it? There were always choices to be made: not between the certain good and the certain bad, but the confusing mixture of both. And when it came to choice, for fear of doing wrong he had always done nothing at all.

Except for this once, when he'd made a choice that had been wrong in almost every way.

And now, he had another choice before him.

* * *

"Of course it isn't a problem, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall. "You must do what you feel is best."

Hermione pulled the chain over her head and set the time-turner carefully on Professor McGonagall's desk. Even now, she had difficulty letting go of it. She supposed it was the power it held, the promise of knowledge; the idea that if you knew what was coming, really knew, you could fix it. . .

But she knew better. In the past few days, she'd unearthed the darkest books in the Restricted Section about the misuse of time and read them until she felt cold to the tips of her fingers.

"I can't be trusted with it anymore, Professor," she said. "I've misused it terribly."

Professor McGonagall examined her over the rims of her spectacles.

"I was confident in my assessment of your personality when I wrote to the Ministry, Miss Granger," she said. "As you are giving it back to me in full disclosure, I can remain so."

Something inside Hermione that had started to shrivel up paused, shivering; breathless that she should hear a stronger condemnation, yet fully aware she deserved it.

"I believe it would be best if you submitted to me a reflection on your use of the time-turner," said Professor McGonagall, "and a form letter on your withdrawal from two of the classes of your choice. By Friday, yes? And I will speak to your professors as your Head of House."

"Yes, ma'am." Hermione swallowed, her face hot and her body almost shivering.

"If that's all, you may go." Her tone was brisk but kind, and Hermione was intensely grateful even as she hated herself for not deserving it.

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

Gathering her things, she left, in a measured plod down to the hospital wing. She'd write her letters in Harriet's room so the reflection would be as honest as she could give, with no convenient lapse in memory or culpability.

As she rounded the corner to the infirmary, she was so distracted that she didn't notice she was about to run into someone until her vision filled with patched-up tweed, and by then it was too late.

"I'm so sorry!" she blurted, as a surprised Professor Lupin turned to look at her over his shoulder.

"It's no trouble," he said, and smiled. But the expression looked pale and unhappy, and reminded her of Harriet. . . before. "In fact, it's entirely my fault for woolgathering in the middle of the corridor."

She wanted to ask why he was, but she didn't dare.

He glanced toward the doors to the hospital wing. "Are you on your way to see Harriet?"

"Yes." She swallowed. "I—go to see her a lot. Are—are you going, too, sir?"

"Madam Pomfrey won't allow it. I'm not crucial to Harriet's convalescence. But I'm not her best friend," he added, smiling encouragement at Hermione that made her feel smaller than ever. And he didn't even _know_.

"But," he said slowly, his eyes traveling the length of the corridor, "I do. . . have business in the hospital wing."

Hermione's curiosity raised its head, but she grabbed it by the neck and stomped it down. It was probably something to do with his lycanthropy. He might need routine check-ups. She didn't know what werewolves needed to survive. All the books she'd read for Professor Snape's aborted essay had had nothing on their care or health, only how to identify and kill them. They'd been quite sickening, in fact. Professor Snape had _asked_ for that type of information specifically, but that was _all_ she'd been able to find.

She'd long ago worked out that Professor Snape was probably still in hospital because he might have been bitten that night he and Harriet were brought in from the woods. He clearly hadn't been infected outright or he'd have been sent to the wizarding hospital, but the possibility might remain.

"I—I hope it's not too unpleasant," she said, now wondering if Professor Lupin were going to visit Snape. It seemed unlikely, considering how horrid Professor Snape had always been to him, more horrid than to any of the other Defense professors; but perhaps Professor Lupin was going to counsel him about what might happen in a week.

How Professor Snape might be reacting to the possibility of his own lycanthropy—after that display in DADA class months ago—Hermione couldn't begin to imagine.

"Visits to hospital are usually doomed to be so," said Professor Lupin with a half-smile, and walked with her to the doors.

* * *

There were times when Severus wished he didn't hate everyone so much. It would be something, sometimes, to have someone to talk to whom you really liked, who liked you in return; who was interested sometimes purely because it was you who was talking to them.

He'd had that, once.

He'd have welcomed the presence of such a person now, especially. Even in the realm of wishful thinking, it did not have to be Lily; any friendly, interested party would have done, since he had no one.

The Divinations books he'd ordered sent down from the library, to determine if the same principles that governed Dark magic also governed Divinations, were filling him with questions that could only dissipate into the empty air of his quarantine room. It was no bloody use talking to Trelawney, who couldn't give you the time of day. Dumbledore disapproved of studying Dark magic, and Pomfrey was busy. Miss Potter, of course, was raving (although Dumbledore was so cryptic sometimes that you could hardly tell the difference between them).

He'd settle for a fucking smoke, though.

"Not that you'd know the difference between a Dark spell and a Divinations spell if they hit you on the nose," he said to an (as-ever) unresponsive Miss Potter, "but they appear to be two entirely separate branches of magic operating on vastly disparate lines. In simpler words, they've nothing to do with each other."

Miss Potter's head tossed—he always thought of it that way, not _Miss Potter tossed her head_ —and her body fought the restraints; she muttered, and then said something more loudly. She never stopped talking. Suddenly he felt almost indecent, as if this was no place to try and be caustic, even if it was only by habit.

"Well, since I doubt any of your hapless Defense professors have gone into it at all," he said—unable to help himself—"we might as well begin your education. Dark spells open the caster to powers outside of himself—or herself—to produce a greater effect in spell-casting. You can do a great deal of harm from a low-level Dark spell. Not without cost, of course."

Her hands twisted as if they were trying to grab at something. Yes: not without cost.

"Divinations, however—not that quackery Trelawney torments you with in her tower—is concerned not so much with spells but with the operations of time. It uses magic to obtain insight into the world beyond the present. All of its rituals—from Trelawney's tea-leaves and crystal balls to performances like this one that's landed you in here—are meant to focus _you_. Divinations wishes to use your powers to bridge the gap between the regular human mind state, which is mostly fixed in the present—this appears to be your trouble, that you no longer are—and the Sight, which can," he glanced at the book on his knees and said mockingly, "'see in all directions at once.'"

The author, or perhaps an illustrator, had inked in a picture of a bare-breasted woman with three faces on her head. He imagined Miss Potter making a face, the way she did in Potions whenever the ingredients called for viscera or eyeballs.

"The spell you and your dimwitted friends involved yourselves in is a ritual meant to augment the power of one's mind-state so that you can connect a significant moment that's been forgotten in the past with an important moment in the future. It's not about channeling power. But from what any of us can tell, you _were_ channeling power—somehow—and a lot of it."

He fell silent, tapping his ragged nails against the age-spotted parchment. None of it made any sense. From the outcome, it was almost as if the girls hadn't done a Divinations ritual at all; but everything they did _was_ part of the ritual. They had not deviated from it in any way.

"Pomfrey says Mrs. Patil is investigating," he said abruptly. "Within her field she's highly respected—however one becomes respected in such an area."

Miss Potter only continued to relate her nonsense. He closed his eyes to listen, waiting for understanding to sift in, like grains of sand in an hourglass. It had become habit by now. But no insight ever came to him, and after a time, the monotony of her babbling always started to sound like running water or white noise. He couldn't concentrate on it. He simply floated in the dark spaces of his own mind.

Hourglass. . . time. . .

Outside of time. . .

"Here you are," said Pomfrey's voice, sounding both exasperated and disapproving. He hadn't heard the door to the room open. "What in Rowena's name are you doing, Severus?"

He did not open his eyes. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"If I could tell, I shouldn't have wasted my breath asking."

"I'd still not have wasted it, if I were you," he said, looking up to glower at her, and received a nasty shock.

She had Lupin and Granger with her, both of them surprised to varying degrees. Granger in particular looked like she'd received a shock she'd rather not contemplate, though she wouldn't be able to help cudgeling her brains over it. "It" could be anything from the sight of him sitting beside Harriet Potter's bed, to seeing one of her professors, _him,_ in his dressing-gown (for which Pomfrey was going to _dearly_ pay).

"Miss Granger is here to visit," Pomfrey said in a tone designed to vacate him from the room.

"I'd never have guessed," he said in his most insulting voice. "Let us only hope she keeps her interference to a minimum this time." Granger looked mortified, even more than his comment warranted.

"She has the Headmaster's confidence," Pomfrey told him sharply. "Go on, Miss Granger. Professor Snape was just leaving."

He stood and walked past them without acknowledging any of them (Granger seemed to be trying to shrink herself through willpower alone), straight into his room, and slammed the door.

Someone knocked. Severus ignored them in favor of pacing about the room, trying to even his breathing. They knocked again.

"Severus?" said Lupin's voice, muffled by the wood. "May I come in?"

"Only if you want your tongue handed to you on a fucking plate," Severus told the door.

There was a pause. Far from feeling elated, he was disgusted (and surprised) that that was all it took to get rid of the spineless bastard—

"I wanted to talk to you," said the door.

Well, there had to have been _some_ reason Lupin was placed in Gryffindor.

"I want you to choke on your own bile, but that isn't likely to happen," Severus barked.

"Well, in fact, I'm lying," said the door. "I have no desire to talk to you at all. But I know I ought to. So here. . . here I am."

This confession was, to Severus' Slytherin nature, interesting enough to give him pause. It always surprised him how Gryffindors managed to convince the entire world how noble they were, not from any inherent nobility, but from a masochistic obedience to the appearance of it. The spectacle of one of them acknowledging this, even in part, was oddly compelling.

He threw open the door. Lupin blinked but did not startle, damn him.

Severus glanced over Lupin's shoulder at Miss Potter's door. Granger was in there, probably listening to every word. He jerked his head to invite Lupin in, and slammed the door after him.

"Silencing spell," he said curtly.

Still acting the part of the noble idiot, Lupin cast one without a demur. A good Slytherin and a sharp Ravenclaw would have refused or put some trigger to end it, should things get. . . messy; but Lupin took that request at face-value. Gryffindors could really be revolting.

"If I do turn," said Severus without preamble, "you can be sure I'll press for execution."

Lupin did not pale or plead. He looked, in fact, as if this had already occurred to him ages ago.

"I think you know, Severus, that you could press for it under the circumstances, whether you turn or not," he said steadily. "The case would be heard for the presence of any human, Muggle or magical. . . but with two of you—one a child—Harriet—I'm sure the jury wouldn't even pause."

Severus agreed with him. It frustrated him to no end that Lupin had thought this through to the point that he could speak of it without wavering. He probably knew that Dumbledore would never allow it. The Headmaster sworn Severus to silence before; he could bring that promise to bear again. He would.

"You might want to hurry, in fact, if you're thinking of pressing charges," Lupin went on. "Before someone else on staff does it for you."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Severus spat. "You've put yourself in this situation."

"I know," said Lupin. Whatever turmoil he suffered internally wasn't visible on the surface at all. It was both bewildering and maddening. Severus wanted to see him _suffer_ for what he'd done—done and failed to do.

Perhaps Lupin didn't suffer at all. Perhaps there was no one really in there. He knew Dumbledore would save his hide again, as he always had.

"Why are you even here?" Severus asked, baring his teeth.

"I thought I'd see if there was something I could do," Lupin said.

"What, to _make it better_?"

"No. Just. . . for you."

Severus opened his mouth to tell Lupin the only thing he could do for him was die—but then a little thought coughed to get his attention. He paused.

"In fact," he said, "I have a way you can make yourself useful."

"Anything," Lupin said without blinking.

"The entire school is using the excuse of my absence to harass my House," he said, watching Lupin narrowly.

"You want me to stop them," Lupin said, not sounding at all surprised.

"If you think you can manage it."

"Consider it done."

Severus didn't for a moment believe it would be, but it would give him a certain grim satisfaction to watch Lupin fail yet again to exert any moral courage (while he laid his own designs, of course).

"The dungeons are the focal point, but my students have reported attacks in every corner of the castle—mostly secluded areas, though the _bullies_ are growing bolder."

He watched Lupin closely throughout, but there was no flicker of shame or recognition. But he'd known Lupin was good at this—one of the best he'd ever encountered, he had to admit.

"I'll take care of it," said Lupin.

"We shall see," Severus said coldly. He knew his Slytherins would heckle Lupin every step of the way. "Now get out."

Lupin nodded and left without another word. Part of Severus was pleased to have found a way to pay Lupin back, even if it was less than a teaspoon's amount; yet, another part of him wished he'd made Lupin grovel more, had denigrated and repudiated him more. But he was tired. The last part of him wanted to go to bed.

There was no time for that yet, however. He'd had an idea at Miss Potter's bedside, just before those cretins had interrupted him.

"Pomfrey!" he barked, throwing open the door.

Pomfrey hurried into the corridor from the main dormitory, but when she saw that neither he nor Miss Potter seemed to be dying, she snapped a scowl onto her face.

"I am not for you to summon like a servant, Severus Snape!" she told him angrily.

"I need a quill," he said in his best lord-of-the-manor voice, and enjoyed the spiteful pleasure of watching her swell indignantly. "And a roll of parchment—and you will need to cast a dictation spell on the quill. I want to produce a written record of everything she says."

Pomfrey blinked. "How remarkably sensible," she said. "Who would have thought?" And, with that mediocre yet not entirely contemptible parting shot, she left to fetch what he'd demanded.

He set up shop in Miss Potter's room, dragging the study table in from his room and unspooling an extra-long roll of parchment for the dicta-quill, and tearing off a piece for himself. As soon as Pomfrey set the spell, the quill began scratching. It kept scratching without pause. Before long, it had filled a foot of parchment with solid writing, no breaks or stops.

While it scribbled its way along, he copied the first sentence her jargon out backwards and split it off into recognizable words (minus the horrendous, phonetic spelling). He read:

_but those blokes in the masks they ran for it when the dark mark showed up in the sky_

He sat staring at the page for some time, his quill bleeding black across the parchment, before he shook himself and wiped the ink away with the corner of his dressing gown.

He tackled the rest of the writing with a tight feeling in his chest. Was it was ferocious anticipation or dread? Perhaps it was both.

Translating Miss Potter's babble was hard going because everything was backwards; and because she never paused, because she was not speaking in any recognizable language, the quill wrote it it out phonetically, without breaks. Figuring out where to cut the words was easy enough, but where to begin the next sentence was more difficult. The difficulty was also increased because Miss Potter seemed to be relating only what _she_ had said and thought; the context was obscure, in some places almost nonexistent.

But it became clear, the more he puzzled out, that Miss Potter was not only speaking backwards, she appeared to be _experiencing_ backwards. The part of her litany he'd copied first appeared to center around "blokes in masks" levitating a group of Muggles at the Quidditch World Cup; and then came the Cup itself, next a holiday at the Weasleys'; then time spent with the Grangers after leaving the Dursleys'. . . It was all the opposite of how it ought to happen. . .

His quill paused on the parchment. The Quidditch World Cup was held every four years. . . and it would be taking place in England this very August.

And if Miss Potter was to be believed, at the World Cup the Dark Mark would appear in the sky.

"Hard at work, my dear boy? Is this part of your convalescence?"

Severus did not jump, but he was proud of himself that he did not. The Headmaster stood in the open doorway, looking curiously at the rolls of inked-over parchment and the dicta-quill scribbling full speed. Severus resisted the urge to shield his paper with his arm.

"What do you want?" he asked instead.

"Many things," said Dumbledore, his mustache twitching, "as do we all."

"Unless I can give any of them to you, you'll be wasting your time with me."

"You _could_ ," he twinkled, "but _would_ you?"

"It doesn't sound like something I would do." That peculiar, almost indecent feeling returned, as if telling him they should save this comedy-act rubbish for some place other than the sick room of an afflicted girl. "Whatever it is, I hope it can wait. I'm busy."

"I merely wanted to see how you were getting on," said Dumbledore. "And to reintroduce a little vitriol into my life—everyone in this castle seems too agreeable, these days."

Severus sent him a scorching glare, but Dumbledore merely smiled behind his beard and left with a wave. Maddening old—but that was Dumbledore for you: he left when _you_ wanted him to only if he could be sure of leaving you irritated that he'd gone after all.

Well, Severus had other things to occupy his attention at present.

Flexing his hand, he set his quill to the page and continued.

* * *

As soon as Hermione climbed into the common room, all attention focused on her, like the beam of a searchlight—as always happened when she came back from visiting Harriet. All eyes turned toward her, all hands stopped whatever they were doing, all ears strained to listen. The same group always sat near the fire so they'd be near the entrance to quiz her whenever she came in: Ron, Ginny, Neville, Parvati, Lavender, and the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"Well?" asked the first person eagerly, impatiently. This time it was Fred. The common room seemed to hold its breath.

Hermione shook her head. The common room sighed.

" _Still_ no change?" Angelina asked, while the corners of the room muttered their disappointment.

"None." Hermione hated sometimes that they made her say it, that they wouldn't just let it go. But it was part of her penance.

Parvati looked just as guilt-ridden as Hermione felt these days. Although all the professors were quite firm that what happened to Harriet wasn't Parvati's fault, she nonetheless felt responsible. And since Hermione was still forbidden to discuss the time-turner, she couldn't tell her. . .

She'd thought about it. Sometimes she wondered whether the trouble hadn't been only her disruption but also the presence of two time-turners in a room that was the center of a time-spell. But—as much as she hated to think it, for how mean-spirited it felt—Parvati wasn't the most circumspect person. Telling Parvati could lead to all sorts of trouble.

She'd have done it otherwise. She really would have.

"Poor Harry," Ginny muttered, an echoing kind of hollowness in her eyes. Was she remembering what had happened last year, with Tom Riddle's diary? "I hope it's not—I hope it doesn't _hurt_ her, whatever she's going through."

"I need to put my things upstairs," Hermione said, to escape from their questions and sympathy; to put some distance between herself and her remorse.

"Her-hermione?" said a boy's timid voice as she turned away. Even though she knew it wasn't Ron's voice, she was still surprised to turn and see Neville—clutching a bouquet of exquisite-looking blue flowers. Their stamen seemed to be made of bio-luminescent crystal.

"Yes?" she asked, trying to sound encouraging. Neville hardly ever said anything these days, but she was pretty sure she knew why. Those beautiful flowers only sealed it.

"I. . ." He looked both anxious and serious to the extreme. "I know none of us can see her right now. . . but I thought, since you could—would you—would you take these to her next time? Only I thought Pomfrey mightn't allow them if I brought them, but if you did—"

"Of course," Hermione said as kindly as she could. The blossoms chimed faintly as she took them from him; an enchanting, delicate sound. "They're lovely, Neville."

He flushed crimson, but still looked very serious. "Hospitals are always so empty." Then he looked embarrassed, as if he hadn't meant to say it. "Th-thanks, Hermione."

He let himself into the boys' stairwell and disappeared. Hermione looked at the flowers and wondered. . .

"What's Neville giving you flowers for?" Ron asked, materializing so suddenly that she almost dropped the bouquet.

"They're for _Harriet_ ," she said.

"Oh." Ron scratched the back of his neck. "Thought maybe. . ."

It _was_ nearly Valentine's Day, wasn't it? To Hermione, it was perfectly obvious that Neville fancied Harriet something terrible, but she supposed that, to Ron, the sight of Neville giving flowers to any girl would overpower his reason.

"I wish they'd let _me_ bloody see her," Ron said, dropping his hand and scowling; but underneath it, he looked troubled.

"There's really no point. She doesn't even know I'm there." She swallowed round a lump in her throat.

Ron looked at her, then at the flowers. "Better put those in water, huh?"

Hermione nodded her gratitude, and took them upstairs.

* * *

The pygmy owl, whom Remus was beginning to call As Annoying As You Are Small, was twittering about the ceiling in circles when he returned from his visit to hospital. Deep in thought, he looked up at the little thing, which was about the same size and color as a middle-grade dust bunny.

"He made that a great deal easier than he ought to have done," he told the owl, who swooped down on him and tried to perch on his ear. "No," he said firmly, brushing it gently away. "I don't need to walk around with bird shit on my head, thank you."

It hooted good-naturedly and fluttered over to his clock, its default perch. To be fair to it, there was not much else to perch on. He didn't exactly clutter the room with personal belongings.

"In fact," he resumed, picking up his kettle and hanging it over the fire. "He made that a great deal easier than _anyone_ ought to have done."

It couldn't be from disinterested motives—or perhaps he should say, that was it exactly. Snape had not seemed overly interested in his presence at all. Remus didn't have to strain his faculties to surmise that Snape's uncharacteristically cavalier attitude probably had something to do with his meditation at Harriet's bedside.

"So what I'm saying," he told the owl, slowly, "is that Snape's hatred for me. . . pales next to his concern for Harriet. . . ?"

Out loud, it sounded ludicrous; so ludicrous that saying it to an owl was perfectly normal in comparison. And yet, that very much appeared to be what he'd seen. It also fit with everything else he'd been observing over the course of the past few months.

He had no memory of that night in the forest. Everything he knew of it, he'd learned from Dumbledore the morning after; though every devastation had cut less deeply once he'd been assured he had no traces of human blood in his mouth or on his claws, only rabbit. Peter had escaped; Sirius was on the lam again; Dumbledore, Harriet, and Snape knew he was innocent, but to the law he was still a mass murderer. Snape's work on the spell had weakened him greatly, and then he'd dragged himself and the werewolf off a ravine to protect Harriet, and conjured a Patronus powerful enough to repel all the Dementors of Azkaban—for the same purpose.

Now he was sitting with her when she was ill, and ignoring every right he had to excoriate Remus in favor of some other concern. By the laws of emotions, it had to be a _deeper_ concern, to take precedence over other things. . .

The kettle whistled and Remus moved it absently off the fire, but when he sat it on the hub he forgot about it. His eyes drifted out the window, to the quicksilver light of the sun setting over the water, and he wondered.

When the last of the daylight sank into darkness and the firelight seemed almost too bright behind him, he took out a clean piece of parchment, picked up his quill, and did not bother with any salutations.

 _There is nothing I can say_ _about what happened,_ he wrote, _that would be worth the writing or the reading, but if you need me to try, I will. I can start by saying I've regretted it every day for twelve years, and I'll regret it the rest of my life._

 _You'll be more concerned with Holly-berry, of course._ (Remus never called her that, but since his correspondent was a hunted criminal, they needed to stick to some semblance of code.) _She was quite well, bodily, after you'd gone, though rather sad. I wish I could tell you she's well now, but she's had a bit of trouble with a Divinations spell. . ._

At another time, he might have concealed that truth to keep Sirius from doing something reckless. What if this report brought Sirius haring back to Scotland, in defiance of all self-preservation? It just might, too. There was nothing he could do for her, but he'd want to be on hand. Remus knew he would. So he wrote it.

For now, Remus had had enough of secrets.

* * *

_Dark. The world was dark around him._

_Closed in._

_The tree creaked, thrashing in the wind. Jab the knot with a stick and it will freeze you can get in Snivellus and you'll see—_

_There were a hundred trees, a thousand. Moonlight through the branches._

_The sounds, they were the same. His own heartbeat, loudest of all._

_Get out of here._

_I'm not leaving_ —

Severus didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he became aware of a gap in his memory. He'd been slashing lines through the babble on the parchment to make words, but all of a sudden it was dark and his heart was beating hard as the dream dissolved like tissue in water. His skin was prickling in a familiar yet almost forgotten way. . .

It was the sensation of being watched.

Opening his eyes, he found the room around him had gone dark, touched by the color-leeching light of the waxing moon outside. For a moment, the memory of the dream rippled starkly across him.

But the room was entirely silent. Miss Potter had stopped babbling. The bed no longer creaked. The dicta-quill had stopped scratching.

When he looked at the bed, he saw her curled up on her side, her hands tucked up near her cheek, her eyes open and watching him.

He didn't move. He didn't even feel elated. He was suddenly paralyzed by the ridiculous fear of doing something that would set her off again, raving and flailing about.

Wait, how had she moved into that position? She ought still to be retrained.

"My Patronus," she said, in a quiet, half-confiding tone, "is a stag."

Severus stared. He didn't know she'd learned to—

 _Ah._ "Is it?" he asked slowly.

 _"Yours_ is a doe," she said.

". . . It is." So, she'd seen that much, that night at the lake. Or was she remembering this from her future memories?

"I wish mine was a doe," she said. There was an odd tone in her voice, at once childish in its simplicity and yet somehow grave.

"The form a Patronus takes has been thought to be indicative of its strength," he said warily, disconcerted to be regarded so unwaveringly. "A stag Patronus is likely more powerful than a doe."

"Yours is plenty powerful. It threw off a hundred Dementors."

This could still be a future memory of the event, though he had to admit it wasn't likely. While he was carefully selecting what he'd say next, Miss Potter astonished him for the fourth time.

"I wish it was mine," she said sleepily. "Then I could see it whenever I wanted."

She closed her eyes. A few moments later, in defiance of everything owed to human decency, she fell asleep. Her whole body relaxed into the profound rest of the near-dead. In the unfamiliar, near-silence of the room, he heard her breathing deeply and evenly.

He slumped in the armchair as all the tension left him at last. Letting his head bump against the chair back, he stared out the window, at the moon growing by the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The "Aurora" person McGonagall mentions is meant to be Aurora Sinistra. It's not known what House she's from, but I took the easy fanon route of Sorting her in there so that Snape doesn't have to be the only Slytherin teacher on staff.
> 
> -Also, what Snape says about the power of the Patronus being related to its form may not be entirely accurate, according to HP Wiki. While the W.O.M.B.A.T. test suggests it's so, Wonderbook: Book of Spells says they don't have anything to do with each other.


	46. Lethe: Redux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -If you're noticing this chapter looks very familiar, that's because heavy edits to the original Chapter 45 necessitated my splitting things up a bit. Most of the new material is scattered throughout New Chapter 45; most of this chapter, 46, is relatively unchanged. Sorry for any confusion, but it was the only way I could be satisfied with giving you the best chapter(s) I'm capable of. The loveliness of your response to the last chapter was overwhelming, and I needed to do right by you.
> 
> -As stated previously, Harriet's condition is not meant to be an accurate portrayal real-world memory loss; it's amnesia as a byproduct of magic gone wrong - in other words, entirely made up.

After checking Miss Potter over, Pomfrey shooed Severus out of the room so they could whisper in the corridor.

"She appears stable." Pomfrey's whispering voice sounded profoundly relieved. The sliver of her face that he could see from the light of the waxing moon looked hopeful. "Vitals, magic, cerebral activity—thank Rowena. Though she's far weaker than I'd like, it's to be expected, after everything—"

"How did she break your bindings?" he demanded.

"As to that," Pomfrey said after a slight pause, "I don't know. It's possible there was a little magical surge when she came out of it. . . well, what does it matter? She will be well again, I'm sure. Exhaustion seems to be the greatest trouble at present. With proper convalescence, she should be right as rain before too long."

 _Famous last words_ , Severus thought.

Either of them could have been right. All the medical signs pointed to Pomfrey taking home the trophy in accurate predictions, whilst Severus' cynicism had no real grounds other than its stake in his personality. . . and his knowing that Miss Potter had the ability to get caught in the middle of a hailstorm on a sunny June day. In fact, all things considered, Pomfrey was the one who should have been right.

She wasn't.

* * *

Where am I what

_A light up ahead_

is going on

_bright and silver and beautiful walking ever-so-carefully ahead of_

what is

 _her_ _she couldn't see what it was but she knew that when she caught up to it what was broken would_

it

 _become whole again_ _she would be_

who

_whole again, safe again_

am I

* * *

Severus scraped his way into a light doze round dawn, but not for long: it seemed he'd no sooner shut his eyes than he was jolted awake by a loud crash and a pain-filled cry. He was up in a flash, rather before his brain was fully engaged, and bolted to Miss Potter's room (where, of course, the noise had come from) to find Pomfrey trying to soothe her while she lay in a heap on the bed, clutching at her head and sobbing. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but tears were running out of them; she looked and sounded as if she were in extreme pain.

"Call the Headmaster," Pomfrey urged, lighting up the room with another of her diagnostics. "And that Patil woman, now!"

Mrs. Patil must have been expecting another call, because she walked in with Dumbledore less than half an hour later, though it was barely past dawn. She was dressed for the weather, which was sleeting miserably against the diamond-paned windows, and carried a large leather satchel slung over one shoulder. Severus, skulking agitatedly in a corner, found that in spite of his resentment of her Gryffindor daughter, who was the cause of all this mess, she reminded him more of the Ravenclaw. The girls were identical, true, and took after her, but her face was intelligent—quite unlike the Gryffindor Patil's.

"I can't help her," Pomfrey said to Dumbledore and Mrs. Patil before they'd made it halfway down the ward. "I've put monitoring spells on her, and she calms when she's alone, but the minute I walk into the room it throws her into a fit!"

"Did you go in, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

"Not since I first heard the commotion half an hour ago."

"How is she now, Poppy?"

"Stable and resting."

"I will see her," said Mrs. Patil, pulling a scarf off her shoulders and draping it over her head. "I may have more success, as she has never met me." Then, without explaining anything more, she pulled the scarf across her face so that only her eyes were visible, and vanished into the quarantine ward.

"I think," said Dumbledore thoughtfully once she had gone, "that those who walk in the future sometimes forget the rest of us have yet to catch up."

* * *

When she heard the door open, she squeezed her eyes shut. Whenever that woman came in, it felt like her head was going to explode. It hurt so badly, worse than. . . than. . .

She didn't know. Everything inside her was empty.

"Harriet?" said an entirely unfamiliar voice, another woman's.

Harriet? Was that her name? She almost opened her eyes in to see who this new woman was, to see if she could remember _her_ , but she didn't want it to hurt like that again. The voice didn't sound familiar at all.

"Who are you?" she asked, breathing heavily, eyes still tightly shut.

"My name is Anaita. You haven't met me before, so you needn't try to remember me."

Her head throbbed. "I. . ."

"You've experienced a time-accident," Anaita said. It was nice to have a name for someone, at least. Her voice was very soothing, like—like—something; she didn't know what. Nor did she know what a time-accident was.

A moment later, cool fingers touched her forehead, smoothing back her hair. She wanted to lean into the gentleness of that hand. Anaita said, "You don't remember anything, do you?"

"No," she whispered.

"What does it feel like?" asked Anaita.

"I. . . don't know. Empty. Until—until suddenly it's too full and it. . ." _hurts._

"That is the work of your memories. They are all trying to reach you at once, and it pains you. We must make them slow down."

She digested this. She didn't know what it meant, but it was nice to know that someone knew what was going on. It calmed some of the huge, frightened feeling in her chest that felt like it would expand out into every empty corner inside her.

"Is my name Harriet?" She winced when pain spiked in her head, as a swirl of vivid, blinding color tried to flood the nothingness behind her eyes.

"It hurts to remember even that much?" asked Anaita as she rustled about. "Well, that's a good sign."

"Doesn't _feel_ good," she muttered.

"No. You're right." There was an odd sound and a scent, something so familiar that made her head throb with trying to remember what it was.

"I am going to help you fall asleep," said Anaita. "A deep sleep, and when you awake, you will feel better. Is this all right with you?"

She didn't know. "Might as well. I have to keep my eyes closed anyway. Whenever I look at people. . ."

"That is from trying to remember who they are and how you know them. Their relationship to you. These things are very complicated. It will all come back to you in time. For now, don't worry about them."

Anaita brushed the hair off her forehead. Being touched in that gentle way was the nicest feeling of all.

"Listen to my voice," said Anaita. "Think of nothing but my voice. If another thought comes, acknowledge it and let it go. Return to my voice. . ."

She tried. It turned out to be easy. Anaita's voice was soft, soothing. Sometimes, a burst of color stabbed through the darkness behind her eyes, but she listened to Anaita's voice and it went away. . .

She sank beneath the cool black nothingness, and it was peaceful. If it seemed to be missing something, she didn't know what.

 _Harriet?_ she thought, and then there were no more thoughts at all.

* * *

"Her timeline has aligned itself physically," said Mrs. Patil, "but not mentally. She has returned to the present, but all of her memories have been jumbled up. Thank you," she added, accepting a tea cup from Dumbledore.

In true Dumbledore fashion, while Miss Potter lay in some undefinable agony in the next room, the Headmaster had set up a table for breakfast. There were eggs and rashers, kippers and tomatoes, porridge and toast, with an assortment of jams and marmalade. The smell turned Severus' stomach.

"No, thank you," he said rudely when Dumbledore tried to hand him a cup.

Mrs. Patil glanced at him and then away again. No doubt she had heard glowing reports from her two daughters for the past two and a half years.

"We frequently remember by association," she said. Severus didn't know her credentials, but she had a manner similar to the most confident academic he'd ever encountered, mixed with an air of gravity that might fail to arrest the attention of Gilderoy Lockhart, but not many others. "It's a process that involves a lot of. . . sorting-through, shall we say. We have all met an old acquaintance and known they have a son, but not what his name is or what he does. The information is there in your mind, but you have to jog your memory to reach it. But everything in Harriet's case is unnatural. While we must sift through countless memories that clog the wheels, so to speak, _her_ mind is trying to give her all the information at once. Her mental state has been so disrupted that there is no order, no filtering."

"You speak as if this happens frequently," said Pomfrey, sitting ramrod straight in her chair. "I thought I understood Miss Potter's case to be unique?"

"The _circumstances_ of her case are unique," Mrs. Patil corrected. "A child should not have been capable of doing this to herself, but memory disorder is a frequent outcome of disrupting one's timeline. In my line of work, people strike themselves down like flies. They recover, in time, so you need not despair—though we shall have to proceed wisely. Harriet's case is especially acute."

"Because of the power she channeled?" asked Dumbledore.

"Possibly," Mrs. Patil hedged. "I cannot tell you. Divinations is not really about the power of one's magic but the state of one's mind. Harriet, however, seems to have channeled power in order to achieve a mind-state that should only be capable of being reached after years of focus and discipline." She set her teacup down and folded her hands on the table, lacing her fingers together. "We may take heart from the fact that she is _trying_ to remember, almost entirely without prompting. It means her mind is strong and healthy, and healthy minds can recover astonishingly quickly."

Pomfrey was checking the heavy brass pocket watch through which she kept an eye on her patients. "My monitoring spells suggest she's asleep for the time being."

Mrs Patil nodded. "I have guided her to sleep. She needs to dream. Dreams, as I'm sure you are aware, are necessary for maintaining the health of one's mind. They sort through the events of the day so that we can process them. When she wakes up she will be a little better, though it will take her some time to sort out thirteen years of memories."

 _How much time?_ Severus wanted to know.

"Won't it be more? Since she saw her own future?" asked Pomfrey. Severus thought this was entirely the wrong question to be asking. His own had been much better.

Mrs. Patil shook her head. "If she is like most people, those experiences will be forgotten. We aren't meant to live so far outside our own present. The mind always reverts to what it has already experienced. It takes a great deal of training to retain experiences that have yet to happen, and Harriet hasn't had that training. In time, her past memories will realign themselves and she will be as she was, and whatever knowledge of the future she acquired will fade into her subconscious."

"Completely?" asked Dumbledore.

"She may retain a few scraps of information, but they will be like dream fragments," said Mrs. Patil. "Like deja vu, you know. They will only become clear once she has already experienced them—if even then."

Severus would have liked to know why, if all this were true, Miss Potter had not only seemed perfectly lucid when she first woke up, but also quite certain of things that had not yet happened (unless she'd learned to cast a Patronus without his knowledge). But he didn't want to demand an explanation if it meant the others knowing what had passed last night. He was quite certain he hadn't done anything to make her like this—Mrs. Patil said it was typical outcome of time-disorder—but it would make for awkward conversation. More than that, something about it felt private. He wouldn't hear it bandied about by a school nurse, a meddling pseudo do-gooder, and a fortune-teller.

And Pomfrey would want to know why he hadn't called her immediately. He wasn't explaining that, either; particularly because he couldn't.

_I wish it was mine. Then I could see it whenever I wanted._

"What should we do now?" Dumbledore asked. "Since you have dealt with this before, Mrs. Patil, perhaps you have an idea?

"In cases like these, the best way is to let the mind fix itself. She shouldn't be given any magical aides. It's vitally important to let her sort it out for herself. If you like, I may remain on hand to help her. I have been in this situation myself, though it was a long time ago. Many of my colleagues wind up here frequently."

"We would be in your debt," said Dumbledore.

"Nonsense. One cannot bear to see the poor child in suffering, especially when one has daughters of one's own." Then Mrs. Patil's eyes took on a steely look. "That Divinations professor, Headmaster—I don't wish to tell you the business of your own school, but I must have a word about her with you."

"Please," said Dumbledore, looking for only a moment faintly surprised. "We may discuss it in my office."

Severus cursed his eyes. Anything relating to impugning Trelawney was a matter dear to his heart. But Dumbledore whisked Mrs. Patil away before she was able to drop a single derogatory word.

With a wave of her wand, Pomfrey cleared the breakfast things away.

"You didn't ask whether I was finished," Severus said.

"You hadn't touched a thing," said Pomfrey. "It had all gone cold while you sat there stewing about whatever-it-is. If you want something—now the Headmaster isn't here to see you taking food and drink like a normal person—you may call upon the house-elves, as well you know."

She bustled off. Severus retreated to his room to brood and insult everyone he could think of. He wound up sitting in his chair beside the window, chewing on his thumbnail in lieu of having a smoke, and watching the icy rain dribble down the glass.

What would it be like, to forget everything? Would you forget your hatred when you forgot its sources? When you remembered them, would it rush back like the oncoming tide, stronger than ever? Or would the hate drift through you, sourceless, because it had grafted itself to your soul?

He doubted Miss Potter would have that sort of hate in her heart; but misery, betrayal, loss, neglect. . . she had known those. He hoped (without much confidence) that remembering, even in this unnatural way, wouldn't be like living it all over again. Some revelations should only be experienced once, and she had already endured them time and again.

* * *

The return of Harriet's memories was—would be—a long and laborious process.

When Hermione first learned that Harriet was awake again, she almost strangled Neville's bouquet. Ron, who'd walked down with her to the infirmary in the vague hope of wheedling his way in, let out a whoop that had Pomfrey shushing them sharply.

And then, everyone crushed their hopes.

Professor Dumbledore explained Harriet's state to them, but he did not allow them to see her. It was Mrs. Patil's belief that Harriet should be reintroduced slowly to reminders of her life, and first to come should be those things and feelings that would have a lesser impact on her. In this case, Hermione and Ron's significance kept them away from Harriet entirely.

"I am sorry," said Dumbledore, with a gentle gravity like Mrs. Patil's. "She will remember you in time. I must beg you to be patient."

Hermione had no choice but to leave the flowers. She wasn't even able to accompany them, that time.

The mood in the common room was in flux all the rest of the day. At first it was elated, as Hermione and Ron had been; then dejected in the same form; and then patches of optimism cropped up, interspersed with pockets of doom. Hermione dug her fingers into her hair and pressed the palms of her hands into her ears to block out Romilda Vane's carrying voice, which was telling a story about an aunt of hers who'd lost her memory and spent the rest of her life thinking she was a donkey named Daisy.

"Load of bollocks, if you ask me," Ron said as he crushed the fourth draft of his Herbology essay and chucked it at the wastebin (missing by at least a foot).

"I _know_ , but that doesn't make it any easier to listen to," Hermione muttered.

"Eh?" Ron blinked, then seemed to hear Romilda for the first time. "Oh—not _that_ load of bollocks. I meant us not getting to see Harriet. We're her best bloody friends."

"Mrs. Patil thinks it will hurt her," Hermione said. Her own essay was only fourteen inches long, exactly meeting the requirement. No matter how hard she tried, she hadn't been able to write more. "I've hurt Harriet enough this year."

 _"More_ bollocks. It was an accident," Ron said sharply. "You might have saved her life, you know. She's gone a bit off it for now, but who knows what might've happened if you hadn't been there? That spell could've killed her, for all we know."

Hermione was desperately grateful for his saying it, but despised herself for seeking comfort in platitudes. Over a week had gone by since the night of that disastrous spell, and yet the guilt still sat in a knot beneath her heart, as poisonous as ever. "It wasn't supposed to—"

"Wasn't supposed to have done _this,_ either. Look. You can't beat yourself up over what could've happened, because better or worse, you don't know. That's the whole point of all this time-turner and Divs rubbish, isn't it? How mad things get if you mess with time?"

Hermione was rather speechless—this coming from Ron, of all people—but (thankfully) before she could blurt out anything stupid and alienate him (for the hundredth time that year), he went on:

"You were just trying to help. Harriet'd be the first person to tell you that. 'Spect she will," he added darkly, "when they let us in to see her." Then he perked up. "Say, we could take the Invisibility Cloak—"

 _"No._ " Hermione tried to soften her tone. "I won't put her in any danger. Mrs. Patil knows what she's doing. She's dealt with this before."

"All right, all right," said Ron. "I'll sit tight. Honestly, the barmiest thing about this whole business is you going back in time to take extra classes. That's the part she won't be able to get over, bet you anything."

* * *

"Curious," said Dumbledore, looking over the scroll Severus had copied out. "Most curious."

"Thank you for that estimable observation. I would never have thought of it on my own."

Dumbledore only smiled at him. Severus was not in any mood to be smiled at.

"I'm sure you would never be so insipid, my dear boy."

"Well?" Severus folded his arms as tightly across his chest as they would go. "What do you think?"

"I think you've done very well. This was an excellent insight."

"I'm not asking for a performance evaluation," Severus snarled, his fingers tightening on his arms until his joints ached, "I want to know if you think it's accurate."

"If there is one thing we've learned from this unforeseen fiasco," said Dumbledore, starting to roll up the parchment, "it's that the past is all we can know. The future is most uncertain—conveniently so, at times."

"Which is of absolutely no help whatsoever!"

"But that is part of the trouble of Divinations." The scroll disappeared up Dumbledore's billowing sleeve, as Severus had known it would (which is why he'd made a copy for himself). "I've been having many thoroughly enlightening chats with Mrs. Patil. It's only too bad she has a job already. . .

"At any rate," he continued, perhaps sensing that Severus was only one droll remark away from releasing his death-grip on his own arms and transferring it to Dumbledore's neck, "even when the future has been accurately predicted, we never see exactly what that prediction meant until it's already happened."

Severus' gut twisted. _You know that,_ Dumbledore didn't say; but he didn't have to. Severus knew it better than anyone. That truth had destroyed more life than one.

"I don't think you should let her go to the Quidditch World Cup," he said.

Dumbledore blinked. "My dear boy, we can hardly prevent it—"

"If you can send her to live with Petunia, you can stop her haring off to a bloody game of Quidditch that's set to double as a Death Eater reunion!"

"She came to no harm," Dumbledore said, his tone so inappropriately placating, the words so disturbingly inadequate, that Severus didn't know where to begin.

"That isn't the point!"

"Severus, you cannot keep Harriet locked up in a room where nothing can get at her." He paused, for a fraction of a moment, before saying, "No one can," but Severus thought there was something meaningful in that silence. "She has got to be free to live her life—"

" _Free to live her life_ involves her nearly getting herself killed!" Severus thought his grip on himself was probably restricting his own blood flow. "Even when there are no _servants of the Dark Lord_ in the case—Merlin and Salazar, look at what happened to her during a simple fortune-telling spell!"

"Yes," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "But you know, in general, Harriet seems to emerge relatively unscathed from life-threatening situations."

"All it takes is once!"

"Severus, you are rattling the windows. Impressive, given that Pomfrey is maintaining her dampening spell, I believe?" Before Severus could snarl a reply, Dumbledore went on, "It is good that you worry about her. To see you so fulfilling your duty to Lily's memory—it truly humbles me."

Severus was so outraged and mortified that he couldn't speak, not even to swear.

"But now that Harriet is growing up, she must not be so constrained. In a short time," Dumbledore glanced almost sadly down at the scroll, "she will have a great deal to contend with, and we may not always be there to assist her. She must learn to stand on her own."

There were a thousand denials Severus could have dashed against that. What was the good of pushing her away, of deliberately withholding assistance— She'd already had a lot to contend with— What good was achieved by starting early, too early— And above all, she knew what it meant to stand on her own. When you'd learned self-reliance from childhood, what you really wanted was people to stand with you; even if you knew, at heart, you would always be alone, because everyone was at the end.

It was no good telling Dumbledore. It had taken every caustic scrap of Severus' bloody-mindedness to make the Headmaster concede to the set-up last summer. Severus still wasn't sure why he'd succeeded. One could never make Dumbledore do what he didn't approve.

And Severus remembered that little conversation they'd had at the end of last summer, when Dumbledore had frowned upon their Scrabble-playing and delicately maneuvered Lupin toward her and himself away from her. No, Dumbledore wouldn't waver, this time.

In that case, Severus would find his own way round.

* * *

They said her name was Harriet. She believed them—she supposed. She tried to answer when they called her that, but sometimes she forgot.

Alone at night, she would say the name to herself, looking into the mirror over the washbasin. She would look into her own eyes, thinking, _This is me_ , and saying, _My name is Harriet_ , waiting for it to feel right.

She waited and waited.

People sent her flowers. Her favorite were the blue ones with glowing centers that chimed so beautifully. Anaita showed her card after card, all unsigned, but all addressed to Harriet. _Hope you get well soon. Love. We miss you flying circles around us at practice. We're so, so, so sorry._

"They're from your friends," said Anita.

But she felt like she was spying on someone else's gifts.

She spent a lot of time talking with Anaita, who kept her face covered with a soft-looking white scarf for the first few days. When at last she took it off, a rush of memories poured into her—into _Harriet's_ —head, so many and so much at once it hurt, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It didn't do any good, though: everything she was seeing was in her bloody head, after all.

"Tell me one thing you see," said Anaita's calm voice, the way she always did when this happened.

"Sun," she gasped, seizing on the first thing that became clear, as she'd been taught. "Moon—orange and blue—"

"Is it a blanket?"

"Yes!" A blanket on a bed in a round room, with crimson drapes— "My dorm. . .?" Gryffindor. Girls. Long dark hair, talking about spells, lilac, no, lavender—

"Breathe evenly," said Mrs. Patil. "What do you see?"

"Parvati." The swirl smoothed out, like a tornado turning to water circling down a drain, and she relaxed. She didn't open her eyes, but watched the memories revolving in her own mind. "You're Parvati's mum, aren't you?"

"I am. Very good, Harriet," said Anaita.

"There's something else." She kept returning to a book, a book Parvati was poring over, excitement shining in her face. "Something. . . with a book. . . I can't remember." But it burrowed at her head, like knuckles pressing into her temple, something important. "Parvati and a book, and something to do with me. . ."

"What sort of book?" asked Anaita.

"I don't know. . . I can't read anything on it, she's always got it in front of her."

"What does it look like?"

"It's big and heavy and made of leather. . . there's gold lettering on the spine. I. . . I don't think I was really interested in it. . . like I didn't care what was in it, but I cared that she was always reading it. . ."

"Well, we can leave it for now," said Anaita. "It will become clear when you remember other things."

"But I _want_ to remember," she said, frustrated. "It feels important."

"You will, in time. For now, it's best not to force it. We shall take a break, and you'll eat something."

She sighed and opened her eyes. The memories buzzed in the back of her mind, trying to take over. There were no real breaks for her. She remembered something new at every moment—or at least felt she _ought_ to remember.

More often, it was that one.

Lunch was poached salmon on white rice, which for some reason made her think the words _summer_ and _gray, foggy, shivering_ and imagine she was in a dark, dank place with someone she couldn't see, whose name she didn't know. She felt she ought to know them.

"Would you like to have a visitor this afternoon?" asked Anaita, and she almost choked on her fish in the hurry to gasp:

"Yes!"

She never had visitors because new people knocked her for such a loop, but she was ready to meet someone new, anyone. It was so monotonous in this little room. The structure of her day did not vary. In the morning, Madam Pomfrey (she remembered her now: _mediwitch, always fixing me up, scolding_ ) came in and checked her over, and then she had her breakfast alone. After that, Anaita came. They started with a short walk along the corridor outside the hospital wing, a little further each day, while everyone else was in classes. They did not speak; only walked. It made the world seem silent and empty, like her knowledge of her own life.

Then they returned to her room and drank a flowery tea while Anaita introduced her to pictures and drawings and asked what they made her remember until it was lunchtime.

After lunch, she always had her guided meditation, where for an hour she did nothing but try not to think about anything at all. By the time they got to it, she was grateful; her head always felt so full of scraps and questions. The meditation seemed to clear it away. It was a good kind of emptiness.

Then Anaita read to her from various books, and had _her_ read from them, until dinner, and after that, more meditation until she fell asleep for the night.

Then the next day started it all over again.

They said that eventually she would remember everything and it would all be normal again. She didn't know how. It felt like she'd be like this forever. There was so much to find again.

* * *

Minerva was quite prompt in replying to the letter he'd sent her:

_Dear Severus—_

_I must admit your reply took me off-guard—not that it took you days to send it, but that you replied at all. Which is not to say I'm not pleased. Shocked, but pleased._

_Your refusal to permit visitors is not shocking at all, though I think it foolish to keep yourself locked away in a tower, quite literally. I think you don't want to see anyone, Severus. That's your prerogative, but let us not pretend that your condition requires such isolation from anything other than curmudgeonly misanthropy. It's a shame, at your young age._

_I won't incense or insult you with platitudes, Severus. I am watching the moon calendar anxiously. We all are._

_I expect your reply snubbing my concern by breakfast tomorrow morning. Do not disappoint me._

_-MG_

* * *

The dishes always disappeared when they were done eating. Whenever this happened, her mind couldn't decide whether it was a strange or normal thing to see.

"Where do the dishes go?" she asked as the table cleared itself.

"To the kitchens," said Anaita, smiling slightly, and handed her a folded slip of paper.

"This is the name of the one who will be visiting. I'll leave you to remember what you can. She will visit alone with you. You'll see me again in the evening."

Then Anaita did something she had never done before: she kissed her cheek and smoothed her hair. Then she left.

An odd feeling billowed through her because of that tenderness, something sad and. . . lonely. Why?

Shaking it off, she unfolded the paper. The name written on it sizzled through her head like wildfire, startling and painful. She tried focusing on the window and breathing evenly, as Anaita had taught her, to ride it out. It wasn't as bad as the first time she'd seen Pomfrey, though. Was that because it was only a name or because she was slowly getting better?

By the time the storm in her head had settled, someone knocked softly on the door.

"Come in," she said. _Harriet, Harriet, remember you're Harriet, it'll upset them if you forget you're you._

The door clicked open and her visitor peeped in.

"Hi, Asteria," she _—Harriet—_ said _._

Asteria pushed the door open, her head hung down so her hair fell round her face, but she was smiling shyly. Now that Harriet could see her, more memories rushed in, filling in the gaps left by the pieces before. Boys, house-elves, Hallowe'en, the dungeons—

There, again, the feeling that something _important_ was missing. But she couldn't get at it.

Blinking, she focused on Asteria. She'd stopped in the doorway, clutching a leather folder to her chest, looking stricken.

"It's okay," Harriet said quickly. _She's scared, she's nervous, she's shy, she doesn't talk—_

"Did I—did I make you remember too much?" Asteria asked anxiously. She had a high, sweet voice that Harriet really felt she had never heard before.

Her thoughts tripped over each other, confused.

"They told me I might," Asteria said, her face falling.

"I'm fine," Harriet said, rubbing at her forehead. "I only—sorry, I think I might have you confused. I thought you didn't talk."

"Oh!" Asteria blushed. "I-I never did before," she said in a smaller voice than before.

"Oh." Harriet was relieved she'd got that much right. "Er. Don't you want to come in?"

Asteria seemed to realize for the first time that she'd rooted herself in the doorway. Blushing again, she turned and shut the door behind her, very carefully, as if she was afraid of making too much noise.

"Have a seat?" Harriet said.

Asteria nodded timidly. She sat with extreme care in the tatty old armchair, the only chair for all of Harriet's (two, now three) visitors, and rested her folder in her lap with even-more-extreme care.

Harriet didn't know what to say or to do. Surely this fearfulness wasn't normal? She looked at Asteria, trying to pull the memories out of the tangle in her head. She was very pretty, like Anaita. They didn't look anything alike—Anaita was dark and Asteria fair, for starters—but they had beautiful faces, and something about the both of them seemed. . . kind, almost grave.

"Does it hurt terribly?" Asteria asked. Her fingers tightened on the edge of her folder.

"Does what hurt?"

"The—they told me that when you remembered too much at once, it caused you pain. They thought I should see you because you wouldn't have to remember as much about me as your friends."

"That seems a rude sort of thing to say," Harriet said, frowning.

Asteria shook her head, but she didn't reply.

"It does hurt," Harriet admitted. "But I'd rather remember. I'd rather know as much as I can. It's maddening, really, the way they baby me." She frowned at that, too. Did that sound ungrateful? To make up for it, she said, "Anaita's awfully kind."

"You're very brave," said Asteria quietly, looking at her lap. "That's why you feel that way."

Harriet felt something pulling at her with tidal force. . . the edges of the room were blackening, the light warping and starting to tilt around her. . . it was stronger than any memory-influence she'd had before, so strong—

"I have something for you!" Asteria cried suddenly, and the sound of her voice jerked Harriet back to the present.

"Eh?" Harriet shook her head, as everything tipped back into place.

"In here." Asteria fumbled with the flap of the folder. "I—I made it."

She pulled out a piece of paper painted—it was painted, wasn't it?—it was dark blue, with white spots. Harriet squinted at it.

"What is it?"

"It's part of a puzzle." She pulled out another piece, also dark blue, and another dark green and light blue, and one that was slate gray. "It's a picture. For your wall. I—I was making it before I knew what had happened, but Mrs. Patil said we should try to put it together—together. Do you. . . do you want to—?"

"Definitely." Harriet took the dark blue piece and turned it round, trying to make out what it was. Would she have been able to tell if she wasn't all mixed up?

"It's something you've never seen before," Asteria said. "Not in real life. You've only seen paintings. But you very much want to see it."

Harriet wished she could remember.

Asteria took a piece of pale blue paper and stood on the chair. Reaching up—she was rather tall, taller than Harriet—she stuck it to the wall as far up as she could stretch.

"That piece goes at the bottom," she said over her shoulder.

Piece by piece, they put the painting together. Harriet took the dark blue pieces and lined them up along the bottom, and Asteria pasted the light blue pieces along the top. On the left the green and gray pieces went.

Bit by bit, with each new piece she picked up and pasted on and watched Asteria fix on the wall, Harriet felt something come back to her and stick there, in the echoing unknown in her mind.

When they were done, they stepped back until they stood against the opposite wall, so they could see it properly, all at once.

"It's the sea," Harriet said. There was no rush of memory, no overwhelming muddle of thoughts. The knowledge pushed at her gently, almost like a sigh, as if to say, _Yes, that's right_.

The dark blue sea ran along a rocky coast and unfolded toward the horizon until it melded with the bright sky. A little square house sat on a strip of dark green grass dotted with wildflowers, and an ancient tree twisted up out of the earth.

"It's beautiful," she said. "The painting, I mean. You're brilliant."

"This sort of thing is all I can do," Asteria said, quietly, like before. She lowered her head so that her long yellow hair swung across her face and Harriet couldn't see her expression. "I'd. . . I'd rather be brave, like. . . like you."

Harriet was silent for a bit. Thoughts washed through her, like the sea in Asteria's painting.

"I helped you, didn't I?" Harriet said slowly.

"Yes," said Asteria, even quieter than before.

"And you're helping me, now. With this stuff you can do."

Asteria was quiet for what seemed like a long time. Then she raised her head and pointed her wand at the painting.

" _Vivido_ ," she said in a clear, firm voice.

A sort of invisible ripple passed across the painting, from the center out to each corner. The water shifted into living waves; the tree on the green bent in the wind; even the curtains in the windows of the little square house billowed, and the heads of flowers on the bending grass moved.

"This is my home," Asteria said. "This is where I grew up. I miss it terribly—my mother, my sisters. . . Leto was married this Christmas, and she promised we would all be at the wedding. But we weren't, and I don't know when I shall see her again. . ."

And Harriet listened as Asteria talked to her for ages, almost certain they'd never done this before.


	47. Waxing Gibbous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Those of you who read the New & Improved Chapter 45 will probably be less confused by a couple of developments in this chapter than those who didn't. That's not scolding! Just an FYI~
> 
> -I have tried to keep my timing straight, but a) being lousy at math, and b) scatterbrained, I might have contradicted myself. Sorry if that happens!
> 
> -A super-big awesome Thank You! goes to all of you lovely ones who weighed in on the last chapter(s), with encouragement, suggestions, compliments, and all the rest. You, my dears, are amazing.

Asteria's visit left Harriet feeling very thoughtful. She sat on her bed while the icy rain beat against the night-black windows and watched the sea shift in her painting.

_There should be birds calling_ , she thought. _Sea gulls._ And the ocean should whoosh and hiss, like it was breathing.

How did she know that, if she'd never been to the sea?

Anaita returned not too long after Asteria had gone—or perhaps it _was_ a long time. Harriet really didn't know. The thrum of the rain and the movement of the painting were hypnotizing.

"How do you feel?" Anaita asked. She was wearing her soft-looking scarf looped round her shoulders, for even with the fire going it was very cold.

"I feel all right." She did, although she felt. . . thoughtful, she supposed. When Asteria had talked about herself, it had made her remember things about herself—not painfully, or with that sudden, shocking stream of memories that she usually got, but with a sort of gradual settling in. It was like watching birds take off from the corner of her eye.

But the things she remembered. . .

"Did your friend help you?" asked Anaita. Harriet nodded. "Did she paint this?"

"Yes. She draws and all that. She made me a card last term, when I was in hospital for. . ." She frowned. "Something."

"She's very talented."

"That's her home. She told me all about it." When Asteria had talked about her home, her mother, her sisters, Harriet had thought of a cupboard beneath a staircase. It had given her a dark, cold feeling, like a numbing hollowness in her heart. She couldn't shake the feeling that it was where she'd lived.

Whatever it was, she hated it.

"What's your home like?" she asked Anaita, who looked surprised.

"My home?"

"Are you married?"

"I'm widowed," said Anaita, simply.

"Oh," Harriet said. "I'm sorry—"

But Anaita only shook her head, as if saying _It's all right_. Harriet didn't see how it could be.

"Do you have any kids besides Parvati?"

"I have another daughter, Parvati's twin—"

"Padma," Harriet said. Now it made sense—she'd been picturing Parvati looking two very different ways, wearing blue sometimes and red others, which for some reason she felt Was Not Done; it didn't seem to make sense, although she didn't think that when Anaita wore different colors.

"Yes. They're my only children."

"Do you have any other family?"

"My parents are still very much alive—my mother almost too much so, at times." But she was smiling as she said it.

Harriet didn't smile back. When Anaita said that, she got a peculiar feeling that her own parents were. . . were dead. Only—it was even more than that. . . like they weren't just dead but. . . something worse.

What was worse than being dead?

"What's your mum like?" she asked, pushing these thoughts away, or at least trying to.

"She's very intelligent, capable, forceful—she terrifies everyone she meets. She's a Healer, specializing in women's health. Women come the world over to consult with her. She did not remotely approve of my career choice." Although her voice was dry, Anaita was still smiling faintly.

Harriet couldn't imagine someone not approving of Anaita. "Why not?"

"Divinations is considered to be codswallop by practically everyone. I wish I could say there weren't a great many fools in it who've earned us that reputation. My mother has a few colleagues whom I wouldn't trust with a sea sponge, but they at least _look_ sensible. My colleagues tend to wear too many feathers."

For some reason, Harriet was picturing a woman wearing sequins and tassels and overlarge glasses that made her look like a human dragonfly.

"Why is it codswallop?"

"Because it deals with possibility, I suppose." Anaita smiled more fully. "And the fools in their feathers."

"Why did you want to do it, then?"

Anaita looked to be considering the question seriously. "It always fascinated me, somehow. . . the idea that we are influenced by the movement of stars and planets. When I got into it, however, I saw it wasn't really about that at all. But I'm happy in my choice. I look into the past every day, but I've never looked back."

Harriet didn't really understand, but Anaita spoke with a content kind of certainty that made her almost envious. Or maybe envious wasn't the right word. She didn't know—all she knew was there was so much she was uncertain of. . .

But she was getting the feeling there might be a lot in her life that maybe she didn't want to remember.

* * *

The night of the half moon, Slytherin House received this letter from their Head of House:

_Most people are out for themselves._

_This is one of the first lessons that we learn as Slytherins. We know it instinctively. It is one of the core tenets of human nature, though most of humanity would pretend it isn't. Our acknowledging it makes them uncomfortable. They choose to believe that they are superior to us in their hypocrisy._

_We have always been isolated from the rest of the school, by our own design as well as theirs. Most of them do not understand what drives us, and those that do understand us, as much as any outsider is capable of, hold us in contempt._

_We have no need of them. When they turn on us, they only drive us to become stronger from within._

_You are Slytherin. We have lasted for onn gve thousand years, despite all attempts to divide us from one another, to expunge us from the school, to eradicate our loyalties to our traditions. Hogwarts knows, even if its people do not, that without us the school would crumble. We are essential. Should you let anyone convince you otherwise, you shall find yourself betraying us all. Doubt is for the feeble-minded._

_You are Slytherin because you are strong, resourceful, cunning; because you turn the hypocrisy and weakness of the world to your own benefit; because you do not permit despair and doubt to stymie you; because you adapt and come back wiser, stronger, more cunning, more adept, for every obstacle, every unfair hand life shows you._

_The other Houses have issued you a challenge._

_How will you answer them?_

_Professor S. Snape_

* * *

With Severus visited—finally—and the letter to Sirius dispatched—at last—Remus fell to tackling his next impossible task: policing the Slytherins.

From avoiding the staff room and isolating himself at mealtimes, from sequestering himself in his rooms when he didn't have class, Remus had skated over the banked furor that was burning insidiously through the castle. Now that his eyes were open and looking, he noticed something really quite. . . interesting, he supposed—for what it meant, not for what it was.

He'd been surprised, on coming back, to find that a lot of the Slytherin-directed hatred he remembered from his days at school had been scaled back. It had been a pleasant surprise, in fact, to find that Hogwarts had progressed; that although there was still that tendency to equate Slytherin with Evil, a word that ought not to be associated with children, it was lessened now.

But then he came to realize it wasn't exactly that the dynamic had changed: it was more that Snape was better at controlling it.

Slughorn had not been House-biased. Although Head of Slytherin, he'd been fond of influential or promising students from every House; his blind partiality preferred a student's status. He had not been cruel or heartless, but his focus had been different. Snape's considerable focus was brought to bear on protecting his House and punishing the other three. He and Minerva had had a conversation to that effect last August.

But with Snape gone, Remus was noticing a rise of incidents that were typical of House attitudes twenty years ago, not twenty days. Not only were the other three Houses enjoying this absence of Snape, but so were the Slytherins. He overheard Minerva using the words "free for all" to Poppy as he passed the smoking remains of a tapestry after a protracted fire-flinging match that had sent two Slytherins and three Ravenclaws to the hospital wing to have their hair and eyebrows re-grown.

Remus thought about telling Snape that the other teachers were finally appreciating his draconian approach to inter-House discipline; but they weren't on good enough terms for him to attempt the joke. Snape would think he was being criticized or mocked.

He wondered, more than once, what had driven Snape to enlist him of all people (of all werewolves), and then decided the decision likely sprang from several overlapping motives: boosting House morale. . . making use of favors owed. . . getting back at Remus through his students. Remus wouldn't put it past Snape to tell his House to make the task of protecting them as difficult as ingenuity permitted.

The thought was the first bit of amusement he'd had in a long time. He'd appreciate the distraction.

Remus had more than enough evidence to know that anti-Slytherin prejudice was very real, in Hogwarts and beyond; but he also knew that Slytherins were the exact opposite of placating and conciliatory. Slytherin House made no bones about its insular loyalty. Whether its isolation was self-imposed or outside resentment had isolated them long ago, the fact remained that as a group they coexisted with the rest of the school as peacefully as a bamboo splinter underneath your fingernail. And while individual Slytherins could be perfectly pleasant, as a group they were mistrustful, hostile, and double-dealing.

But the instinct that had made him uncomfortable and ashamed whenever James and Sirius targeted Snape was a purpose that his adult self could not turn away from: a person's repulsive behavior did not justify attacking them, and it certainly did not justify ganging up on them.

The dungeons were difficult to navigate without foreknowledge, but the topmost level (with Snape's classroom, storeroom and office) was easily accessible. By the time Remus' investigation was ongoing, the Slytherins had retreated to their alternative routes in and out of the dungeons: more secret passageways than the Marauders had had the wherewithal to map. The first day that Remus sallied forth into the dungeons—the day after Snape had given him the assignment—a group of fifth-Slytherins had come round from a concealed door and ambushed a group of fifth-year Gryffindors who'd been lying in wait near the main staircase. The usually dim corridor was lit up like a parade route, with about as much noise, including a great deal of creative swearing interspersed with increasingly ridiculous spells.

On some level, it was really quite funny. On another, it was a sobering reminder.

Stepping round the corner, he hoisted a _Protego_ , deflecting a bolt of electric-blue light that, if he remembered correctly, would make all of his hair sprout ten years' worth of growth.

" _Finite Incantatem_ ," he called, and all of the spell-lights winked out, leaving the corridor shockingly dark again and everyone's vision blotted with spots.

"Now, I'm quite sure I never assigned a skirmish for homework," he said mildly, as all the boys struggled to focus on him (the intruder).

"We were just—" started one of the Gryffindor boys; but then he didn't know how to continue, and looked helplessly at his friends.

The Slytherins had assumed a stony silence. Snape's interference they would have accepted, perhaps even gladly, but Remus' they clearly resented.

"Dueling in the corridors," said Remus, finishing the Gryffindor's excuse, "which as you know is not permitted."

Most of the group, Slytherins and Gryffindors both, looked mutinous, though one of the Gryffindor boys had the grace to look embarrassed. Remus remembered him from class and knew him for a soul like himself: disliking this, but willing to go along if his friends wheedled, begged and pushed hard enough.

"In fact," he said, eying the Gryffindors, "you should not be in the dungeons at all. It isn't class-time, which is the only excuse you would have to be down here."

" _They're_ down here," muttered one of the Gryffindors.

"They live down here," Remus said, exasperated. "I don't want to see or hear that you've been down here again unless you're on your way to Potions. And if I catch you dueling in the corridors again, you'll learn how easy I'm going on the lot of you. Now move along."

He probably should have taken points, but then he'd need to dock from the lot. He knew what had happened, but he had no proof, and he couldn't act without it. It would make both parties resent him even further, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

The Gryffindors left, sulking, and the Slytherins turned to go without a word—except for one, who stood glaring narrowly at Remus.

"I know what you are, you know," he said in a low voice. His friends paused, looking over their shoulders, ears pricked.

Remus stared the boy down. He should have known that Snape's essay had had some effect, although he hadn't known Snape had tried that tactic on anyone but the third years.

"A Pisces, you mean?" he asked, keeping his voice mild.

The boy stared defiantly back, but after a moment dropped his gaze. "Whatever," he muttered. Slouching his shoulders, he shuffled after his friends. They left, glancing thoughtfully back at Remus as they went.

_Well, that could have gone a great deal worse._ But it would be hard to find someone who could match Snape's abilities, either as a boy or a grown man.

* * *

Severus was poring over his books and letters, staining his fingers with ink, when he heard the sound of Dumbledore's voice engaged in pleasantries. It was time for that, then.

Pushing everything away, he pulled on his outer robe and walked out of his room, out of the quarantine ward and into Pomfrey's office nestled at the back of the main ward.

"Good afternoon, Severus," said Dumbledore, who was placing a chair for Mrs. Patil. Pomfrey was already seated behind her desk, partially obscured by towers of healing journals, notes, and old files. For the past two weeks, ninety percent of the material on her desk was to do with mind-healing and magical amnesia.

Severus took a seat without greeting any of them. He rarely spoke during these sessions. Pomfrey clearly didn't think he should be there, and Mrs. Patil just as clearly didn't understand why he was. If it wasn't for Dumbledore's indulgence, Severus would have needed to resort to magical methods of spying; but Dumbledore, for whatever reason, permitted him to involve himself in these discussions of Miss Potter's progress.

Mrs. Patil looked troubled today.

Severus swore internally. She hadn't looked troubled for days now. Once diagnosing Miss Potter's problem and starting her treatment plan, she had been cautious but consistently optimistic. But now there was a crease between her eyebrows and a vagueness in her expression, as if she were busy debating with herself.

"Mrs. Patil," said Dumbledore as he took his seat, in the manner of one opening the floor for discussion.

"I am worried about her," said Mrs. Patil without preamble. "I think. . . I think, Headmaster, that Harriet is now deliberately trying _not_ to remember."

"I see." Dumbledore's tone gave nothing away.

_Small wonder she should,_ Severus thought.

"Do people often do this?" Pomfrey asked, as if she needed to look further than the events of Miss Potter's life for an explanation.

"There are always things we would rather forget, but. . . I can't recall ever working with anyone who has been through the sort of trauma Harriet has—not at her age, certainly. And her age has a great deal to do with it."

Whenever he heard Mrs. Patil talk, Severus found himself wondering how someone so sensible had wound up reading tarot cards for a living. But Mrs. Patil seemed to practice an entirely different sort of Divinations than Trelawney. Perhaps that was all the explanation anyone needed, in either direction.

"We've all found ourselves sometimes dwelling on unpleasantness in our past," Mrs. Patil went on quietly, "but at this moment, Harriet has nothing to do but dwell."

_And the unpleasantness dominates most of her early life,_ Severus thought. Everyone in this room knew it.

Mrs. Patil was silent for a moment, but then said firmly, as one who has made up her mind, for better or worse, "I believe it is time for her to be reintroduced to her friends."

"It won't overwhelm her?" asked Pomfrey, sitting up straighter.

"It may, but at this point I believe it is necessary for Harriet's health. Whatever she and Asteria talked of, it appears to have returned her to memories that make her. . ." Mrs. Patil hesitated, but then shook her head and said, "Deeply unhappy."

And Miss Potter had a great deal to be deeply unhappy about.

"If you think it best—" said Dumbledore.

A light flashed inside a small glass globe on Pomfrey's desk. Immediately she stood.

"You'll have to excuse me," she said. "Someone's come."

She whisked herself out of the office.

"If you think it best," Dumbledore resumed, speaking to Mrs. Patil, but Severus found himself distracted by a hated sound:

"Professor Lupin," said Pomfrey's voice, "what is it you need?"

"Good afternoon, Poppy. I was hoping to see Severus, if he's available."

Severus supposed he might as well go. Miss Potter was resisting memories of Petunia starving her and locking her in a cupboard; now she was going to be reunited with the aggravating Granger and the ape-brained Weasley, to speed her along to happier times; there was nothing more to be learned in this room. Perhaps Lupin had brought what he asked for. It would almost be worth enduring his company if he had.

He swept out of the office without a word. Making eye contact with Lupin, he sneered to signal that he should follow him into the quarantine ward.

"Well?" he demanded as soon as Lupin had shut the door to this hateful little room, of which he was so thoroughly sick that the setting was starting to stain his nightmares. "Did you bring it?"

Lupin fished inside his pocket and tossed him a pack of Benson & Hedges. The cellophane crinkled against his palm. The sound of it, the shape of the box, made his mouth tingle with a Pavlovian desire.

"It all feels very illicit," said Lupin. "Contraband, and all that."

"I'm in hospital, of course it's fucking illicit." Although he ached down to his toenails to split the cellophane and smoke one _right fucking now_ , it would be taking a foolish risk with Pomfrey awake. He hid them inside his robes instead, in a pocket he'd long ago charmed with an Undetectable Extension Charm.

When he looked up, he saw Lupin staring down at the books he'd got from the library, that he'd not shut properly when he'd walked out few minutes prior. One drawing had arrested Severus with a sick feeling in his stomach: a werewolf being gored on pikes.

The expression on Lupin's face was impossible to read. . . but not like it usually was. Lupin was normally inscrutable from practice. This was the incomprehensibility of an emotion that could not be interpreted.

"Your Slytherins have been taking matters increasingly into their own hands," Lupin said mildly, looking away from the drawing, looking up at Severus, who found himself almost grateful that Lupin was not going to attempt to console either one of them. "They've been waging a kind of guerrilla warfare around the castle, ambushing groups of would-be attackers."

"I told them I could count on them," Severus said, making sure the challenge in his voice was as clear as the satisfaction.

"Everyone's becoming rather resigned," Lupin went on. "I believe they've forgotten what it was like, fifteen, twenty years ago. . . They've had the interim to forget, when things have been quieter."

But Severus found suddenly that he had no desire to relive the past. He'd got his smuggled cigarettes, and his Slytherins (as they'd reported to him) were taking care of themselves, getting a bit of their own back, in the meantime. He wanted nothing more of Lupin.

"You can get out now," he said.

Lupin nodded without any surprise. He didn't even say anything as he left.

There was nothing he could have said.

When he'd gone, and even the soft click of the shutting door had faded, Severus returned to the books. The artist had drawn a glaze of pain in the werewolf's frenzied eyes as the pikes severed its limbs from its body and gouged straight through its heart.

The corner of a moon chart protruded from beneath the book. He'd drawn it up, though he hadn't needed it. Lupin had told him that he couldn't feel the full moon coming, except psychologically. Severus knew what he meant. There was no heightened power of smell or hearing, no sense of change; there was only the anticipation of it, like a shard of bone beneath the skin.

There was no forgetting that by the time the moon rose tomorrow night, he'd know.

He didn't blame Miss Potter for wanting to forget.

* * *

Remus thought he wouldn't sleep, the night before the full. He lay in bed for hours, staring into the dark, knowing there was no way he could rest his mind and get to sleep. But apparently he'd underestimated himself, because when he closed his eyes the room was pitch dark and when he opened them it was awash with pre-dawn light, the color of fog and mercury.

Something warm and heavy was lying on his legs. Nothing warm and heavy should be lying on his legs. Blearily he raised his head, wondering what it could possibly be.

For a second, it didn't register. Then he nearly flipped himself off the mattress.

"PADFOOT!" he bellowed.

In a blink, the dog was Sirius again. His hair was still tangled and matted; his robes were still those filthy rags from Azkaban; he looked exhausted; and he did not seem in the least bit cowed.

"Good lungs on you, Moony. That's the first time you've yelled in, what, fifteen years?"

"And do you remember the last time I _wrung your neck_?!" Remus threw a pillow at him. The way it bounced off Sirius' filthy head was inappropriately comical. "You had better fucking find a way to Apparate yourself to Ibiza before I find my wand—"

"Hell," Sirius snorted, "if I could do that, I'd make a new identity for myself and come out of hiding, 'cause I'd be rich. Calm down, Moony."

"If you wanted me to _calm_ _down_ , you shouldn't have come! Merlin and Mother of Christ, Sirius, what do you think you're _doing_?"

"You said Holly-berry's sick. Or something—didn't quite understand what exactly was going on, but—"

Remus buried his face in his hands and collapsed backwards onto the mattress. He'd predicted it, but expecting Sirius to act like the mother of all reckless fools was a lot different than waking up with Padfoot stretched out across his legs.

"I'd say you went mad in Azkaban," he said into his hands, "except you were always like this. Godric and Jesus."

"Your half-bloodedness is showing," said Sirius. "It's indecent, my mum'd say—so I say keep it up. Look, the Dementors are gone—"

"Right, because it's safe to be a wanted criminal with soul-sucking monsters after you, as long as they're a few miles away—"

"And Dumbledore knows I'm innocent, and so do you—"

"I _repeat_ —"

"—what else is there for me to bloody fucking do? Lie round on a beach on bloody Ibiza, sipping drinks with straws in?"

"And get a haircut." Remus scrubbed at his face. "If you don't realize why it's insane, you coming back here, I don't even know where to start drilling a hole through your metal-plated skull."

Sirius fidgeted with the edge of Remus' blanket. His fingers left sooty streaks on the counterpane.

"I could barely bring myself to leave," he said quietly in that strange, hoarse voice that Remus was no longer accustomed to, in just the three weeks Sirius had been gone. "If Holly-berry hadn't told me to go, I'd. . ." He trailed off.

Silence unspooled through the whole room, looping over them, tying them together, in some strange way.

"Why'd you send me that letter?" Sirius asked.

Remus dropped his hands away from his face and stared into the shadows on the ceiling. The light had hardly shifted at all since he'd first woken. It was going to be a rainy day.

"Because I knew it's what you'd want."

Sirius made a noise that sounded like contentment. Eventually he said, "I can't leave again."

"I know that, too."

They were silent for a longer time. Then Sirius changed into Padfoot and curled up with his head on Remus' chest. Remus rested his hand on Padfoot's matted and flea-bitten fur, and scratched behind his ears. He knew Sirius didn't go to sleep because he stayed as Padfoot; the transformation always lapsed when he fell unconscious.

Eventually he got up and ran the bath—well, a shower, to be more precise. When he turned round, he saw Padfoot sitting in the open bathroom door, looking uncertain, or as much as Remus could make out through the matted fur and doggy features.

"This is for you," Remus said, waving through the faint outlines of steam at the spacious tub. "Don't worry, I won't stay to sponge you clean."

Padfoot still didn't transform. Remus walked out of the bathroom and nudged Padfoot gently with his foot.

"It's the least I can do, after botching everything," he said gently.

That turned Padfoot into Sirius. "You and Holly-berry," he croaked. "You've got massive fucking guilt complexes, the both of you."

"You're one to talk." This was getting too serious, making Remus ache in a way he'd always done his best to avoid, for fear of its never healing. "Go on. We can cudgel our consciences when you're clean. Though I might have to get something extra for those fleas. . ."

"What, you stopped using the dog shampoo?" Sirius' tone was dry, but he was peering into the tub as if he mistrusted its very being. With a sadness that seemed to echo endlessly inside him, Remus wondered when last he'd had a bath.

"I no longer run through the woods once a month with three wild animals," he said mildly.

Sirius looked around, frowning. "What did you do, before Snape started making you that potion?"

"Take your shower," Remus said.

Sirius snorted. "Nice to know I haven't forgotten what you deflecting looks like."

"I'm going to order breakfast," Remus said, and carefully shut the bathroom door. He heard Sirius sigh behind it.

In the sitting-room, he inhaled with deliberate calm.

"Dobby," he said.

Dobby popped in, bowing. "It is being good morning, Professor Lupin Sir. How is Dobby helping Sir today, sir?"

"Good morning, Dobby. Dobby. . . I regret that I find myself needing to add to your workload for the time being. Can you make sure my rooms are cleaned, visited, attended in any way, by no elf but yourself?"

"Yes of course, Professor Lupin Sir!" said Dobby, round-eyed. Well, more round-eyed than usual.

"And can you undertake to tell no one of this arrangement? Beyond what is necessary, of course. Not punishing yourself," Remus added firmly.

"Yessir, Professor Lupin Sir!"

"Thank you, Dobby." Remus smiled at him, feeling suddenly exhausted by his eagerness. House-elves always filled him with a terrible sympathy. "I shan't add to your work any more than absolutely necessary."

"Dobby is always happy to be serving Professor Lupin Sir!"

"Thank you, Dobby," he repeated. Dobby bowed and cracked away.

Remus left a pair of his robes on a chair next to the bathroom door. They'd be too short on Sirius but perhaps not too much smaller now that twelve years in Azkaban had wasted him down to nothing.

Sirius was in the bath for a long time. Remus figured the water must have gone stone-cold ages ago. When Sirius finally emerged, his hair dripping all over the floor, he said, "Tonight's the full."

"Yes." Remus thought of Snape and felt like ice was encasing his skin from the inside, but stopping short of his heart, leaving it beating painfully hard. "I'm going to cut your hair now."

"Thank fucking Merlin," said Sirius.

Remus had to shear it incredibly close to his scalp to get past all the snarls. When he was done, Sirius looked as alien as he had with that tangled mane. Remus had always remembered his hair as being thick and shining, somewhere between long and too long, soft between his fingertips.

"I need a flea comb," he said, setting down his scissors as if he could put that memory down with it.

"Transfigure yourself one," Sirius said.

"That's your answer for everything."

"When you need something transfiguring, yeah."

Sirius ate breakfast without pausing to chew. _Wolfed it down,_ Remus thought without any humor, not even a bleak kind. Sirius didn't use a fork, only held the plate close to his mouth and shoved the food in. When he'd scraped the plate clean with the pads of his fingers, he belched, long and loud.

"How I've missed that," Remus said dryly, while his chest ached. "I could never quite manage to replicate that volume—or duration."

"Snape still making you that potion?" Sirius asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"No." Remus realized Sirius didn't know. He hadn't put it in the letter. "Severus has been in hospital, unable to do any magic. That spell I had him do drained him—and he cast a Patronus when the Dementors attacked you, strong enough to repel the lot of them—"

"Dumbledore told me." It was hard to tell, with Sirius' changed face, what he thought of that. Whatever he was feeling, he didn't seem to want to dwell on it. "Didn't see it, though—I passed out. Fucking useless." He was clearly of thinking of Harriet.

To get Sirius' mind off that, Remus said baldly: "And I may have bitten him."

Sirius grasped his water glass and took a long drink, watching him over the rim.

"You probably did, or everyone's just being paranoid?"

Remus felt a surge of anger. "It may not seem like a big bloody deal to you—"

"I'm just asking what really happened," Sirius said in a low, even voice.

Remus tamped down on the boil in his heart. "Poppy couldn't find any evidence. But they can't take any chances."

Sirius watched him for a long time without speaking. Remus realized he could no longer tell what was going on behind Sirius' eyes, inside his head, deep within his heart. It was strange to think he'd thought for twelve years that he'd not known those things the way he thought, only to learn he _had_ ; strange to find the ability had really gone this time.

"You're a full-grown werewolf now," Sirius said at last. "What are you going to do?"

"Albus called in a favor—discreetly—for a months' supply of Wolfsbane for me. It doesn't keep, apparently, so Severus couldn't make any extra supply. . . before."

"And Snape?" Sirius asked, his gaze not wavering. "What's he doing?"

"I haven't asked. He can't take Wolfsbane on the chance he's not infected, I know that much. The level of aconite alone would be lethal to a human."

"They're going to put you in a cage, aren't they."

Remus didn't answer him. Sirius swore.

"It's fucking inhumane—"

"I asked them to," Remus said sharply. "After what happened last month—"

"What _did_ happen?"

Remus explained about mistakenly putting sugar in his potion, thinking it was tea, thus negating all its effectiveness.

"The Shack might not contain me anymore," he said, wondering why he was bothering to pretend that Sirius could ever be reasonable about the cage. "You know that metal can be reinforced more powerfully than wood—"

Sirius chuntered a mutinous string of swear words.

"And you know you can't come with me," Remus said. "No arguments, Sirius. No one can know you're here, Sirius— _no_ _one_ —except Albus, we'll have to tell him—"

"I don't want to tell anyone."

"Sirius, we cannot keep secrets from him. Not anymore. I couldn't—after everything he's done—" _Even some things I haven't asked him to, some things I don't want him to have done, that it's not my privilege to refuse—_

Sirius knocked back the rest of his water like it was whiskey, and then looked resignedly at the glass, as if wishing it had been.

"I'm surprised he didn't sack you, honestly," he said gruffly. "Not that I want you to get sacked, but—"

"I really can't fathom why he didn't. I deserved to get sacked, and more."

"Bollocks," Sirius said automatically.

"No, it isn't. I lied—my lies endangered all of the students, Harriet specifically—and my colleagues—I tricked Severus into doing that Dark spell, lying to _him_ , endangering him there, on top of the rest—and in my carelessness I further endangered the lot of you by negating the Wolfsbane—"

"You didn't do that deliberately, it was an accident—"

"It wasn't deliberate, no, but it's my responsibility to make sure I'm. . . _controlled_ during the full moon—"

"How have you been transforming, all these years?" Sirius demanded, as if by barking suddenly like that he could trap Remus into telling the truth.

"It doesn't matter."

"You locked yourself in a cage, didn't you? Or something equally shitty—Morgana's tits, Remus—"

"It doesn't matter," Remus repeated.

Sirius set his jaw. For a long moment, he didn't speak. In another life, Remus would have said his eyes were angry, hurt, disappointed.

"Call Dumbledore," he said roughly. "I want a word with him."

* * *

Harriet was getting so bloody sick of this _stupid_ room. Asteria's picture helped loads, but it couldn't get her out of the room. It couldn't return her life to her—whatever her life had been like.

She'd woken up in this barren, empty room seven days ago. One week.

It felt like forever. Like it was all she'd ever known, sometimes.

She wanted out.

_You have to remember more,_ they said. _There is too much out there yet, it would overwhelm you, you haven't remembered enough to weather it, you must get stronger. . ._

Memories pushed at her, like fish in a net: dark, cold, slimy, unpleasant; like rotting, like unhappiness, like fear. Voices, in a mist, screaming—a mirror that made her feel so desperately lonely—a man with two faces, one of them the face of a monster—a beautiful silver creature bleeding to death on the floor of a forest—

A beautiful, sparkling creature, incapable of being killed or hurt, filling her with hope and happiness. . .

It was one of the only things she remembered that she _wanted_ to remember. And she wanted to remember more of it than she did. Whenever Anaita guided her to meditate, whenever she drifted to sleep at night, Harriet thought of that beautiful thing, trying to know what it was. . . She felt like she'd been chasing it for so long, wanting to know it, to know where it came from, why it came to her, how she could make it stay with her. . .

She could see it now, moving just ahead of her through the darkness, striped by tree trunks in winter, shining more brightly than the snow—she'd wanted to get to it, so badly, because at the other end was. . . was. . .

_Bang. BANG. Kk-k-kk-BANG!_

Harriet woke up fully.

Groaning, she rolled over until her face was pressed into her pillow. _I almost bloody had it!_

And what was that bloody _noise_?

Scowling, she pushed herself onto her elbow and groped for her glasses. There—the window was banging—a shutter come loose? No—something was running into it, attacking it—

It was a tiny owl, not that much larger than her fist, and gray as a dust bunny. It was hurling itself at the window with as much energy as ten owls twice its size. The sight of it was so funny that her annoyance (mostly) dissipated.

"Hang on, keep your feathers on," she said, trying not to laugh at it.

_It's got a letter for you,_ came the thought. That's right; owls delivered letters. Like a lot of the things she'd been remembering, this felt both unnatural and yet not. She didn't understand, but she'd given up trying.

She needed to let the owl in, particularly before it started raining again, like it had been doing all day, but the windows in the quarantine ward didn't open. How to get to it, then?

She slid her gaze toward the door. Maybe one of the windows in the main wing opened. . .

She wasn't supposed to leave the room without someone with her, but no one was scheduled to come for a while. . . And besides, she was sick to death of being mollycoddled and told what she should and shouldn't think and do, who she should and shouldn't meet.

Holding her breath, she pressed her ear against the door, listening for any voices or movement. Nothing.

She eased the door open a fraction and peeped out into the corridor. Empty. All the doors off it were shut, as usual.

Pushing the door just wide enough to slip out, she tip-toed down the hall. At the door to the main hospital wing she listened again, but all seemed quiet.

When she peeped in, she found the whole room empty from stone floor to vaulted ceiling and as silent as the quarantine ward. There didn't even seem to be anyone hiding behind a privacy screen. Odd. Or maybe it wasn't?

Well, whatever it was, she wasn't going to waste the opportunity.

She stole over to the window and cranked it open. Thunder rumbled, unprotected by the muffling glass, and a ferocious wind chapped at her skin.

She whistled for the owl. A moment later, it came winging excitedly into sight, a speck in the distance, and swooped toward her.

"Just in time," she said, stretching out a hand to catch it, "you missed the rain by a hair—"

—and as her fingers closed round its fluffy little body, a memory flashed through her head of catching a small golden ball with vibrating wings; a feeling of triumph, pleasure, happiness—

She pulled the owl inside and shut the window, a bit louder than she meant to. The owl hooted happily, as if wanted nothing more than to be manhandled about.

"Shh!" Cupping it in both her hands, she darted back to the quarantine ward and pulled the door shut behind her.

Her heart jumped at the sound of one of the doors opening.

Resigning herself to the wrath of Madam Pomfrey, she turned, still cradling the owl, and came face-to-face with the man who was stepping out of his room. She saw him jerk to a stop, actually recoiling, as if she was the last person he expected, wanted to see—

—but a wave of memories was rising high, high above her, cresting over her, dragging her under; so many her head was spinning, roiling; so many she couldn't see what was happening around her. . .

She was falling. . .

She thought she was being held up, carried, but she couldn't really tell. She thought she heard him saying something to her, but she couldn't make out any of the words, not even the tone of his voice. Everything that was happening was drowned out by what she was remembering. There was so much of it she couldn't even make out individual parts; she didn't know anything yet, not even his name—

_Severus_ , she thought.

And her memories exploded.

* * *

Miss Potter had stared at him, a look coming over her face of one being exposed to a blinding light—and then her eyes had rolled back and she'd started to collapse, boneless, to the floor—

Severus had caught her before she cracked her head, and got a face full of barmy owl. Both his hands taken with holding up Miss Potter, he couldn't smack it away, but swearing at least made the buggering thing flit off.

He carried Miss Potter—who was completely unresponsive both to his language and the volume of his voice—into her room and laid her down on her bed. She was breathing rapidly, like she was under great physical stress, and her pupils were dilated; she was awake, he supposed, but completely out of it. Locked in another time-distortion? Or were her memories doing this to her? _Shit._

"Miss Potter?" he said, but she made no sign of hearing him. But nobody called her that now, did they? Mrs. Patil used her given name. She might not even know she was Miss Potter.

"Harriet?" he said through grit teeth. The name felt alien, awkward coming from himself. But there was still no reaction.

He heard a clatter in the corridor; Pomfrey's monitor must have gone haywire. Sure enough, a moment later she flung the door open. Mrs. Patil came with her, and behind her, Granger and Weasley, the former looking frightened and the latter determined.

"She was out of her room," Severus said forcefully, before Pomfrey could snap a word of reproach. "And I didn't expect her to be, since she ought _not_ to be, and walked into her—"

Pomfrey whisked her wand over Miss Potter. "And this happened?"

"She's been completely unresponsive since."

"I'm sorry," Mrs. Patil was saying to Granger and Weasley, who were hovering in the doorway. "Your meeting will have to be postponed."

"But—" Weasley started.

"I-is this what would have happened if she'd met us?" Granger asked, face pale, voice tremulous.

"I believe so." Mrs. Patil touched Granger's shoulder, and then Weasley's, turning them gently and guiding them from the room. "We shall see how to proceed when she recovers."

Severus wished she'd just fucking throw them out, but Pomfrey saved him from losing his temper by drawing his attention wholly back to Miss Potter.

"She doesn't seem to be in any danger at present, though her body is showing signs of physical stress—but if it goes on much longer—" She turned toward Mrs. Patil, who'd managed to get rid of Granger and Weasley and was shutting the door. "What do you do when this happens?"

"This is unusual." Mrs. Patil appeared to be in full control of herself as she moved toward the bed. "I believe it's the result of her trying to process a great many memories, both natural—of the past, I mean—and unnatural, of the future." Her gaze skimmed over Severus in a way that made him bristle, although he couldn't interpret what she was thinking.

"But it didn't happen with Asteria Greengrass," Pomfrey persisted. "Surely she had future memories of her, too?"

"The significance of those memories also matters," said Mrs. Patil. Her face had an odd, shuttered expression on it, like she didn't want to be any more specific.

Pomfrey looked confused. Severus felt the same way. . . although he had a sense that what Mrs. Patil _wasn't_ saying was extremely important, and maybe not something he wanted to hear.

"Severus," Pomfrey said then, her eyes going to the window. "You should be. . ."

Going. He should be going. Yes.

Before the moon rose.

_Fuck._

Someone knocked on the door. Severus knew who it was likely to be, and moved to open it before Mrs. Patil could.

Dumbledore stood on the other side, Miss Potter's visiting owl perched on his pointed purple hat.

"This little chap has a letter for Harriet, I believe," said Dumbledore.

Reaching up, he extended his palm, and the owl hopped onto his hand. He untied the many-times-folded note and handed it to Severus, who passed it to Mrs. Patil without a word.

"I think he's a little too excitable to stay with her," Dumbledore said as Severus stepped out of Miss Potter's room, shutting the door behind her. "Is Harriet unwell? I saw Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley leaving—"

"I was just coming to find you when I ran into Miss Potter— _out_ of her room, where she shouldn't have been." But there was a small measure of comfort: if Miss Potter was breaking rules, it was only what she normally did. She might be returning to herself. She might not have been damaged beyond repair, or changed. . .

"It's good to see her getting back to her old self," said Dumbledore as if reading his mind, twinkling in one eye.

_If I didn't just ruin it_. Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn't like him to blame himself for accidents.

"I apologize for being late," Dumbledore said, sounding sincere. "An unexpected matter came to my attention, but it's been dealt with for the time being." The twinkle had faded to a glimmer of compassion and fortitude. "Are you ready?"

Severus wished he hadn't asked, because it put him to the task of answering. And how should he answer? With recrimination? Contempt? Cold reserve? Fear was out of the question.

"Let's just get it over with," he said.

Dumbledore rested his hand on Severus' arm for a moment, taking him aback. But he withdrew it almost at once, as if he hadn't meant to give in to that impulse.

"Whatever happens," he said, "I will be with you."

_Too little, too late,_ Severus wanted to sneer, but he didn't. Because it turned out not to be the case, after all.

As it turned out, he was grateful.


	48. Piecing Back Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of what Lupin tells Harriet about the Patronus (including the Wonderbook: Book of Spells) is either directly taken from the Harry Potter Wiki or is an extrapolation of mine based off of that info + canon.

Harriet awoke in that bloody room, like always.

This was really getting old.

She closed her eyes, so she'd have time to think. . . and then she remembered why she'd been out of it.

She shot up, scanning about the room—realized some daft git had removed her glasses—found them and crammed them on her face—and saw Anaita sitting next to the window, a deck of tarot cards spread out on the table at her elbow.

"Where'd he go?" Harriet asked.

"Who?" Anaita asked, not in the confused way people usually did when they didn't know what you were talking about, but calmly.

"Se—Snape." She'd almost called him Severus. Why? She'd have to be mad. . . no, suicidal. "Professor Snape."

"He accompanied the Headmaster somewhere," said Anaita. "You remember him now, then?"

"He was still in a coma when I did the spell." She blinked. Yes. That's what had happened. Bringing flowers—talking to Snape, who didn't wake up—doing the spell with Parvati and some other girl, the spell that had done this to her.

"You remember the spell." Anaita looked surprised.

"That's what Parvati was always reading," Harriet said slowly. "A book about the spell." She couldn't remember what the spell had done, only that she'd done it. . . and ended up here. It was the reason she'd lost her memory, wasn't it? All they had told her was "time-accident."

A Divinations spell. . . about. . . seeing the future, and. . .

Like a lodestone turning north, her mind pulled back to Snape. "Snape was in a coma because he saved my life. I think." She frowned.

"Well." Anaita still sounded surprised, but a little impressed, too. "You've remembered a great deal more than I expected you to, from that one encounter."

Harriet found herself wanting to talk to Snape very badly. There was something else, something she was supposed to remember, something very important. . .

She tried to relax, to stop thinking about it. Anaita had said not to force things. Maybe soon she'd see something that would prompt another memory-surge. But the thought kept buzzing like a bee in a jar.

"Are you looking at the future?" she asked, glancing at Anaita's cards to distract herself. _The future the future something really important in the future stop thinking about it shut up!_

"I'm playing Solitaire." Anaita smiled. "They don't really tell the future, you know. You lay them out, and you tell the person you're laying them for what they're like now, in the present. But you know that by looking at them. Most of fortune-telling is deductive."

" _Can_ you see the future? Ever?"

"Through focus and meditation, yes, I can." Anaita swept the cards together and stacked them. "But people prefer to think the cards are doing it. I'm an academic, you know, but I'm practical. I see a person's future in my own way, but they only pay me if I lay out the cards and put on a show." She smiled. "I don't mind. The show can be fun. I suppose there's a little bit of the actress in me."

Harriet imagined Anaita in a dark, perfumed room, draped in sequins and tassels, her voice misty and mystical, laying out the cards on a velvet-covered table. She felt like she'd been in such a place, though not with Anaita.

"A letter came for you." Anaita was holding out a ball of parchment that had been so folded in on itself Harriet couldn't even get her nails in it to work it open.

"Here." Anaita waved her wand and the ball unfurled like a flower, revealing parchment inside of parchment. One sheet was old, tattered, dog-eared, blank. It looked familiar, but how did a blank piece of parchment look familiar?

The other was a note, one line only: _'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.'_

Harriet stared at it for a long time. Then she smiled.

She looked up at Anaita to find herself being watched with an expression she didn't understand.

"It's always a blessing to receive letters from loved ones," Anaita said in a soft tone that made Harriet feel suddenly rather sad.

"How did you know?" But then she remembered what Anaita had just told her: _Fortune-telling is deductive_.

"Your smile," said Anaita. She slipped her tarot deck into a velvet purse and tied it shut. "Are you hungry?"

"Okay," Harriet said, more because they fussed when she refused food than from any real desire to eat.

As Anaita left to order dinner, Harriet folded the note up inside the map (smiling, because she _remembered_ ) and placed them under her pillow. And then she froze.

Professor Lupin.

Full moon.

Snape in hospital.

 _Werewolf_.

She scrambled over to the window and looked out at the black sky—but it was overcast. She couldn't see the moon, full or not.

A memory came to her, then, of standing right here and looking out at a clear sky, the moonlight turning the world to silver, draining it of color and warmth, and thinking of something glittering and bright that made her ache with happiness. . .

A doe—silver—

 _Patronus_.

She stood with her hand on the glass as it clicked into place in her mind at last.

Hearing Anaita come softly into the room, she turned.

"Is my wand in here?"

Anaita looked surprised but said, "Yes, it's in the drawer here. Do you want it?"

Harriet nodded. "There's a spell I want to cast."

* * *

The room had no windows, and when they shut the trap, its outline would disappear, leaving four walls of unbroken stone. Four not-very-big walls, damp with neglect, filling his mouth with the taste of algae.

Severus had chosen the oubliette himself. He knew the dungeons better than anyone else in the school; perhaps better than anyone alive. Even Dumbledore had been surprised when Severus had touched the stone that opened the trap in the floor.

"Are you certain this is the place you want, Severus?" Dumbledore asked. He hadn't seemed troubled before, but then Severus had only called it "a room in the dungeons" before now.

"A wolf won't be able to climb out of it," Severus said. _And I'd rather be down there than in a cage._

He kept his wand with him. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving it. A few days ago, Pomfrey had told him he was well enough to use magic again, and handed him his wand with a gentleness he hadn't wanted to contemplate. Now it felt like one last link to his humanity—which was absurd, seeing as werewolves could still use wands.

"I'll be out here," said Dumbledore, "through the night."

Severus nodded, affecting indifference, and conjured a rope with knots placed strategically for climbing. Dumbledore watched him secure it to a bracket in the wall and climb down into the hole. Once he'd touched ground, he flicked the rope for Dumbledore to draw it back up.

"Lower the trap," he called up.

"If necessary," said Dumbledore, "I will."

"I want you to close the trap, Albus." He surprised himself. He never called Dumbledore by his given name.

Silence was his only answer for some time. Then Dumbledore said, "As you wish, Severus," and the stone scraped over the patch of light above his head, blocking him in the dark.

Severus was not afraid of the dark, not even in this dungeon within a dungeon, this place of forgetting. He felt there was a sort of irony there, considering what had happened to Miss Potter.

There was no way of telling time in the oubliette. He made himself as comfortable as he could, but it was only out of habit. There was no way he could be _comfortable._

And he waited.

* * *

The wand felt. . . _right_. . . in her hand. Like it belonged there. Like she belonged with it. She gripped the handle until the carving left imprints on her palm.

"Can I try this by myself?" she asked Anaita.

"Of course. I'll be outside if you need me."

She kissed Harriet's hair and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Harriet thought of the silver doe.

" _Expecto Patronum_ ," she said, her voice clear and firm, like Asteria's when she'd brought her painting to life.

The room filled with white light. All the colors in Asteria's painting washed away, inverting themselves. The tint of the moonlight was swallowed up. Her eyes tingled with brightness, and when it faded. . .

She stared at her Patronus. It stood taller than she did, with powerful, curling antlers and a grave, gentle face.

She smiled, her heart filling with pride, with happiness, and put out her hand. The stag lowered its majestic head to nuzzle at her fingers.

"I need you to go somewhere for me," she whispered. "Can you do that?"

* * *

How much time had passed?

Had the moon risen? Was he still human because he hadn't been bitten or because his sense of time was fractured?

How long had he been resting his forehead against his linked hands, staring into the darkness that he'd not lit his wand to combat?

. . . Where was that light coming from?

The brightness was sudden, startling—yet soothing, comforting. It wasn't the light from the corridor outside; it was. . .

He raised his head from his hands and almost laughed; but the sound caught in his throat.

The stag regarded him with a placid sort of gentleness. He thought _noble_ and _majestic_ , which he'd certainly never thought about James Potter, for all that his Patronus had also been a stag. But this one seemed brighter, more solid; stronger.

"Congratulations, Miss Potter," he said.

The stag bent its head and nuzzled his shoulder. He held as perfectly still as if it was a real animal and he was afraid of startling it.

When it faded, he felt somehow more for its having been there, and lesser for its having gone.

How long it had taken to fade, he couldn't say. How long after that he heard the scrape of the stone being moved overhead, he couldn't say either. The torchlight, harsher than the glow of Miss Potter's powerful Patronus, stung his eyes.

"Severus?" said Dumbledore's voice.

"What?" Severus asked, his own voice sounding rough.

Dumbledore paused. "My boy. . . do you realize it is morning?"

Something powerful rushed through his body, rushed straight out of his heart, through his blood to his bones.

"You're safe, Severus," said Dumbledore. "You haven't turned."

His brain wanted his body to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. His hand went to cover his face, and he forced the breath, the immense, crushing relief that wanted to escape as sobs, out of his lungs. He wouldn't let it; he wouldn't abandon his dignity like that—

He heard the rope slither down and pulled his hand away from his face, sat up, tugging his robes straight. He tried to school his expression into something implacable. But the attempt was forgotten when he saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore was climbing down the rope.

"What are you _doing_?"

"Ah, you're fully with us, then." Dumbledore touched down and lit his wand so that its light glistened off the algaed walls. He took in the oubliette at a glance but fixed almost immediately on Severus, and when he smiled, it was so brilliant and beaming that his beard couldn't hope to hide it.

But Severus didn't return it. No; the opposite—now that his repressed panic had dissipated, now that he knew he had nothing to fear, all the complicated emotions he'd barely had time for in the past two weeks rushed over him. He registered that Dumbledore was reaching out toward him, almost as if to embrace him, in time to recoil.

"Don't you _dare_ —" He was pleased to hear his voice come out harsh and crippling, as if he were in complete control of himself.

Dumbledore stopped as if hit with Impedimenta, his face going blank. "Severus?"

"Get out of my way." Now his voice was deadly dangerous. Good. _Good_. But a sense of panic, from a new source, was rising through him. He needed to get out of here before he lost it completely.

"Severus," Dumbledore said again, and Severus couldn't concentrate to decipher his tone.

Severus stepped round him—difficult in that enclosed space, but Dumbledore didn't try to stop him—seized the rope, and hauled himself up. He was almost surprised his arms were strong enough after a month spent in hospital, or maybe it was adrenaline driving him.

Once he was out of the hole, he strode off. His breath was coming quick and harsh, and he felt almost lightheaded.

He needed to destroy something.

* * *

Remus woke up aching, curled up against something warm and. . . furry.

"Padfoot," he croaked. "Ibiza. . ."

The warmth moved away a little. A moment later, human hands were wrapping him in a blanket with simple, no-nonsense movements, without a single lingering caress. There were no soothing murmurs floating over his head, no queries about the pain, no words at all. Sirius remembered what to do.

Something inside Remus cracked, just a little.

He had no idea how he got from the dungeon room where he transformed to his borrowed bedroom, but he woke up there much later, with a rare patch of late-afternoon sunlight burnishing the ceiling above his bed.

He closed his eyes. "Padfoot?" he called, his voice rough, reedy, hoarse. He sounded like Azkaban-Sirius.

He could tell by the sound of the footfalls that Sirius was human right now.

"Snape?" Remus asked, as soon as Sirius' footsteps paused.

"He's his old blithe, bonny self," Sirius said. "Dumbledore's just told me. You didn't turn him."

Remus thought he might faint from the relief. He felt tears leak out beneath his closed lids, trickling down his temples into his hair.

"I've brought you food," said Sirius. "And you're gonna bloody sit up in bed and eat it like a primadonna, I don't want to hear a syllable about getting yourself to the table."

"Who's the primadonna?" Remus said, half under his breath, but he wasn't going to argue. Sitting up was chore enough, and he barely had strength to grip the utensils.

Sirius was still sly, he reflected as he concentrated on not letting his hands shake or dropping the fork; trying not to let on how hard it was to get through the simple task of cutting his own breakfast and ferrying it to his mouth. He might have lost the ability to read Sirius, but Sirius hadn't forgotten how Remus acted these mornings after the full moon. Eating breakfast was normal, so he clung to it, as Sirius had known he would. It got him through the turmoil of _what would happen now_ ; a question—a million questions in one—that he'd put aside in the struggle to get to this side of the full moon.

He hadn't turned Snape. Thank God. Thank the stars, the planets, thank life itself.

He imagined that possible future dissolving like tissue in water. But the other possibilities, the ones that would become the real future, today, tomorrow, and every day after that, arrayed themselves grimly before him. He didn't even know where to begin.

So he ate his breakfast and let Sirius make his tea, and tried to live that fifteen minutes of normalcy without wondering what would come next.

* * *

Harriet woke to a feeble bit of sun creeping across the walls, lying on top of her blankets instead of under them. She'd left the shutters open so she could watch the setting of the moon. . . and had fallen asleep, the map crinkled under her cheek.

After pulling on her dressing-gown, she opened the door to her room and went to the room across the hall, the one she'd seen Snape coming out of yesterday. The door opened easily. The room inside was empty, all the impersonal furniture bare and unmarked, as if nobody had ever lived here, even for four weeks.

But. . . surely that meant he was okay? If he'd turned into a werewolf, surely he'd be here, he'd not have moved out already?

"Miss Potter, what is it you think you're doing?" Madam Pomfrey's sharp voice demanded. Harriet turned to find the matron bearing down on her, starched from shoe soles to hairline, nostrils flaring like a dragon's.

"Is Snape okay?" Harriet asked immediately.

"He has not been infected." For a moment Madam Pomfrey actually smiled with relief. Then she was monumentally stern again. "Now, I assume you're going to tell me what you were doing out of your room? Now as _well_ as yesterday."

"I was getting the owl—it had a letter for me."

Last night, after Anaita had gone, Harriet had touched her wand to the map and whispered the password, and run her fingers over the lines of Hogwarts from topmost tower to lowest dungeon. She'd seen and remembered Gryffindor Tower, Hagrid's hut, the Quidditch Pitch, and had thought about them hard enough to push the memory of that dark cupboard away. Red and gold, the smell of tea and Hagrid's teeth-cracking rock-cakes, green grass and golden hoops, the Snitch glittering as she chased it. . .

She'd stared at two dots labeled _Ronald Weasley_ and _Hermione Granger_ sitting side-by-side in Gryffindor Tower until she'd fallen asleep with her hand pressed over their spot on the parchment.

"It was a reckless and dangerous thing to do, Miss Potter," said Madam Pomfrey. "We are keeping you isolated for your benefit."

Harriet didn't reply. To apologize would be insincere, as she wasn't sorry at all. She appreciated how hard Anaita was working for her sake, but that accidental run-in with Snape and reading the Marauder's Map had restored more memories to her in just a few hours than all the careful guidance of the seven days before.

"Can I see Ron and Hermione today?" she asked.

"You will have to speak with Mrs. Patil. Now, back to your room."

But when Anaita visited after breakfast, she was perfectly willing. "It's unusual for someone to benefit from such sudden exposure," she said to Harriet, "but I've been talking to your Head of House, and she says you learned to fly by diving through the air."

Draco Malfoy had stolen something from Neville and flown off with it, something small and light and glittering, and Harriet had caught it when he threw it toward the ground. She'd been made Seeker for that. It was the first time she'd really felt like a witch, like she belonged at Hogwarts: when she was flying.

* * *

The days settled into a new pattern, one Harriet liked so much better.

She saw Hermione and Ron, at first separately, and then together, every day. She saw Asteria again. Neville brought her flowers. Ginny hugged her so tightly her shoulders twinged. Parvati started off in tears and ended up in awe of that strange sort of time-travel that had taken all of Harriet's memories, shaken them up, and failed to put them back where it found them.

"Do you remember _anything_ from the future?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"I don't think so," Harriet said, though she often wasn't sure. "Some stuff is still out of order. . ."

"Mummy says you're very strong," said Parvati, going serious again. When she looked grave like that, her resemblance to Anaita tripled. ( _I have my mum's eyes_ , Harriet thought _._ ) "I think she looked at your future. She's said it's easier when the person is going to have a lot of major things happening to them. I guess that's why the spell worked for you like that."

Anaita hadn't mentioned anything to Harriet about reading her future. Perhaps there were still too many things from the past to remember right now, she thought Harriet didn't need anything extra.

"I hope you feel better soon," said Parvati as she left. "It's not the same without you. Lavender and Hermione haven't quarreled in _days_. And that ugly cat of Hermione's has taken over your bed."

Harriet didn't know why Lavender (so _that_ was the fourth girl's name) and Hermione fighting was something to hurry back to, but she supposed she understood what Parvati really meant.

Professor McGonagall came to visit, actually smiling, which Harriet couldn't remember her doing before. She hugged Harriet before she left, and Harriet knew that hadn't happened before.

Professor Lupin came, his face too young for all that silver hair, all those lines. He brought a letter that said only, " _I'm back. Dumbledore knows,_ "with an inky paw print for a signature. At first Harriet didn't understand, and then she squawked:

"Is he _mad_?"

"He's certifiable," said Professor Lupin dryly. Then he looked at her. "I'm so sorry," he said.

Was he apologizing for what had happened last month? Harriet couldn't remember anything else, but surely he'd apologized for that already? "I don't think you need to be."

He only shook his head, like he felt too much to speak.

Harriet felt peculiarly happy and sad after that visit. It was like the emotions were so entwined she couldn't wrap them round one thing or the other; they just went together.

She remembered her mum's letter.

When the weather warmed, Harriet walked the grounds, wading through the melting, muddy snow with Anaita on weekdays, with Ron and Hermione in the evenings and on weekends. One day Hagrid joined them, but Harriet had already remembered him. It felt right to give him a hug.

After Professor Lupin's visit, the most complicated one was Professor Dumbledore's. That was when she really remembered Voldemort. But by then, she'd already remembered so many of the things he'd done, it was only like putting a name to a face at last.

As March flowed into April, Professor Dumbledore started spending several hours a day with her, reviewing spells. Like all of her life-memories, the magic she'd been taught at school was still in her head, just disordered. They spent most of April on first year lessons, and made good progress, but Harriet had to ask. . .

"What am I going to do about missing almost two full terms?"

"An excellent question," said Dumbledore, smiling. "Timely, if you'll forgive the pun. I have been talking with your professors, and in light of what's happened, we've decided to give you the option of dropping Divination and pursuing a course of. . . independent study, shall we say. I'm afraid you might find it a little dull, but we think it best to keep you on through the first part of the summer, to see how far we can get you. We'll focus on the key components of third-year study that you'll need in order to find your feet in year four, and anything else can be reviewed when you'd normally be in Professor Trelawney's class."

A summer at Hogwarts instead of with the Dursleys? _And_ giving up all those hours in Trelawney's stuffy attic, listening to her predict everyone's doom?

"I'd like that, sir," Harriet said fervently.

"Splendid!" Dumbledore beamed. "I only hope Miss Granger isn't too jealous that you'll be studying through the summer."

And so, as winter gave way to spring (sometimes grudgingly, with days of driving rain and blustering wind transforming to long days full of sunlight), Harriet's past unfolded and her future settled itself into a predictable shape. She was relieved, and should have been almost happy.

But not once did Snape ever come to see her.

* * *

"You seem subdued, Severus," said Minerva. "Is it Slytherin's prospects for the House Cup?"

"I don't see why I should be worried about my House prospects if you aren't worried about yours." Two months prior (had it really been that long ago?), he'd returned to his duties with grim determination to make up for all those futile, languishing days when his authority had been taken from him like his wand. The other Heads' relief at having him back had had the life expectancy of a dandelion in a blast furnace.

"I'd ask if you had your sense of humor surgically removed," Minerva said tartly, "except I'm well aware you never had one."

Severus had never understood why people always accused _you_ of having no sense of humor when _they_ were the ones who hadn't managed to say anything funny.

"I'm trying to cheer you up," she said, as if it was his fault for not translating My-Good-House-Is-Beating-Your-Evil-House to something positive. "You've been moping for the past two months at least."

"I don't mope," he said (and even to his own ears it sounded mopey).

"Usually, no. You brood, rather, or sulk. But there has been definite moping this spring, Severus. We've all noticed it."

Normally he would have taken umbrage at the thought of Minerva and her posse sitting round the staff-room discussing his moping-versus-brooding state, but somehow it failed to rouse his ire this time. Instead of replying, he drank a mouthful of tea, and almost spat it out. Sprout had brewed it from some special blend of her own making, and it tasted like a Quidditch player's dirty socks. He thought about insulting it, but couldn't bring himself to care.

Maybe Minerva was right. Life seemed extremely dull lately. Something was badly off if he couldn't even be arsed to insult Sprout's truly disgusting tea.

"I really think you ought to make up with Albus," Minerva said. Her tone wasn't scolding but advisory.

There: a flicker of anger. Minerva must have seen it, because she went on more firmly:

"You're _both_ moping, it's obvious to everyone. Albus won't stop buying socks, and last week when Longbottom's potion exploded and turned his nose into a cucumber, you sent him to the hospital without taking even a single point. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone had impersonated you."

"You _want_ me to return to docking points from your Gryffindors right and left?"

"Being deliberately obtuse is like your old self," Minerva said dryly. "I _want_ to know what the matter is, man, and what can be done to fix it."

"I thought you'd already diagnosed it," he said irritably. Minerva sighed.

"Why are you avoiding Albus? Is it because of Remus?"

The anger was more than a flicker that time. As before, Minerva went on: "Albus tried to make the best of a bad bargain. The children need someone teaching them Defense—"

He clenched his teeth together so he wouldn't say, _I could teach them Defense— When I came to him, I told him everything, I had no secrets, and he used_ me, _like Lupin did this time— Use the Slytherin, it's all their good for _—_ He's given Lupin everything, forgiven him, without conditions, not a single one—_

"—and being short-staffed in the middle of the year, after going through this last year," Minerva prated on. "I think Albus knew he'd have to set aside his Headmaster's duties to assist Miss Potter—"

"He made up his mind about keeping Lupin _before_ she had her accident."

Minerva paused. "True," she acknowledged. "But even so, this is a further demand on his time, of which he has little to spare."

Severus understood the _logistics_ of keeping Lupin on: the appointment was hard enough to staff every year without needing to do it twice. But (as he refused to tell Minerva) Dumbledore wasn't acting from logical motives. He liked Lupin, he preferred him to Severus, he always would. But Minerva wouldn't agree with that, or she'd agree with Dumbledore. When it came to Severus, they always picked someone else, took that other person's side.

Minerva sighed, and Severus read in it the understanding of a woman who knows she's not getting anywhere. She wasn't a fool, and she'd more or less known him since he was eleven years old.

"I don't like seeing two of my friends unhappy, you know."

"So I should put aside my own feelings, because my unhappiness makes _you_ unhappy. I'm not unhappy," he added peevishly, feeling the idiot.

"That isn't what I mean and you know it," Minerva said, "and yes, you are. We all get lonely, Severus—"

"Spare me," he snarled, shoving his cup onto the table, in preparation for storming off. But Minerva, too, was a Gryffindor; without batting an eye, she went on:

"If you're upset with Albus, you might try telling him—"

"When has that _ever_ worked? The Great Albus Dumbledore does exactly as he wishes, with regard to no one's feelings but his own—"

He turned on his heel, toward the door, and stopped. Dumbledore had been coming into the staff-room, but now he stood with his hand on the doorknob, looking straight at Severus. Minerva made a soft noise, like a sad _Oh_.

Without a word, Dumbledore stepped back into the hall and let the door swing gently shut.

"It makes no difference to me," Severus said coldly, and left.

As he stalked down the (empty) corridor, he refused to admit that the unpleasant tightness in his chest was not the justifiable anger of a person confronted with one of the last people on earth whom he wished to talk to, but regret.

* * *

Lupin pulled open his door, smiling. "Hello, Harriet, it's good to see you. You look like you made it all right—more than."

Harriet nodded. She brushed her hand over the map that was tucked away in her pocket. "Didn't have any attacks at all."

He ushered her into his quarters, which looked mostly the same—she thought—except for the presence beside the fire of a lumpy pillow covered with black dog hair. But she only got the quickest look at it before something enormous and furry bowled her over, knocking her to the carpet.

"PADFOOT!" Lupin didn't sound amused one whit, but Harriet was laughing as Padfoot licked all over her face, his tail thumping loudly.

"I'm sorry." Lupin sounded exasperated as he hauled Padfoot off of her. "He's been spending too much time as a dog—not that he ever really knew how to behave as a man—"

"It's all right." Harriet scratched behind Padfoot's ears, making him whine. "I think of him as a dog, really." Padfoot whuffed.

Lupin ordered tea—the full meal, with jam-and-butter scones, pancakes, and clotted cream—and they sat beside the fire to eat, which was a cozy move. Although it was nearly May, it had been pouring for six days straight. Padfoot lay at Harriet's feet, a warm, doggy rug. It felt nice to have been missed so very much. She wiggled her toes against his flank and he wagged his tail.

"How are your lessons going?" asked Lupin.

"Professor Dumbledore says I'm making good progress. He says I shouldn't worry, it's only what I'll be doing for O.W.L.s in a couple of years." (She'd made the mistake of mentioning this to Hermione and sent her into a brief tailspin of panic.)

"He's right, there," Lupin said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Hermione started studying tomorrow."

Harriet experienced an odd mixture of emotions: surprise that Lupin should have guessed, that he knew Hermione so well—jealousy that he might know Hermione better than she did, at this point. She told herself she was just being stupid.

"Ron says she started studying yesterday," she said, and Lupin laughed.

"Er. . . I wanted to show you something," she said after she'd swallowed the last of her (very messy) jam-covered scone. "Erm. Both of you, I guess."

Lupin looked curious. Padfoot raised his head from his paws, lifting his ears.

Harriet wiped her jammy fingers on a napkin, suddenly feeling self-conscious. She told herself there was no reason to. She knew how to do this.

Taking out her wand, she said firmly, " _Expecto Patronum_."

The room glimmered with bright, silvery light.

Lupin held perfectly still, staring. Padfoot did the same. The stag regarded them tranquilly, majestically.

They still did not move. When it faded, they sat staring at the place it had stood, still frozen.

Harriet felt suddenly awkward. It occurred to her that maybe she ought to have warned them.

"I'm sorry—" she said.

"Why should you be sorry?" Lupin's voice was hoarser than usual. Still looking at the place where her Patronus (she'd taken to calling it 'Prongs') had stood, he reached out and took her hand. "My dear child," he said, "there's no reason in the world to be sorry."

"I. . ." Now Harriet wondered if it would be intruding, to ask what she wanted to know. "Is that what my dad looked like? When he transformed."

"He was a stag, yes—did you remember I told you?" Lupin finally looked at her, though Padfoot still hadn't turned. "As to whether that's Prongs exactly. . . I can't tell you that, I'm afraid. The Patronus typically takes the form of the animal with which we each share the deepest affinity. For Animagi, their Patronus and Animagus are usually represented by the same animal, for that reason—you share the deepest affinity with the animal you transform into—so his Patronus was also a stag. There are different breeds of stag, though."

"Why would mine be a stag, though?" Harriet asked. She'd wanted to discuss this with Snape, but he didn't care about her anymore, he never came by. "Since I'm a girl? Why's it not a doe?"

"I'm not sure that's something anyone could tell you," Lupin said, smiling slightly, "but stags. . . well, in James' case, he liked to. . . issue challenges, shall we say, and was a bit of a boaster. King of the Forest, we used to call him. But mythologically speaking, stags have many associations. In Scotland it's seen as a noble creature. Warriors and heroes were compared to stags in Gaelic poetry."

This made Harriet feel much more impressive than she suspected she really was.

Padfoot finally returning to lying on her feet again, resting his head on his paws. His tail did not wag, but he pressed his head against her ankles.

"So lots of people have Patronuses that aren't the same, um, gender as them?"

"I'm afraid don't know the answer to that," Lupin said. "It's not as easy to tell if you've a male or female sparrow as it is to tell if you've a male or female deer. It doesn't bother you, I hope? Having a stag."

"Oh, no," Harriet said, surprised. "I was just wondering, is all. Someone told me that meant it was strong. . . 'cause it's a strong animal."

"That's a common belief," Lupin said, smiling again. "That some animals are worthier, more powerful than others—but the wizard Illyius, whose Patronus was a mouse, was able to drive away a hoard of Dementors when many stronger Patronuses, like bears and wild boars, failed."

Harriet hadn't heard that story. Lupin must have sensed her curiosity, because he summoned a book from its shelf.

"This might help you," he said. "Also with your review."

 _Wonderbook: Book of_ Spells, she read. It was made of purple leather with heavy, baroque accents in gold.

"It's, er, sort of a children's book, really. The Hogwarts library lost its copy years back and never replaced it. . . I've found that Muggleborn students take to it because it relates fables that wizard-born children grew up hearing."

"Thanks," Harriet said, leafing through it. The pages were heavy and hand-printed with beautiful lettering. There were drawings, too, rather flat and stylized, but greatly detailed.

" _That_ book," Lupin nodded at it, "suggests that a Patronus' form doesn't indicate its strength, just the caster's affinity with a particular animal. Its theory is that the strength of a Patronus is entirely reliant on the purity of the caster's heart. The impure of heart can only produce maggots."

"Eurgh." Harriet had just found that picture: a craggy-faced wizard in thick fur robes surrounded by a cloud of maggots. "So, the purer the heart. . ."

"The stronger the Patronus." Lupin smiled. "Of course, the theory is reliant on the fable of Illyius. The charm itself is so difficult to cast, and nobody has a satisfactory answer as to why. After all, Raczidian's maggots prove he was capable of performing the charm, though not of producing an actual Patronus. A lot of people can barely get a wisp of silvery vapor, and some people never manage to produce a corporeal Patronus—that's where you can see what shape it takes. Yours is corporeal."

"What's yours like?"

"Mine isn't corporeal." His smile turned self-deprecating. "Sometimes it goes as far as getting four legs, but that's as much as anyone can tell. Lily's was corporeal, though," he added. "Hers was a doe."

A frisson went through Harriet. She felt like she stood on the edge of a long drop, leaning into a sharp wind. "R-really?"

"Everyone in the—" He coughed. "All their friends used to take the mickey out of her and James dreadfully, saying they were meant for each other. James was always dead chuffed, and Lily used to threaten everyone with hexes, but it pleased her, too." He fell silent (looking back into the past, Harriet guessed. She knew what that felt like).

Her face was tingling. Snape's Patronus and her mum's were both does. . . Snape wouldn't tell her he and her mum had been friends, he wouldn't tell her what his Patronus was. . . and Aunt Petunia, she'd said. . .

"Would—do two people ever have the exact same Patronus? I don't mean like they're both cats, or even boy-girl deer. . . but does someone ever have a Patronus that's exactly. . . exactly like someone they're—in love with or something?"

Lupin looked surprised, then thoughtful. "As you've surely noticed, there's a lot we don't know about the Patronus," he said slowly. "I've heard of it changing as part of a great emotional upheaval. . . but I've known people to be very much in love and have radically different Patronuses. Like Neville's parents—hers was a seal, his was a boar. I don't feel I've answered your question," he said apologetically.

"It's okay," Harriet said, giving herself a mental shake. "I was only curious."

"You don't know someone else with a stag for a Patronus, do you?" He smiled, like he was joking. "Someone you absolutely can't stand?"

"Thank Merlin, no." She made herself laugh. "If it was Malfoy, I'd write a whole chapter for this book on how bogus it is, thinking you're in love 'cause you've got the same Patronus."

Lupin chuckled. The fire popped, dragging his attention to it. He glanced up at the clock on the mantle. "When did they want you back? About five, was it? Do you want an escort?"

"I can handle it," Harriet said, smiling to show she didn't mean to be rude, she just wanted to do these things herself.

"Somehow I thought you'd say that."

He opened the door for her. Padfoot followed, licking her hand and whining sadly. She hugged him and (now that he'd had many baths) kissed the top of his head.

"See you later," she said to him, and to Lupin, "Thanks for the book—and for telling me stuff about Patronuses—and for the tea."

"Not at all. It was my pleasure." He waved as she left, and stood in his doorway with Padfoot until she rounded the corner and was out of sight.

She ducked behind a tapestry into a hidden staircase and pressed the _Wonderbook: Book of Spells_ against her chest to try and slow her heartbeat. She didn't know why she felt all twisted up like this.

A memory kept coming back to her, of Hermione reading an old book, old like this one, and saying, " _I suppose it's that debt you told me about, the one to your father._ "

" _Snape took care of that last year, though_ ," Harriet had said. . . And Hermione had said something like, " _Apparently Professor Snape doesn't think so_ ," and Harriet had guessed Snape was waiting till he saved her from something directly, like a runaway lorry.

Last year, Snape had acted all overprotective while there was a threat against the school ( _Voldemort's Riddle's Basilisk the diary Ginny sword_ ). . . and had returned to ignoring her once that danger was over. And first year, when she'd first met him, he'd ignored everything to do with her except for those moments when Quirrell had threatened her, like at the Quidditch match when he'd refereed. . .

She remembered now. And in light of what she'd just learned. . .

She'd asked herself before, hadn't she, whether Snape had been in love with her mum. Now she knew, didn't she? Maybe Professor Dumbledore had told her about a life debt to her dad because they didn't want her knowing what Snape had felt for her mum. For some reason. Why? She'd have been happy to know that, if they'd told her straight, if Snape wasn't so bottled up and thorny.

It was nice to have the mystery solved. It was. Snape's Patronus was like her mum's because he'd been in love with her. She was _sure_ that was it. His Patronus was an exact replica of hers twelve and a half years after she'd died. That's how much he'd loved her. He'd been so dead-set on protecting her in memory of her mum. When Harriet was safe, as far as Snape was concerned, she didn't matter.

There was absolutely no reason to feel small and sad about that. None at all.

* * *

Two days after that frustrating tea with Minerva, Severus received a short note, in Albus' familiar, curly handwriting. Were the curls somehow subdued, to use Minerva's word?

Preposterous.

The note read:

 _Dear Severus_ ,

_I am keeping Harriet at Hogwarts until the end of July so that she may catch up on the classes she's missed after her accident. Minerva, Fillius, Pomona and Hagrid are all on board. Do you consent to reviewing Potions?_

_Yours, Albus_

Oh, the clever, wily. . .

Severus had often been astonished that Dumbledore hadn't been in Slytherin: not because he was brilliant and made unscrupulous connections, but because he followed through with them. This letter (with its _dears_ and _yourses_ , neither of which were accidental) aimed to accomplish several things:

1) Severus would have to reply to it, and a reply to a letter was as good a spoken answer. Replying would dismantle the two months of absolute silence, for good. He could not revert without looking supremely foolish.

2) It was a concession to his judgment, as immediately banishing Miss Potter to Petunia (as Severus had told him when they were still speaking) was the worst thing anyone could possibly do to Miss Potter in her current, vulnerable state.

3) It was a concession to the burden Dumbledore had placed on him twelve and a half years ago, for how could he properly protect Miss Potter if she was being starved and neglected?

In other words, it was an olive branch that manipulated Severus into bridging the cold silence between them: a peace-offering designed to mend their relationship, because Severus had to reply and of course he would comply.

Just not right away.

For the next few days, he went about his business as usual. He took his meals in the Great Hall, shunning Dumbledore (and Minerva increasingly, as she tried to play peacekeeper). He taught his tedious classes, docking points from Gryffindor for transgressions so stupid he couldn't remember what they were later. He even told Granger she was a show-off and Longbottom he was hopeless as a Flobberworm, and didn't derive any satisfaction from it. In fact, he felt like he was trying to reignite some spark that had extinguished itself.

Maybe he did miss Dumbledore's prating, his would-be witticisms, his maddening little proverbs, his relentless offers of sweets. . . But that didn't feel like the answer. He couldn't imagine any kind of catharsis that would accompany his signature on a piece of parchment, tied to the leg of a featherbrained owl and sent winging through the springtime dusk toward the Headmaster's office.

Maybe Dumbledore wasn't the answer after all.

Though he was damned if he knew what the answer was.

He kept himself awake, trying to puzzle it out.

About five nights after he'd first received the letter, something clicked into place inside his head, a realization that made him spill his water goblet across his dinner plate.

"Severus?" asked Flitwick.

Severus didn't bother to reply. He shoved away from the table and strode out of the Great Hall as fast as he could without running. Once out of everyone's sight, he did break into a run, down the dungeon stairs and along the flickering, torchlit corridors to his quarters. He threw open the door with a spell and summoned the scroll before he reached the room, and caught the parchment before he'd made it through the doorway.

Unrolling it, he skimmed down the page. He read it twice to be certain. Then he sat down to think of what it could mean.

Miss Potter's account of her upcoming summer did not include Hogwarts anywhere in it. This. . . this was a new development.

Was the future already changing?

Casting the scroll aside, he went to find a quill and ink, and Dumbledore's letter.

He wrote back with only one word.

* * *

_End of Prisoner of Azkaban_

_To Be Continued in Part Three: The Goblet of Fire_

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end of PoA - after 712 double-spaced pages in my word file, and 196,468 words. I only tell you that in order for you to appreciate why I'm now going to give a huuuge THANK YOU! to those of you who have read and supported me along the way. The fact that you continue to read and, even more humbling, be excited has really kept me going. No joke. Hugs and kisses to you ALL.
> 
> A little explanation about this fic: I started writing it last summer, and had finished all of CoS before I started posting in October. (Six months ago! That seems amazing to me, to think it's been that long.) I started posting because I'd started a new (difficult, draining) job and was having trouble continuing with my writing, and I knew from experience that posting would give me an incentive to keep going. And what an incentive you've given me. I'm still as much in love with this fic as ever, and that's thanks in part to all of you.
> 
> Next we'll march on with the Goblet of Fiyah~ I don't know when, exactly... Work is going to be pretty demanding for the next couple of months. But you'll see updates here as soon and as often as I can swing them.
> 
> At this point I'm not planning on starting a separate post to continue this story, because it's really about Snape and Harriet's relationship, and that continues evolving through the next four books.
> 
> My love to you all,
> 
> L


	49. Nightmares, Fripperies, Frivolities and Conspiracies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Separately, Harriet and Severus deal with Malfoys in Diagon Alley. Far away in Scotland, Remus deals with Sirius, and everyone has their eye on tomorrow, when the World Cup begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, my endless thanks for your continued support. You are wonderful, dear ones. xoxo

 

 

PART THREE: THE GOBLET OF FIRE

_Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens._

_-The Fellowship of the Ring_

* * *

Harriet awoke from the dream with her heart beating hard.

If her scar hadn't been burning, she'd have thought something had exploded in the house; she'd come awake so suddenly, with such a feeling of fear. But Hermione's room was quiet, just the fish tank burbling, the ceiling fan going _clack clack clack_ as it rotated. Outside on the street, a car drove past, its headlights gleaming along the alley wall outside Hermione's window.

Hermione's breath was deep and even. Harriet considered waking her up and telling her about the dream. . . but Hermione would only panic, and there was nothing her panic could do. It wouldn't stop the burning in her scar, and it probably wouldn't stop the hard, heavy beat of her heart.

Hand pressed over her forehead (her skin was cool, though the scar itself felt so hot), Harriet groped for her glasses and tucked them onto her face. She rolled out of the trundle bed as quietly as she could and let herself out of the room.

In the bathroom, she clicked on the light. She'd been expecting her scar to be an angry red, like she'd been branded, but it looked normal, a pinkish lightning bolt. It was still prickling, though. It didn't prickle any more or less when she ran her fingers over it.

No dream had ever made her scar hurt before. No dream, just. . .

Voldemort. He'd been in the dream.

 _(Was_ it only a dream?)

Her reflection showed her looking pale, her shoulder-length hair even messier than normal. Her t-shirt stuck to the small of her back, and her skin felt clammy. She did not remotely feel like going back to bed and lying in the darkness, listening to Hermione breathe in her sleep and counting the number of cars that drove quietly past in the hours before dawn.

She'd go to the kitchen. That way, if anyone heard her and came into see what was wrong, she could just say she was getting a drink of water.

She'd never dreamed about Voldemort before, she thought as she filled a glass with water from the pitcher Jean kept in the fridge. She'd suffered memories of him all last year, but her scar had never hurt except when he was physically present.

But did that mean. . .

She held perfectly still, listening to the Muggle sounds of the Grangers' house around her, the neighborhood beyond its walls. Everything sounded normal for the middle of the night. If Voldemort was walking up the street toward her, she wouldn't be able to hear it from in here. . .

But. . . that picture didn't seem right. She strained her memory back to the dream. Wormtail had been there, with Voldemort. . . taking care of him? Voldemort had said something about not being strong, relying on Wormtail. . . and when Voldemort had wanted to face that Muggle who'd surprised them, Wormtail had moved the whole chair around. . .

Harriet shivered. She couldn't remember what he looked like now. . . just his slit-pupiled white face in the back of Quirrell's head. Surely there was more to him than that, because how could he exist as just a _face_?

When he'd possessed Quirrell, he'd made himself a part of his body. He'd needed Quirrell to drink from unicorns to sustain him, he'd wanted the Philosopher's Stone to make an elixir that would restore him. . . and now he had Wormtail to do Quirrell's job, it sounded like. . . only there were no unicorns now, were there? And instead of the Philosopher's Stone, Voldemort had said he needed. . .

 _Me_.

The thought made her shiver again, so she put her water glass down sharply.

"Bugger off," she muttered, and she wasn't sure whether she meant the fear or Voldemort himself. Probably both.

Should she tell someone? Probably. No one would accuse her of grandstanding or paranoia. No, it'd be the opposite: they'd probably panic and drag her back to the Hogwarts, or to the Dursleys. Eurgh.

She briefly indulged in a fantasy of writing to Snape: " _Just thought you'd like to know, Voldemort's back to plotting against me, in case you'd like to start caring again."_ But she wouldn't. Among other things, he'd probably try to bar her from going to the Quidditch World Cup. She wasn't going to miss it just because Voldemort was scheming to kill her. He'd been doing that all her life and she was still walking round, wasn't she, while he was little more than a disembodied head relying on creeps like Quirrell and Wormtail.

No, she wouldn't tell Snape. But she knew who she would write to.

Unsticking a note pad from the side of the fridge, she pulled a sheet off the bottom (since the top sheet was compiling a grocery list), and wrote with the matching pen: _Dear Sirius and Remus._

She paused, chewing on a piece of her hair. Their last letter was somewhere in her trunk, so she'd have to reply by memory. She'd not got around to it before, because the Grangers had come to sweep her away from the Dursleys the day after Remus and Sirius had written. Only nine days at the Dursleys, and almost eleven months before she had to see them again—

Bugger Voldemort for messing up that feeling.

 _Sorry for not replying to your letter before now,_ she wrote. _T_ _he Grangers came to get me the day after I got it, and I sort of forgot I hadn't replied. Thank God they came, though—Dudley's had to go on a diet, he's grown so fat, and there was nothing to eat on Privet Drive except some grapefruit. Dudley didn't seem any smaller when I left—but he didn't seem any bigger, either, so maybe it_ is _working. He's about the size of a baby killer whale, so the grapefruit has a lot to sustain._

_Something weird happened just now, and I wasn't sure what to do about it. My scar started hurting—not looking funny or anything, but burning, like inside. It's happened before when Voldemort was around, but I don't reckon he can be anywhere near here, can you? Do you think maybe it's just a curse scar thing?_

She tapped her pen against the note pad. Should she tell them about the dream? Maybe she should write to Remus separately. . . she didn't want Sirius charging down to London and bursting through the Grangers' front door to make sure Voldemort hadn't killed her. He was still a wanted criminal, after all.

She decided to end the letter as if worry wasn't crawling through her like smoke and she wasn't concealing anything at all.

_Today I'm going to the Weasleys with Hermione—Ron's dad got everyone tickets to the Quidditch World Cup! Love, Harriet_

She folded it up. She wouldn't send it till morning, when Hedwig returned from hunting.

She still didn't feel sleepy. She wished Sirius and Remus had a phone, so she could ring them. But they were staying in some wizard cottage up in Scotland, not too far from Hogwarts. Remus had mentioned something in his last letter about there being a phone box on the walk into town, but it would be useless in the middle of the night.

Well. Maybe now that she'd done something about her scar, she could get back to sleep. She should try, anyway. Jean was taking her and Hermione to an eye doctor after breakfast, and then to Diagon Alley afterward to get their school things, and from there she and Daniel would drive them to the Weasleys. It was going to be a long day.

Switching off the light, she headed back to bed.

* * *

A tiered chandelier hung from the ceiling, a massive structure of glittering crystal suspended by candyfloss wires. The little round tables beneath it had just circumference enough to seat three well-bred people who kept their elbows to themselves. Everything was meticulously ordered without appearing to be so: charming instead of tedious.

Severus found it incredibly tedious. Narcissa would have said it was the Muggle blood in him, but he thought it was closer to some base urge that had fused itself to his soul, perhaps passed along through his father's blood, like his nose, or acquired in childhood, like his accent. He was always at war with himself: the desire to speak crisply, to behave circumspectly; the itch to swear and upend the table; the necessity of keeping one's elbows neatly tucked in all throughout dinner so as not to jostle one's well-bred neighbor; and the urge to stretch out one's legs and slouch in the chair and Summon the salt across the table.

But the coffee was good. 

Narcissa was ignoring the snacks she'd ordered for Draco, whenever he'd be arsed to show up. Even had she liked sweets, her dress would have been too tight to permit her swallowing anything thicker than coffee. It had to be the fashion on the Continent; all the women at neighboring tables were looking at her with a feverish humiliation.

"I don't suppose you've given any thought to my advice?" Narcissa asked.

Severus scanned through his memory of their conversation, but drew a blank. "What advice would that be?"

"Getting married, my peach, of course."

He almost choked on his coffee. Then he almost bleated _When did you?_ But then he remembered. Last summer, in Milan. At her club, the night he was brought the note of her cousin's escape.

Her inviting him along to her ladies' club, where men were only permitted as guests to the female members, took on new significance. He thought she'd done it simply to be _outre_ —inviting himself and her son, _two_ male guests to a ladies-only club—but had she brought him here to look about? Or to parade him around?

No, impossible. Narcissa had eyes and she wasn't stupid. The marriage proposal (hah) aside.

(What _was_ the explanation for that?)

"I still think it would be a good idea, you know," she went on. "Someone to make you a little more. . . comfortable."

"People make me comfortable when they are far away, where I don't have to listen to their prating."

"I'd suggest marrying someone rather younger," Narcissa said, ignoring him. "Then you can train her up, you know. If Lucius had had any sense, he'd have waited ten years and found a bride straight out of school. Young girls are very foolish, they'll listen to anything you tell them."

This had not been Severus' experience with young girls. In fact, he'd always found it to be the opposite.

"Is someone blackmailing you?" he said. "No—that wouldn't make any sense. . . nobody would _want_ their daughter to marry me."

"I beg your pardon, Severus," said Narcissa, setting down her cup with an admonishing _clink._ "How can you ask me such a thing?"

Narcissa had enough dirt to blackmail every single woman in this room. It _was_ unthinkable that any of them could turn the tables, even if they desired to. Her record was impeccable enough cut glass. Blackmail had helped her there, too.

"It's equally improbable that you could seriously believe a woman of _any_ age would think of marrying me."

"Severus, my dove, these things are contractual. If you're thinking of love, you needn't be so. . . middle-class. I could easily find someone suitable who wouldn't be so squeamish as you're clearly imagining."

"So there's someone _you're_ thinking of blackmailing. Has she got her untenable, ill-bred eye fixed on Draco?"

" _Everyone_ has her eye fixed on Draco," said Narcissa, coolly but with a gleam of pride. "You needn't look for plots where there are none, Severus. I'm only thinking of you."

Severus found this unlikely. It wasn't a Slytherin thing to do, and it certainly wasn't a Narcissa Black Malfoy thing to do.

She held his gaze over the rim of her coffee cup. He wasn't going to be the first to look away. Something would catch her attention, and she would have to break off. Someone would say—

" _Why_ are you two trying to out-stare each other?" asked a posh, drawling voice.

Narcissa looked away, with the warmest, most genuine smile she was capable of giving. Severus couldn't count it a victory when the match was abandoned so his opponent could turn her attention on someone infinitely more important than himself.

"What took you so long, my darling?" Narcissa asked, putting out her hand. Draco took it and bowed slightly over it, a gracefully negligent gesture.

"Looking at the Firebolts, of course," he drawled. "Hullo, Severus."

"What did you call me?" Severus said, so sharply that Draco jumped, his eyes widened slightly, and a pale flush rushed into his face.

"Draco, darling," said Narcissa, "only the uncouth hail friends and colleagues by their given names."

"Of course." Draco straightened his shoulders. "I do apologize, Professor."

Severus didn't accept apologies, especially when they were for the wrong thing. He drank his coffee instead.

Draco was taller. Narcissa and Lucius were both tall, so it was logical that their son would also be, but it was always surprising to take your eyes off them for two months and find so much had changed when you looked back. The final shape of his features was emerging, too; he was going to look more like Narcissa than like Lucius before too long. Or rather, like a blond version of Narcissa's father: like the Blacks. Draco was morphing gracefully into adulthood, at least physically; and judging by the set of his shoulders and the practiced way he took his seat—so practiced it looked perfectly casual—he'd not spent his month on the Continent for nothing.

 _Polishing up nicely,_ Severus thought cynically.

"Firebolts?" Narcissa asked her son, like a good and fond mother. Severus wondered if Draco had written to her (complaining) that this was the make of Miss Potter's broom. If so, she had the good sense not to bring it up.

"Like _Ireland_ has, Mother," Draco said. His tone was gently aggrieved: another mark of his carefully cultured new adulthood.

"Oh, yes. The Cup is taking place tomorrow, Severus, as I'm sure you're aware." Her resignation didn't show. "Lucius has got us tickets."

"Top box, of course," Draco said, looking carefully unconcerned.

Severus didn't expect to feel a wisp of regret at Draco's self-control. He spent every day hating children, failing to rejoice when they left Hogwarts for good only because he knew another crop would be along all too soon. But the ebb of Draco's childhood made him feel, oddly, as if he were watching something recede that could never be replaced.

He still wasn't going to let the boy call him "Severus," though.

Draco ate some pancakes and scones but avoided the caviar. He wrinkled his nose when Narcissa suggested he try some _._ He didn't take to the coffee, either, but sipped tea instead, with an awful lot of sugar. Perhaps Severus was getting ahead of himself. . . but that was the way adolescence worked. They'd be surprisingly grown up in some ways, irritatingly childish in others; always shuffling back and forth. The adolescent two-step.

"I thought I'd meet—" Draco paused and said, "Crabbe and Goyle," and Severus thought he'd been about to say _Vince and Greg._ "Do you mind, Mother?"

"Not at all, darling," said Narcissa, though Severus knew she would have minded less having all her fingernails pulled off. But Narcissa was a good pure-blood mother: she did not obviously cling, though she spent every moment of the holidays calculating ways to glue herself to Draco without appearing to be doing any such thing. She was only going to the Quidditch World Cup so that she could be with him.

"See you later, Professor," Draco said, the tone appropriately careless, and left.

Many lurking gazes watched him go. Narcissa appeared not to notice, but Severus knew she was cataloging exactly whose eyes were following her son, and exactly how closely.

"So, Severus darling." Narcissa turned back to him. "Do tell me about Miss Potter."

Severus paused in reaching for the coffee pot (which, sensing his intention, rose magically from the table and started pouring). 

"What about her?" He grabbed the cream pot before it could pour itself. 

"I wish to know about her." Narcissa's ice-blue eyes narrowed. "Draco mentions her in his letters constantly. I believe she stayed at Hogwarts this summer, due to some sort of magical accident?"

Miss Potter would have returned to her exile in Surrey by now. In little under a month, she'd be back at Hogwarts, and she'd probably have changed a great deal in that narrow strip of time. At least, he hoped to the devil that she would had. All summer she'd been practicing a moody, wounded dignity, too sophisticated for a child but too childish for an adult. It had become particularly poignant whenever she was studying Potions or aware of him being nearby. He'd done something, clearly, to provoke her; injured some fragile adolescent cockle in her heart. He had no idea what it could be. People scorned him: he scraped only their egos, their sense of what was due to them. Miss Potter had been acting like he'd disappointed her somehow.

It annoyed him to wonder what he'd done.

(He'd refused to inquire, of course.)

"She's a teenage girl. They're all the same—moody, willful, and irritating."

Eyes still narrowed, Narcissa watched him dump sugar into his cup.

"I wish to know if Draco's interest in her is going to be a problem. He's nearly obsessed, and I wish to know why. In all the papers, she's never been anything much to look at—those _glasses_." A shudder traced across her shoulders. "And that _hair_. . . Pansy Parkinson is a wretched little wart, but at least she observes the niceties of self-grooming."

"Pansy Parkinson has a face like a pug," Severus said, unaccountably annoyed, "and the personality of a rancid compost heap. If Draco prefers Miss Potter for whatever reason—and I can assure you, he's never confided in _me_ —it's only a mark of common sense."

"But he does prefer her?"

"Boys of his age frequently fixate on girls for reasons nobody can define, least of all themselves. Miss Potter beats him at Quidditch, she's famous, and she's not impressed by his wealth or status." _To the contrary._ "I don't see that he has any choice but to stew about it."

"Hmm." The set of Narcissa's mouth did not communicate any satisfaction with this assessment. "Do you imagine those feelings will at any time become. . . dangerous?"

 _To the succession? To your hopes for him? Or to his personal safety?_ It could be any of those—or all. Though she was guilty of having Muggle grandparents, Miss Potter's wealth and status were all that an ambitious pure-blood mother could hope for. But if the Dark Lord were to return, and Draco were besotted with his chief target. . .

Severus knew better than Narcissa how quickly the shadow the former possibility was darkening. Though she saw far and reached further, Narcissa was no prophet, only a cautious mother.

But she was also a gambler. A gambler—and a devoted mother. There was no telling what she might decide was best for Draco, though one could be certain she would pursue it with ruthless determination.

With grim resignation, he added _Narcissa_ to his list of _Potential Threats to Harriet Potter._

"Miss Potter," he said, picking up his coffee, "is nothing remarkable at all."

* * *

"Hermione, you have _got_ to come see this," Harriet hissed.

"Hang on, let me just—get this zipped—urgh—"

"Just come in here and I'll do it for you. You _have_ to see."

"Oh, fine, my arms won't twist round that way anyway. . ."

The curtain rustled aside and Hermione appeared in a floaty-looking lavender gown. Her arm was tucked up behind her, holding the back of her dress shut. When she saw Harriet, her eyes grew very round and she pressed her lips together like she was trying not to burst out laughing.

"On second thought," she said unsteadily, "I'm not sure that dress and I can both fit in here."

"I beg your pardon?" Harriet spread her hands to either side of the skirt, which would fit through the front doors of Hogwarts without brushing either side, but not any opening much narrower. "Are you saying there's something _wrong_ with my dress? Are you saying it's. . . _too big_?"

Hermione pressed her fist against her mouth to muffle a snort of laughter.

"How are you girls doing, then?"

Hermione jumped. Harriet's hand shot out to pull the curtain down, but it was too late: draped with measuring tape, her apron bristling with pins, Madam Malkin bore down like a ship in full sail.

"Oh!" She beamed as she saw Harriet. "Well, come out, my dear, come out, you can't get a decent look at it in there!"

And, totally insensate to Harriet's inner swearing, she seized her by the arm, dragged her from the changing room, and plonked her down on a raised dais in front of a three-way mirror.

This dress did not need a three-way mirror. A one-way mirror was more than enough to give you an idea of too much pink and too much foof. In front of three mirrors, it was too-too-too pink and too-too-too foofy. The skirt was the main culprit: it was about as wide as Harriet was tall. Her upper body emerged from all that foofy pinkness like a stubby candle from a cupcake.

Harriet prayed they were the only people in the shop. The dress was perfect for laughing at with Hermione in the privacy of a dressing-room, but wearing it in public set the tone of a nightmare.

She remembered a flash of green, Wormtail's frightened voice, an old man's face going rigid, and thought, _Except I know what real nightmares are like._

" _There_ you are." Madam Malkin stepped back, spreading her hands, rather like Aunt Petunia would have done to get a better look at Dudley in his new bow tie. "Isn't that simply _lovely_?"

Harriet wasn't sure there was a polite way to say "no chance in Hell," but she was trying very hard to think of one.

A bell jangled off in the shop. Harriet's heart seized up in horror, thinking it was the door, but Madam Malkin murmured something like _that had better be the late post_.

"Please do excuse me, dear." Madam Malkin bustled behind a rack of garish wizard's robes that looked like cast-offs from Gilderoy Lockhart's closet.

"Oh God." Harriet tried to gather up enough of the skirt to flee to the safety of the changing room. "Quick, before she comes back."

"Just tell her pink isn't your color, you'd prefer something in green," Hermione said. "Here, give me your hand—where are your _feet_? I didn't know this much tulle _existed_. . ."

"Good Merlin," drawled a voice as unpleasant as a toad dropped down the front of your blouse. "What _is_ that supposed to be?"

Heart sinking, in the mirror Harriet saw Draco Malfoy's pale, pointed reflection rising over a rack of witches' formal gowns.

Well, she'd go down bloody fighting, she would.

She grabbed the skirt so she could turn to face him (and was extremely pleased that she didn't go tumbling off the dais). She was also glad she hadn't stepped down, because being up there did make her a bit taller, and Malfoy's stupid git legs seemed to have stolen all the inches hers should've gained.

"Shove off, Malfoy, or you'll find out how many pins I've got hidden in this skirt."

Malfoy stared blankly at her. "Potter?" he said, also blankly.

"Who else?" She frowned. "What, d'you need glasses now?"

"And where are yours, four-eyes?" His sneer came back on his git face. "Is _that_ why you picked that monstrosity? Gone blind, have you?"

"I'm wearing contacts, idiot." They itched, but she'd only been wearing them a few hours. Jean said she'd get used to them.

"Come on, Harriet, ignore him." Hermione tugged on her arm. "Mum will be here any minute—"

" _Mudbloods_ in Diagon Alley is bad enough," said Malfoy, "rather like having trained monkeys—but _Muggles_?"

Hermione gripped Harriet's arm with both hands before she could lunge at him, which probably saved Harriet from falling flat on her face.

"Wild monkeys scratching their balls would be an improvement over _you_ ," she snarled, but Malfoy's smirk only widened. At the chiming of the door's bell, however, he smoothed it away and straightened his shoulders, like he didn't want to be caught taunting them.

"Draco?" called a woman's voice.

Malfoy looked surprised, but he drawled: "Coming, Mother."

Harriet blinked. Malfoy had a mother? His father hadn't scraped him, slug-like in infancy, off the bottom of a moist stone and taken him home?

With a parting sneer, Malfoy turned to go as a woman who could only be his mother appeared between two well-dressed mannequins.

"Darling," she said, in a tone that went straight to Harriet's heart. It was the tone Aunt Petunia used when she said Dudley's name, the tone in which Jean said Hermione's. She always heard it so keenly because she had never heard someone use it for her.

Mrs Malfoy was (ugh) very tall, very slim, and very blonde. The lace on her skirt and matching jacket was so exquisite, Harriet thought it could only have been spun by magic. And—perhaps it was some fledgling girl-instinct—but with one look, Harriet knew that she was wearing a dress that was trying with all its heart to be Mrs Malfoy's but was so laughably nothing like it that she'd had no idea how humiliating it would be to be caught wearing it until now.

 _No_ , she thought when Mrs Malfoy's eyes landed on her. _Until_ now.

Mrs Malfoy's flawless eyebrows rose a millimeter at most, but with the new contacts Harriet could see it perfectly. Her ice-blue eyes traveled over Harriet from messy hairline to tulle-hidden feet, and then over to Hermione, who was still clutching Harriet's arm. Her lip curled. Harriet thought of a bug being deliberately crushed beneath a sharp, stiletto-point heel.

"Come, Draco." Mrs Malfoy stretched out her hand. "Why you came into such a derelict and parochial place as this, I'll never guess. . ."

"Oh, I thought it would be a laugh," Malfoy said with careless cruelty.

They left, self-satisfaction pouring off them like stink off a skunk. Malfoy grinned his nastiest grin over his shoulder, and his mother flicked back the barest, most contemptuous glance.

The bell chimed again, vilely cheerful, and the shop fell silent. Harriet tried to steady her breathing. It seemed so loud in the sudden quiet. She wanted to crack those _fucking_ Malfoys in their smug _arsehole_ faces—

 _Ching!_ went the bell, chirpily. She wanted to rip it off the wall and stomp it flat.

"Hermione? Harriet?"

Harriet was so glad to hear Jean's voice, and just as glad she hadn't come even a minute sooner.

"Back here, Mum," Hermione called out. She was still holding Harriet's arm.

Like Mrs Malfoy, Jean appeared between the mannequins. Unlike Mrs Malfoy, she wore a sensible Muggle dress beneath a nice trench coat, and her hair was styled simply back from her face, not arranged in a dizzying construction of curls. Unlike Mrs Malfoy, she smiled at them.

"I'm so sorry I'm late. . ."

She actually stopped walking when she saw Harriet's dress. Her eyes widened.

"I hate it," Harriet said before Jean could say anything.

Jean relaxed. "Yes, dear. I think green's more your color anyway."

* * *

"For the last time," Remus said as he counted the Muggle money into his wallet, "you are _not_ doing the shopping."

Sirius looked sulky. "I can find my way around a grocery."

"No, you can't. You never could. I'd write _spaghetti_ and you'd bring back bow-tie pasta. I'd write _milk_ and you'd bring back the chocolate kind."

"You don't want me going because you don't want anyone seeing me."

"That's a big part of it, yes." Remus was getting better with honesty, he really was—if only because Sirius exasperated it out of him. That had always been the case. Now, though, he had to be honest with that shadow darkening Sirius' face, the one that mixed hurt and menace, as if Sirius' unhappiness was dangerous. "But it's also because you're so hopeless in the kitchen, you don't know why I can't cook with _chocolate milk_."

Sirius sniffed, and the darkness ebbed, like the ground brightening when a patch of moonlight shone from behind a cloud. "Tastes better."

"Not to most people," Remus said firmly. "But I'll get you some if you'd like."

"I want to come with you," Sirius said, changing tack. "I'll be Padfoot, no one will recognize me."

 _Peter would._ But Peter wouldn't try to attack them, it wasn't his way, and it was unlikely he'd stayed in Scotland. No, having been shaken from his hiding place, Peter would have run as far as he could. . .

To do what, they had no idea. Remus hated having no idea. It was like the threat of the full moon, itching under his skin. . . but he could track the progress of the moon. They had no chart for Peter. Even Snape didn't know a spell that could find him now. All they could do was wait. . . and see if he did something worse than what he'd already done.

Remus had forgotten how terrible waiting could be.

"They don't allow dogs in the grocery, Sirius."

"I'll wait outside."

Remus relented. You picked your battles with Sirius. He'd always known that this would be the end of the argument anyway, but you had to let Sirius lead himself there. The only ideas he'd ever taken that weren't his own had come from James.

Remus collected his jacket fwhile Sirius shuffled around outside, kicking at the grass. Sometimes Remus would look out the window and see him squatting down and slowly pulling the individual blades apart, rubbing the stripped leaves between the pads of his fingers, breaking them into chips. He touched the trees with the pads of his hands, picked at the bark with his nails. He dug his fingers into the mud after it rained and pulled rocks out of the riverbed, rolling them between his palms.

It was very unlike the man Remus had known. When Remus saw him wading out into the river barefoot, staring down at the water that glimmered, streaming, around his legs, he thought, _He's re-learning the world._

For twelve years, the Dementors had drained it out of him, memory by memory. First would have gone the memories of the people he'd loved, but at some point ( _how long?_ ) there would only have been memories of grass and rocks left for them to take.

Remus shut the door to the croft, cast the wards, and joined Sirius where he'd trailed across the grass.

"I'll be Padfoot soon," said Sirius. "Just. . . not yet."

Albus wanted Sirius to stay a dog whenever he went outside, even deep in the heart of the Scottish highlands where they were surrounded by Muggle-repelling wards, but Remus knew that dogs' eyes couldn't see as far as a human's. When Sirius wanted to smell, he turned into Padfoot. When he wanted to see, he stayed a man.

For Sirius' own good, Remus should probably insist. But Sirius had been in prison long enough, where Padfoot had been his only means of escape.

The rolling hills and woods were green with summer, the sky dark with the promise of rain. Remus could tell the breeze was nippy, though it felt only pleasant to him.

Sirius watched the sky for most of the time they were walking. The wind blew his dark hair back from his face. It was growing in well since Remus' lamentable barber job.

"Is that Hedwig?" Sirius asked abruptly.

Remus looked up. Sure enough, a snowy owl was descending toward them, wings spread and claws extended. Because Hedwig did not like werewolves, Sirius raised his arm for her.

"Hey, girl," he said, letting her nibble his fingers as he added Hedwig's feathers to the catalog of things he lingered over. He touched the trees, the grass, the rocks in the river, and sometimes he touched things in the house, too, like the stone of the worktop, the wooden table, the tattered softness of the couch; but after the full moon, when he wrapped Remus in blankets and supported him to the bed, his touch did not linger. It never did. Remus was the only thing he never touched with that methodical, half-transcendent reverence.

Remus didn't know whether to grieve for that or not. Perhaps he wasn't surprised at all. Perhaps he didn't want it to be any other way. Sometimes Sirius filled him with such an endless sadness, as if he'd found a river that ran from a mountain too high to climb, down to a sea too far away to reach.

Sirius was untying Harriet's letter addressed to _Moony and Padfoot_  as Hedwig alighted from his shoulder, heading toward the croft to rest.

"What?" Remus asked as Sirius' eyebrows contracted and a grim shadow flitted across his face.

"Second paragraph," Sirius said gruffly, thrusting the letter at him.

Remus took it and scanned the page. ". . . Shit."

"I'll say." Sirius crushed the envelope. "Snape was right, then."

"Yes," Remus said slowly. "If her scar's hurting on top of her going to the World Cup. . ."

"I thought he said the future had _changed_."

"He said parts of it had, but we couldn't know how much." Remus handed the letter back. Sirius tucked it into his breast pocket, with more tender possessiveness than he would have shown a packet of fifty pound notes. "But I think it's safe to say now that we've been making very good plans." He checked his watch. "Speaking of which—we'd better hurry. We'll never hear the end of it if we miss him."

Sirius muttered something under his breath, but turned into Padfoot without a fight.

After about half an hour of following the rough footpath across the hills, through copses and over trickling stream-beds, Remus spotted the red telephone box sitting bright on the side of the wider road. And across the gentle babble of the woods, he heard it ringing.

He covered the remaining few meters as fast as he could, dived into the box and snatched up the receiver.

"Hello?" he said into the mouthpiece, kicking the door open for Padfoot.

" _Running late_?" Snape's tinny voice replied. He could coat his voice with a sneer the way a normal person buttered toast.

"Nice to hear from you, too, Severus," Remus said, and because he always maintained the niceties, "How've you been?"

" _You have everything ready_?" (Snape always ignored them.)

"Yes, and Arthur's expecting us. You're ready, too, then?"

" _Obviously_. _You just worry about your bit, Lupin, and let me worry about mine_."

"Yes, about that—Padfoot!" Remus said warningly, as Padfoot crowded fully into the box

" _If that mangy fleabag has anything he wants to say to me_ ," Snape said, as Sirius returned to human and said, "Give me the phone, Moony, and let me tell that greasy bastard—"

"We'll be seeing you tomorrow," Remus said firmly into the receiver, and hung up.

Sirius gave him a look. "You never let me say a bloody word to the bloody git."

"And I never let him say a word to you."

"You were going to tell him about Holly-berry's letter."

"Yes." Remus blinked. "You don't like that idea?"

"No."

When Sirius didn't elaborate, Remus said, "You don't trust him."

"I don't know." Sirius blew out his breath with enough force to shift the patch of hair that kept flopping over his eyes. "I don't fucking know. Why's he doing this? Why's he asking us to help him? It's not Dumbledore's idea or we'd have heard something from _him_."

Remus had already thought everything Sirius was pointing out, but he'd said nothing because—well—he supposed he was backsliding: but Sirius and Snape did not need any help maintaining a grudge.

"He hates our bleeding guts," Sirius said. "And we hate his. We agreed to help Holly-berry, but why's he asking in the first place? What's _he_ care about her?"

And this, too, was a conversation Remus had assiduously avoided. He'd never been able to determine the answer to that question. Especially since Snape had spent all of the spring and summer ignoring Harriet, and she'd acted like that hurt her feelings.

"I don't know," he said, "but I don't think we'll learn anything from confronting Severus directly. If you really want to reckon his motives, I think the best way is to act like we're daft little Gryffindors who suspect nothing, and let his plans unfold. Well, that is to say I'll be the daft, trusting Gryffindor. You can go on being suspicious. _He'll_ be suspicious if you aren't."

When Sirius looked shrewdly at him, Remus saw the Old Sirius, the one he'd used to plan and plot with, instead of the introspective stranger who put so much thought into the way river-smooth rocks felt.

" _You_ don't trust him either."

"I don't trust that Severus is telling us everything. That's not his way, believe me. He does hate us, as much as he can hold, I'm sure. We're useful to him in some capacity, we can infer that much. What we don't know is useful _how_ —and I think the only way to determine that is to play along."

"Damn right." A long-forgotten gleam, as familiar as a childhood home, lit Sirius' face. "Whatever that greasy bastard's got in mind, we'll be ready."

It made Remus think of nights in the dorm, planning adventures for the next full moon, or sitting over the map watching for Slytherins. This huddle in the telephone box had that same air of juvenile danger, when they had created threats because they hadn't yet experienced the real things. During the war, their plans had been grim and succinct, the run-downs using as few words as possible, and they'd started holding them in the middle of the night after Lily had gone to bed because James was afraid the fear wasn't good for her or the baby.

Now James and Lily were gone and the baby was living under a greater threat than any of them. And Remus couldn't dismiss the thought that if Snape was involving them, they could in no way afford to refuse the offer, however double-dyed it might be.

"Praise be that you'll have to stay as Padfoot the whole time," he said dryly, pushing these thoughts away, like terrain maps rolled up and stored in the cabinet so Lily wouldn't see them when she came down in the morning. "Otherwise you'd muck up everything five minutes in when you hexed him in the face. Now, will you please transform before someone sees you? Against all odds," he added, when Sirius opened his mouth to argue.

With the heroic air of the long-suffering, Sirius shrank back into Padfoot. Remus opened the door to the box and let them both out of its stuffy stillness, into the vast stillness of the highland wilderness.

"What fun we'll all be having this time tomorrow," he said. Padfoot whuffed and wagged his tail.

Thinking, no doubt, of Harriet.


	50. Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harriet and the Weasleys arrive at the Quidditch World Cup, and meet an unexpected, familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a bit of canon business in this chapter. Sometimes I don't change stuff because I like to concentrate on tearing my hair out over important plot divergences (as opposed to tiny or throwaway ones). Sometimes the canon stuff is so integral to the canon story that I can't sensibly change it without sacrificing either the logic of the plot or Harriet's character development. Sometimes it's the same because I like it the way it is.

 "I think you made good choices," Jean said as she handed them their parcels. "Keep track of these, now. You won't want to be scrambling for a new gown right before the event."

"I wonder what we'll be needing them for?" Hermione said, trying to find a place in her bag for her parcel. The books stubbornly refused to make any room for it. "I don't recall hearing of any formal events at Hogwarts, not even for upperclassmen. . . Thank you, Harriet," she said helplessly as Harriet took the package and stowed it in her own, much lighter bag.

"Perhaps it's newly instituted," said Jean, but from the way she was checking her watch, Harriet thought her mind was elsewhere. "Let's hurry up, girls. Have you got everything, then?"

"I thought the Weasleys weren't expecting us before dinner?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, but your father and I wanted to take you both to lunch. One last good-bye. Harriet, you haven't been with us nearly long enough this year."

"Tell me about it," Harriet said. Jean smiled at her.

They found Daniel in the Leaky Cauldron, babysitting their bags of less important things, such as Potions kit supplies. Harriet did not care about Potions kit supplies—or anything to do with Potions—at all.

"Do you girls mind eating here?" Jean asked. "Only the drive to Devon—"

Harriet didn't mind. She was so hungry, she was ready to see how her new gown tasted. 

While they waited for the food to arrive, Harriet noticed that Hermione's parents kept glancing at each other, a silent conversation composed of eye-contact. Then they seemed to come to a decision.

"Hermione," said Jean. "There's something your father and I needed to talk to you about."

Hermione glanced up from checking that the clerk at Slug & Jiggers had given her the right amount of Mugwort. 

"What?" she asked, her eyes flicking between their parents. It was impossible to tell if the "something" was good or bad from the looks on their faces.

The waitress picked that moment to bring their food, and Jean waited while the plates were thumped down in front of them. Harriet was digging into her shepherd's pie almost before the waitress had pulled her arm back.

"I'm pregnant," Jean said.

Harriet's fork stopped. Hermione looked like Ron in second-year when his wand backfired in Charms and turned his desk into a green flamingo.

Jean and Daniel watched Hermione, patiently waiting.

Harriet set down her fork with a deep pang of loss for her lunch. "'Scuse me," she muttered. "Loo—"

And she beetled off to the washroom. This was a private family conversation. The Grangers couldn't have it alone because she was staying with them and this was their last afternoon together. They were too kind to ask her to step away while they talked to Hermione, so Harriet would kindly hide in the loo until they were done.

That must've been why Jean was late, Harriet realized. Doctors or tests or whatever. She'd said she'd meet them by noon, but she'd been almost forty-five minutes late getting to Madam Malkin's. 

Her stomach growled, deeply displeased that she'd abandoned her lunch. It still hadn't got over the business with the grapefruit. She thought longingly of her shepherd's pie. It was only too bad there was nothing to eat in here except the soap bar.

The door opened to reveal Hermione, looking rather stunned still.

"Mum sent me to get you," she said. "You ran off so we could have a family chat, didn't you?"

Harriet shrugged.

"Well, come back to the table. You're clearly starving." She straightened her shoulders, though quite differently than Malfoy had done. "And there's nothing dreadful in having a baby, after all."

_Right. You think so?_ "You want to talk about it?" Harriet asked.

"Later." Hermione exhaled. "Later. When I've—stopped being silly. Come on. Your stomach's been growling for the last hour, and there's nothing to eat in here except the soap."

Back at the table, Jean smiled at her. Blushing, Harriet tucked into her pie.

"When's the baby due?" Hermione asked, in (to Harriet's ears) a I'm-going-to-be-sensible-and-mature-about-this voice.

"February," said Jean. "If you'd like, I can contact your school and ask for you to come down for a few days. But it isn't necessary. Your studies are important."

Hermione didn't say anything. Harriet didn't know whether this was because Hermione hated the idea of leaving school right in the middle of term or if she hated the idea of the baby.

"I only found out today," Jean said. "That's why I was late coming to meet you."

"It—was it an accident?" Hermione asked. "Or were you—trying?"

"Quite an accident," Jean said, and then gently: "But that doesn't mean it's unwelcome."

Hermione nodded the tiniest bit. Harriet was so hungry and so determined to appear like everything was normal that she'd almost gobbled her way through her whole shepherd's pie by now, while the Grangers had eaten almost nothing.

"Well." Hermione she smiled, or tried to. "Congratulations."

Harriet swallowed her last bite so fast it hurt, and blurted, "Does anyone want me to get them anything from the bar? I want another butterbeer. . ."

"Thank you, dear," said Jean. "I don't need anything. Daniel? Hermione?"

Harriet lingered at the bar, as if she'd changed her mind about the butterbeer, but there was only so long she could stay away without starting to look like she was avoiding them.

When she returned to the table, everyone was finally eating at a normal pace. If, as they picked up their things to leave, Hermione's and Jean's plates looked rather full, like the food had mostly been pushed around to give the appearance of having been eaten, no one said anything.

* * *

Mr Weasley had owled the Grangers a map, but as it contained very strange directions like _Left at the tree that looks like a two-headed leprechaun_ and _Furthest right down the road with three forks that's half a mile past the Muggle post office_ , they got lost several times. By the time they pulled up to the Weasleys' gate, they were almost an hour past when they'd been expected.

"Thank goodness we left when we did," said Jean as they piled out of the car. "I hope we haven't interfered with their dinner—"

Mrs Weasley was already hurrying down the drive, wearing a flowered apron and a huge smile.

"You've made it! And all in one piece—I should never have let Arthur draw that map, I do beg your pardon—" She hugged Harriet and held her at arms' length for inspection. "My, how you've grown!" (Harriet loved Mrs Weasley.) "And what have you done with your glasses, dear?"

"I'm wearing contact lenses," Harriet said. Wizards didn't appear to know what they were.

"You look gorgeous," Mrs Weasley said. "You'll be fighting off the boys with a broomstick." She hugged Hermione next, as Mr Weasley hurried down to shake hands with the Grangers. Ron was with him. He'd shot up several inches in the past month, making him even taller than Malfoy, perhaps by a head. 

"Good-bye, girls," said Jean, hugging Hermione and then Harriet. "Study hard and be good."

Mrs Weasley waved after their car as it trundled down the earthy track. Mr Weasley swept his wand over the trunks and they whisked themselves off to the house.

"Where's Hedwig, dear?" asked Mrs Weasley as they walked through the garden. She kept tucking Harriet's hair down around her ears, and it kept flying straight out again.

"Delivering a letter. She might not come back till tomorrow." Scotland was a long way for her to fly in one day.

_Sirius,_ she mouthed to Ron when he looked at her curiously. _Tell you later._

Surrounded by the Weasleys, walking up to their cozy ramshackle house, Harriet felt a knot that had formed in her shoulders loosening. The Burrow always had a particular smell that she loved, grass and baking bread. It made her think of comfort, unlike the stale uniformity of Privet Drive, where even the sky was washed out. At the Burrow, you could lie in the grass and watch the stars come out in the clear, deep blue.

In the kitchen, Harriet's newly adjusted vision was assaulted by an explosion of red hair. There seemed to be even more of it than usual. But she counted only two people whom she hadn't seen before. They could only be Ron's eldest brothers, Bill and Charlie.

" _You've_ got to be Harriet," said the shorter one, echoing her thoughts. He held out his hand to shake hers. He had so many calluses and blisters on his palm that his skin felt almost scaly. "Charlie," he said, grinning in a good-natured way that made Harriet grin back.

"You work with dragons in Romania, right?" It wasn't hard to guess, even if she'd forgot. He had so many freckles that he looked almost tanned, and one of his muscly arms had a shiny burn mark on it.

The other brother, Bill, stood up to shake her hand next. Harriet stared. She'd known Bill was Head Boy at Hogwarts and that he worked for Gringotts, so she'd always pictured a cross between Percy, who was bossy and slavishly devoted to rules, and the dull sort of person who worked at banks in the Muggle world. But Bill was. . . tall. In a good way. He had long hair, tied back in a ponytail. One of his ears had a fang earring in it, and he looked dressed for a rock concert.

He smiled at her as he took her hand, and Harriet felt her face heating up like a kettle on boil.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Gratefully she turned, hoping to hide her hot face, and almost groaned when she saw Ginny smirking at her.

" _Hi_ , Harry. How _are_ you?" Ginny asked slyly.

Mrs Weasley, bless her, saved Harriet from having to scramble together a reply.

"If we want to eat before midnight, we all need to pitch in. Ginny, take Harriet and Hermione up and show them where they'll be sleeping, and then be back down to help with dinner."

"Come on, then," Ginny said cheerfully. "Harriet's had the grand tour, but you haven't, Hermione. Boys not allowed," she added to Ron when he tried to follow.

"You can't go pinching my mates," Ron said indignantly.

"There's plenty for you to do down here," Mrs Weasley said to Ron. "You can start by taking these knives and forks out to the garden. Bill, Charlie, you'll be setting up the tables. . ."

"Too many of us to sit inside," Ginny explained as she, Harriet and Hermione trooped up the zig-zagging staircase. "We've got Charlie from Romania and Bill," another sly glance at Harriet, "from Egypt, Fred and George from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and Percy from—"

"Weasleys what?" Harriet asked. (Hermione had been almost completely silent since watching her parents drive away. Harriet would try to talk to her once they were alone—though when that would be, a Seer only knew.)

"Wizard Wheezes. It's their joke shop," Ginny said they reached the first floor landing. "We'd no idea they'd been—oh, what now?" she asked, staring over their heads.

Harriet looked up to see a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles glowering at them from the landing above.

"Hi, Percy," she said.

"Oh, hello, Harriet," said Percy, still glowering. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, Ginny, you know—I've got a report to finish for the office—and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."

"We're not thundering, we're walking," Ginny said. "And if you'd just waited for us to thunder on by, you'd have got on with snogging your lovely cauldron bottoms by now."

"Just keep it down," he said peevishly, and shut his door with a snap.

"And Percy from the Ministry of Magic," Ginny said, waving her hand in a sarcastic flourish. "The most surprising visitor of all. Honestly, I don't know why he doesn't move in under his desk. He's hardly ever home, and when he is, he spends all his time yammering about his job. I don't know why he even bothered to come."

She opened the door to her bedroom, where Harriet had stayed two summers ago. The view of the orchard was the same, but the unicorn pictures were all gone, replaced by posters for some band called the Weird Sisters, and others featuring a determined-looking woman in dark green Quidditch robes. Their trunks were already there, each stacked at the foot of a camp bed that had been shoved into the tiny space.

"My palace," Ginny said grandly, spreading her arms. "Consider it your own, if you can move around in it, that is." She perched on her bed, curling her feet up under her. "Sit, and tell me of foreign climes—like what happened to your glasses, Harry. How did you fix your eyes?"

"They're contact lenses," Harriet repeated. "You know, that you put in your eyes. They're not really fixed." In fact, the contacts were starting to really bug her. Maybe she should take them out for the day. . .

"Huh." Ginny looked impressed. "Well, they're brilliant. Boys are going fall all over you, drooling." Her expression turned sly. "I bet _I_ know who you'd like to front the line—"

"So what's Weasleys Wizard Wheezes?" Harriet said hastily. Ginny gave her a you-are-so-obvious look, but she said:

"Much more interesting than Percy and reports for standardizing cauldron bottom thickness. It's Fred and George's ambition to open up the world's most hilarious joke shop—or whatever. We'd no idea all those bangs and things meant something, but this summer Mum found a whole huge stack of order forms for all the stuff they'd invented that they were planning on selling at Hogwarts this year. They had a huge row—Mum burnt all the forms—she wants them to go to the Ministry and get a job like Dad and Percy have."

"But Charlie works with dragons and Bill does. . . what for Gringotts?"

"Curse-breaking." Ginny's smirk was on the move again. "He cracks open tombs and robs them, basically. It's all legal _somehow_ —awfully cool, isn't it?"

"Better than cauldron bottoms," Harriet said, willing her stupid face not to blush. It sounded like the sort of thing the heroes in her romance novels did, and she had not just thought that. "So if they're off doing that, why is your mum so set on Fred and George going to the Ministry?"

"Dunno. Well, it's a Mum-thing, isn't it? Even Dad doesn't see it happening, not that he's daft enough to say so in front of her. Fred and George got hardly any O.W.L.s, the Ministry probably wouldn't have them anyway. They don't lose sleep over it, I can tell you. They took it an awful lot harder when Mum destroyed their order forms." She sighed. "We should probably get on before she comes up to destroy _us_."

In the kitchen, they found Mrs Weasley alone and peeling potatoes, or rather, getting magic to do it for her while she stirred sauce in a pan. Through the open window Harriet could hear all the boys' voices and a familiar squealing that sounded like the garden gnomes.

"Good, you've returned. If you could take these plates outside for me, girls," Mrs Weasley said, "and the silverware, and set the table—"

Harriet was happy to, although there was nowhere to put any of it: Bill and Charlie had enchanted the tables to fly at each other, each trying to knock the other out of the air. Fred, George and Ron were cheering, the gnomes were squealing as Crookshanks chased them across the yard. Harriet wasn't surprised when Percy flung open his window to shout at them to be quiet.

"Sorry, Perce," Bill called up, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming?"

"Very badly," Percy snapped, and slammed his window shut.

"Boys," Hermione sighed, so that only Harriet heard.

Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed their tables gently toward the ground, laying them end-to-end. With two casual flicks of his wand, Bill attached the leg his table had knocked off Charlie's and conjured tablecloths for both tables. Harriet tried not to think how impressive this was. At least Ginny didn't turn to smirk at her again: she was too busy trying to keep her grip on her stack of plates as Crookshanks streaked between her ankles.

By the time the table was set for eleven and laden with food, Harriet's stomach was growling its approval. She helped herself to potatoes and salad and chicken, enjoying the feeling of being around a group of happy people who all liked each other.

Percy was telling Mr. Weasley pompously about cauldron bottoms, rhapsodizing about someone named Mr. Crouch, sniffing about someone named Mr. Bagman, and deploring someone named Bertha Jorkins. Harriet wondered why that name sounded familiar, but her attention was already wandering to Mrs Weasley and Bill, who were sitting nearer to her.

". . . with a great horrible fang in it, Bill, honestly, what do they say at the bank?"

"Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure," Bill said patiently.

"And your hair's getting silly, dear, I wish you'd let me give it a trim—"

_"No,_ Mum," Bill said, still patient, and Harriet thanked heaven.

"I like it. You're just old-fashioned, Mum," said Ginny. And then, with false and treacherous innocence: "What do _you_ think, Harriet?"

Fred, George, Charlie, and Ron chose that moment to explode into a loud argument, and Harriet was able to pretend that she hadn't heard Ginny at all. 

"It's got to be Ireland!" Charlie was saying. "They flattened Peru in the semi-finals—"

"But Bulgaria have got Krum," Fred argued.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland have got seven—"

"Krum's not just decent, he's brilliant," Ron said.

For the rest of the meal Harriet pretended to be absorbed in the Quidditch chat, and did not let her attention stray anywhere near Bill. Ginny was clearly the devil's handmaid tonight. Thank God Hermione was the strange kind of friend that never wanted to tease you about boys.

She glanced at Hermione's plate for an indication of how she was doing. They'd moved onto pudding, but Hermione's bowl of homemade strawberry ice cream was full of pink soup.

_Maybe I should tell her about the dream to distract her? No, bad idea. . . really bad idea._ Knowing Hermione, it would just make her head explode. She could worry herself to death over multiple things.

"Do you want to talk yet?" Harriet asked in a low voice.

Hermione glanced around at the happy, chattering Weasleys. Next to her, Ron was waving his arms wildly as he demonstrated some strategy of Victor Krum's.

"Later, when Ginny's having a bath," she muttered.

So Harriet helped herself to seconds on the ice cream, and then thirds. Stars appeared shyly in the deep blue overhead, and fireflies glimmered in the long grass. Her nightmare about Voldemort and Wormtail seemed very far away. It was hard to think of monsters and death in such a peaceful place, hard to imagine them even existing.

And yet. . . she looked up at the sky for a spot that looked like a snowy owl. There wasn't one among any of the stars or fireflies. She wasn't surprised, but she'd hoped. . .

"Goodness, look at the time," said Mrs Weasley. "You should all be in bed, you'll be up at the crack of dawn for the match. . . no, Harriet dear, you leave those dishes for me, you just get up to bed—Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, you too."

They (plus Hermione) left Bill, Charlie, and Arthur to help Molly clear the table, while Percy bustled off to owl his cauldron report.

Since Hermione and Harriet were guests and Ginny had been well brought-up, they were sent off first to the bath. Hermione offered for Harriet to go first, but Harriet was having too much trouble getting out her contacts.

"Do you need me to get the pamphlet?" Hermione asked as she pulled off her blouse. "I brought it along, just in case—"

"I remember what it _says_ , I just can't _do_ it." She tried and failed for the fiftieth time to pinch the lens out. "Ow."

"Switch eyes," Hermione suggested as she bundled her hair into a massive knot on her head and stuffed it under a shower cap. "That one's looking all red."

"Well, at least we can talk this way." Harriet swore as she lost the grip on her eyelid. "Do you _want_ to talk?"

Hermione sighed from behind the shower curtain. "It's so stupid. I feel like one of _those_ only children—you know, the jealous kind who can't bear for their parents to have anyone but them. Which is so—I mean, it's selfish, too, because I'm away a lot. All the time, nearly. And they _said_ it was an accident, so it's not like they were trying to replace me, so how can I be thinking that?"

The sound of the pattering water filled the tiny bathroom.

Harriet wondered if she should say anything—what she _should_ say. How would she feel if her parents had announced they were having another baby when she was almost grown up?

There was no way she could answer that, not in any helpful way. In her head, it was joyful, and she knew why it was different.

"But you are?" she asked, staring into her own eyes, unencumbered by her glasses. "Thinking that, I mean."

"What if. . ." The shower curtain rustled. "What if they want a baby who's. . . normal?"

_Oh, Hermione,_ Harriet thought, feeling very sad but not at all surprised.

"Even if it's an accident—what if they're relieved, because it's a chance to have a normal baby? Or what if they're afraid because it might turn out like me? We don't know why magical babies are born to Muggles or why they aren't. . ."

And Harriet heard the unspoken question, wrapped up in the others: _What if it's normal and they love it more than me?_

"Your parents love you," Harriet said quietly. "I can tell."

Hermione peeked out past the edge of the shower curtain.

"I'm sorry, this is very selfish of me—"

"It's not selfish to be afraid about love. Or what might happen to it."

Hermione shook her head, retreating behind the curtain. 

"You're right," Hermione said, like she was trying to sound sensible. "They do love me. They just don't. . . understand. They can't. There's this distance now. Maybe it's been there for a long time and I only just noticed this summer, but. . . we went to France, you know, while you were at Hogwarts. They asked me about school, but it was clear they didn't know what to say, and there was a lot I couldn't tell them because I thought they'd be. . . frightened. And what if. . . what if they tried to stop me going back? I felt like I was lying to them, but at the same time it felt like. . . they weren't really interested. Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the same with the baby and I'm only being paranoid. But I keep picturing them all together, my parents and the baby, and I'll be away at Hogwarts, being a witch, and if the baby isn't magical I won't know it at all—and maybe it will be closer to them than I am, and maybe it will be afraid of me. . ."

Yes, Harriet had been right: Hermione could worry about a million things at once. And she couldn't even properly soothe these fears because it was making her think of Aunt Petunia and her mum.

And thinking of her mum made her think of Snape and how he didn't really care about her, and _that_ was selfish: to be thinking about her own hurt feelings when Hermione's were much more deserving of attention. What did it matter if Snape liked her or not? It shouldn't matter. It didn't.

"I think you should go see the baby when it's born," Harriet said. "And send it loads of presents, especially those cream-filled chocolates from Honeydukes. Then it'll worship you, definitely."

Hermione sniffed a watery laugh.

Harriet finally gave up on the pinching and, placing the pad of her finger on her pupil, dragged the contact lens to the side, and was able to blink it out.

"Hah," she said triumphantly. She managed to get the other one out, and blinked round the bathroom that had suddenly gone fuzzy. "God, I'm blind."

Hermione shut off the water while Harriet groped for her glasses. When she got them on, she saw Hermione stepping out of the shower, her towel tucked neatly around her.

"I'd give you a hug," she said, "only I think I'll wait till I have my clothes on."

* * *

The moon still hung in a sky scattered with stars when a door to a croft in the Scottish highlands opened and shut again behind a man and his dog. Over two hundred miles to the south, at the end of a long, dark street, a single light came on in a house that looked otherwise deserted: the only patch of light in that suburb of an abandoned mill. And far down in Devon, seven people lighting their way with torches marched across the chilly countryside in the secretive hours between night and morning.

* * *

Even if the Portkey ride hadn't been so rudely awakening, the walk through the camp would have stripped away Harriet's exhaustion. The sun was just beginning to shine off the peaks of the highest tents, so most people were still asleep, but the tents were enough to be going on with. A lot of their owners had tried to go for a Muggle-ish look, but rather spoiled things by sticking a weather vane or a chimney on the top, while others seemed to have gone the other direction and were trying to look as magical as possible. One palatial, striped silk tent had live peacocks tethered out front. Another "tent" had three floors and turrets, and a third seemed to have brought their whole garden along. (Harriet wondered if there were gnomes.)

"Always the same," said Mr Weasley. "We can't resist showing off when we get together. Ah, here we are!"

At the hill-top on an empty patch earth stood a sign reading _Weezly_. But there was already a tent there: a plain, narrow, canvas thing, about three paces long and one wide.

"I thought that Muggle at the gate said _three_ tents?" Fred asked, frowning.

"Ah, well—" said Mr Weasley; but his words were swallowed by an enormous black dog that came bounding out of the tent, heading straight for Harriet.

"Sirius?" Harriet yelped without thinking. Then her arms were full of Padfoot and her face was full of black fur, and she was tumbling backwards, ending up on the ground for the second time that morning. At least her backpack broke her fall.

"Professor Lupin!" Hermione said (Harriet couldn't see anything except Padfoot's fur).

"Not your professor anymore, Hermione," said Remus. "I hope that makes it a tad less awkward. Hello, Arthur, it's good to see you—Ron, Ginny, Fred and George. How are you all?"

The Weasley kids' hellos sounded surprised, though not displeased. From the sound of it, Mr Weasley was the only one who'd been expecting Remus.

Harriet fought her way free of Padfoot as Remus reached down to help her up, just like Cedric had done when she'd lain on the ground in the tangle of Weasleys and Hermione after coming out of the Portkey. She hoped it was the last time she ended up on the ground for the rest of the day.

"You didn't tell me you were coming!" she said, hugging him.

"We wanted it to be a surprise." He returned her hug lightly, one-armed. "Hopefully not an unpleasant one?"

"Definitely not!" She grinned, scratching Padfoot's ears.

"Did you set up your tent without magic?" Mr Weasley asked keenly.

"I may have cheated a little," Remus said, with a Dumbledorian twinkle. "That's not improper use of magic, is it?"

"No, no!" Mr Weasley said. "Though strictly speaking, we're supposed to be doing everything the Muggle way. . . Security, you know." Instead of sounding reproving, however, he looked excited. Harriet was quite sure that nobody would mind Mr Weasley muttering a spell to raise the tent, especially with that three-storey monstrosity down the hill, but it was clear that Mr Weasley was looking forward to his adventure in Muggle camping.

"There's still the fire to build and the water to fetch," Remus said seriously, though Harriet thought he was amused.

"Excellent!" Mr Weasley beamed. "Well, let's get setting up, then!"

Fred, George, Ron and Ginny were no help: they'd never been camping, certainly not as Muggles, and one of them had found a stick for Padfoot to chase. That left Harriet, Hermione and Remus to help Mr Weasley with the tents—or rather, to set them up for him. Mr Weasley had a tendency to get over-excited while using the mallet.

"Have any of us ever been camping?" Remus asked the girls as he rolled out two manky-looking canvases.

"The Dursleys don't like walking on grass that hasn't won any Best-Kept Lawn Awards," Harriet said. _  
_

"My mother doesn't go anywhere without a Real Bathroom," Hermione said.

"My father's idea of camping was sleeping beneath the stars," Remus said. "Here, Harriet, if you'll hold that end. . . yes, I think that's the right way, don't you? Anyway. . . when I was about ten, he caught a bad cold when it rained on us, couldn't shake it for weeks, and my mother forbid us from sleeping out ever again."

"What are these ropes for, do you think?" Mr Weasley asked, trying to untangle them and making it worse.

Eventually, they managed to drag the two shabby tents to a slouching position. ("I don't _think_ they'll fall over," Remus said.) Mr Weasley bent down to peer inside.

"Yes, if we squeeze a bit, it should do. This is our tent, boys. Girls, you've got that one—smaller, I'm afraid, but all to yourselves. . ."

Harriet and Hermione looked doubtfully at the second tent. About the size of Remus', it did make Ginny's room look like a palace.

"Go on," Remus said, smiling as if he knew something they didn't.

Harriet ducked into the tent and blurted, "Bloody hell!"

"Harriet!" Hermione scolded, but she followed Harriet inside. Her jaw dropped. "Oh, my goodness!"

It looked like a well-to-do old lady's flat inside. There was a sofa and armchairs, a kitchenette, three bunks, a great many doilies, and more than enough room for the three of them _and_ the pink dress from Madam Malkin's.

"You girls lucked out," Remus said, peering inside. "The boys' tent smells like cats."

"I _love_ magic," Harriet said, dropping onto the sofa with a bounce.

_"This_ part is quite nice," Hermione said, "but I've yet to find any more comfortable way of getting around than a car. Portkeys. . .!" 

"Apparition's pretty foul, too," Harriet said.

"When did you Apparate?"

"With Snape, summer before last." Only she _wasn't_ thinking about Snape, the anti-social, uncaring git.

"Why can't we just use the kitchen?" Ron was asking when Harriet and Hermione crawled back outside.

"Now, Ron," said Mr Weasley, "when Muggles go camping, they don't use kitchens, they build _fires_!"

Harriet didn't have the heart to mention motorized campers.

"So use _Incendio_ ," Ron suggested.

"Muggles don't _have_ Incendio, Ron."

They did have lighters, but Harriet thought it best not to mention that, either.

"When's your friend coming, Remus?" Mr Weasley asked as he tried to figure out how to get the cellophane off his box of matches.

"He didn't specify," Remus said. "But that's his way. A friend of mine's tagging along," he explained to Harriet as Padfoot returned, exhausted from all the stick-chasing, to flop across Harriet's feet. "Quidditch-mad, but unsociable like you wouldn't believe. Even when he gets here, I don't imagine we'll be seeing much of him. He'll probably hide in the tent."

Mr Weasley had got his matches open, but he was applying too much force to lighting them. Broken match-heads littered the grass around his feet.

"Whoops!" he said as he got one lit and promptly dropped it in excitement.

"Here, Mr Weasley," Hermione said. "I'll show you—"

"Why don't we fetch the water?" Remus asked Harriet, who nodded quickly. He probably wanted to talk to her about her letter.

Padfoot raised his head, but Ginny was giving him such a good ear-rub that he didn't seem able to stand. Remus collected two buckets from his tent, handed one to Harriet, and they set off.

"Are you enjoying it so far?" Remus asked as they made their way down the hill through the camp.

"It's brilliant. Portkeys should _never_ have been invented, though. They're even worse than Floo—or Apparating."

"Magical methods of travel do tend to be rather rough, don't they? Did you manage to stay on your feet?"

"Fell over. So did everyone else—well, not Mr Weasley or Cedric or his dad. But all the rest of us."

"Sirius used to be sick whenever he went through one. Do tell him I told you."

People were starting to wake up. The chimneys were beginning to smoke, and Harriet caught a delicious smell like baking pastries as they passed the silk tent (more of a pavilion, really) with the peacocks. 

"I'm sure everyone on duty today will be deeply relieved when the Cup is over," Remus said, looking both amused and sympathetic as a harassed Ministry wizard went rushing past, to stop two little girls who were flying around on toy brooms.

"Mrs Weasley said it went on for a week last time."

"Yes, they kept having to bring in substitutes so the players could get some sleep."

"I wish it would this time!"

"Arthur would have to go back to work," Remus said, "which would leave me in charge of all of you, I suppose. . . to be honest, I'm not sure I could manage the twins. Not for a week, at any rate. I'd be as exhausted as the Ministry folks before it was done." Then, without any change in tone or expression, he said, "Has it happened again, what you wrote in your letter?"

"No." Her next few heartbeats seemed faster. "But it's only been one night."

She still hadn't decided whether she should tell him about the dream. Well, she knew she _should_ , but she didn't want to. She couldn't shake the feeling that Remus and Sirius had come to the World Cup to protect her, and they hadn't told her because they hadn't wanted to scare her.

For the first time, it struck her how much they _all_ held back in dealing with each other.

"What happened?" Remus asked. "What were you doing when it happened?"

"I was asleep," Harriet admitted.

Remus slanted a sharp look at her. "Dreaming?" (Reluctantly, she nodded.) "About him?"

". . . Yes."

"And what was happening in this dream?"

Harriet bit her lip.

Remus said with gentle firmness, "Harriet. It is _vitally_ important that we have all the facts. If previously you've only felt this when he's been near you, and you can now feel him when he's elsewhere. . . that could mean he's close and we simply don't know it, or that he's getting stronger."

Harriet hadn't thought of that. "Do you think—?"

"I think that Wormtail escaped and has had six months to find him."

Slick dread slid into Harriet's stomach. "Wormtail was in the dream."

Remus did stop walking then, and Harriet guiltily stopped too.

"Derek!" shouted a witch two tents down. "How many times have I told you, you _don't touch Daddy's wand?_ " Something made a gooey, squelchy sound. "Yecch!"

"You bust slug! You bust slug!" wailed her little boy.

Remus started walking again. 

"Can you tell me everything you remember?" he said, his tone so calm and matter-of-fact that Harriet was almost glad she had to tell him. Unlike Hermione, Remus wasn't a hand-wringer.

"That's the thing," she said, frustrated, "I can't remember much. I think—I think they—I saw green light," she said, not wanting to say _they killed someone_ in the middle of a busy camp, even though nobody was going to be listening to them in all the excitement.

"And I think there was an old man. . . and maybe. . . maybe a snake. The whole thing was—"

_Scary_ , she thought. The snake big and monstrous, the old man dying, Wormtail looking terrified as he turned the chair round, and that feeling of horror that pushed her out of the dream, burning her scar from the inside. . .

She realized she was rubbing her scar and dropped her hand.

"It doesn't hurt," she said quickly, seeing Remus watching her. "I was only remembering."

He touched her shoulder. Whenever he touched her, which wasn't that often, it was always in that light way, as if he thought he shouldn't be doing it. His hand lingered for a moment, twice as warm as a regular person's, but then he pulled away.

They'd reached the water queue. At least twenty people stood ahead of them in line, so they would probably be there a while. Everyone was crowded close together, and because it would be impossible not to eavesdrop, she and Remus, through unspoken agreement, put their conversation on hold. In fact, Harriet found out exactly how easy it was to eavesdrop, because she couldn't help listening to the young couple arguing in front of her.

". . . came, didn't I?" the woman was saying. Even if she and her boyfriend hadn't been having an obvious argument, Harriet would have stared at her waist-length, electric green hair. "I took off from bloody work to be here, didn't I? I'm this close to qualifying and I came to the bloody Quidditch World Cup instead—"

"And all you've done since you got here is whinge about it," her boyfriend said. All Harriet could see was the back of his head, but he sounded sulky. "If you were going to be like this, you might've told me, I wouldn't have tried so hard to get you here—"

"Fine for you to talk about whinging," the girlfriend said, "as if I haven't heard you do anything but for the past six months. Surprised you heard me over the sound of your own voice."

"I just want you to get out and have some bloody fun, all right? I can't remember the last time I felt like I actually had a girlfriend. All you do anymore is train—"

"It's the Auror program, not an apprenticeship at Fortescue's. How long are you going to make me feel guilty for—"

"Harriet," Remus said abruptly, "does that cloud look like a pirate ship to you?"

Harriet squinted where Remus was pointing, but didn't see any clouds that looked like ships, piratey or no. But she would bet her glasses that Remus was only asking to drown out the sound of the quarreling couple in front, and maybe even to stop them quarreling: when they heard his voice, they went quiet, as if they'd just remembered there were other people around.

"Where?" Harriet asked, playing along.

"There. Can't you see the Jolly Roger?"

"No-o. . . but I think I see somebody walking the plank."

"Ah, yes. For marooning, do you think? Or simple shark bait?"

"You know a lot about pirates," Harriet observed. Now she got the impression that the green-haired witch and her boyfriend were listening to _them._

"Only what they tell you in Hollywood, which is, I hear, all a fairy tale."

"There are pirates in the book I'm reading."

"Oh, really? What's it about?"

"It's called _The Pirate and the Pagan._ It's a romance novel _,_ " Harriet admitted—a bit defiantly. It was an odd thing to do, admit something defiantly, but she couldn't make up her mind whether to be embarrassed or not, about admitting it to Remus, at least. But he didn't not roll his eyes or wrinkle his nose like Hermione had done.

"I imagine it's significantly broadening your horizons," he said.

"Oh, yeah."

The green-haired witch and her boyfriend had reached the front of the queue, and they quickly collected their water and left. As they passed by, the green-haired witch smiled at Harriet and winked. (Her boyfriend was still sulking.)

"I don't know her, do I?" Harriet asked Remus as they filled their buckets from the pump.

"I think it was her way of apologizing for the row."

Staggering a bit from the weight of her water, Harriet lurched away from the queue. Remus gripped the other side of her bucket's handle, but the difference in their height meant that he'd have to stoop the whole way to help her.

"I'm okay," Harriet said. "I've got it."

"Well—I'm not Arthur, so—" Taking out his wand, Remus cast a spell on the bucket that made it a great deal lighter.

"Thanks," she said. "What's an—Orer?"

"Auror. Dark wizard catcher. If she's on the track to be one, that means she's quite talented. They don't let just anyone into the training program, and sometimes whole classes fail to qualify as full-fledged Aurors."

Dark wizard catchers. . . "Are Aurors after Si—Padfoot?"

"Yes," Remus said quietly. Then he sighed. "I understand why you don't want to talk about the dreams. Believe me, I do. Unfortunately, nothing good ever comes from not talking about the things that make us uncomfortable. He says," he added dryly, "theory being so much easier than practice."

"I just. . ." Harriet felt embarrassed, and stupid, but also like he was a safe person to tell; like he wouldn't scold or judge her for it, even though she deserved it. "I didn't want to get sent back to the Dursleys. Or to Hogwarts. I wanted to see the World Cup."

"You wanted to go on with the business of living. I do understand. We hate that you have this threat against you, Harriet—as much, if not more, than you do. We only want to keep you safe. The world. . ." He looked up at the bright sky, where the clouds were tearing apart in a high wind. "The world is a dangerous place."

They walked the rest of the way back to the Weasleys' camp in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Pirate and the Pagan" is a romance novel by Virginia Henley. It would be *very* horizon-broadening to a 14-year-old girl.


	51. The Quidditch World Cup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, from Snape to Winky the house-elf, attends the match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is so canon-y. I tried to focus on the characters and add in my AU touches throughout. I also think the QWC is fun, so I wanted to preserve it.

Although Severus did not Apparate to the World Cup as early as Lupin, he didn't use the time to sleep in. He spent the night rattling round his Muggle trash pile. It had always been like that before he undertook some active bit of espionage; however slight the danger, he couldn't sleep.

He'd long since given up on giving up smoking.

Dumbledore knew he was doing this. Whether he knew that Lupin and Black were involved, Severus was less certain, but before he'd left Hogwarts, when he'd gone, as he always did, to say his (curt) good-byes. . .

He'd found Dumbledore in that old chapel he'd nattered about: a derelict little place, quite small, although Severus thought that it must have been larger, once. The vaulted ceiling seemed to belong with a room of greater size and importance. Perhaps when the denizens of Hogwarts had moved away from religion as a way of life, they'd confiscated its space for other classrooms, carried away the stones; their necessities slowly eroding a place they had no real use for anymore. 

Dumbledore was seated in an ancient-looking chair with a high, pointed back, situated in the center of a dais that must once have hosted the altar. Even though the chapel itself was a kind of ghost, Severus couldn't help wondering what the Fat Friar, who floated next to him, thought of that. 

"Good morning, Severus," Dumbledore said. "You're off at once, I see."

Severus always dressed Muggle to leave, since the first thing he always had to do was stock the fridge (and pick up cigarettes. Several cartons this time). He grunted in reply.

"Well, I'll be seeing you rather soon this year," Dumbledore said. "Like last year, and the year before, as it happens. . . Do take care of yourself, my dear boy. And try to enjoy yourself, at least a little." He smiled. "I hear Ireland are the favorites to win, but that Viktor Krum is a sight to behold in the air."

Severus had never mentioned the Cup, nor had Lupin (nor, he assumed, had Black). Dumbledore was just like that.

Now the Polyjuice potion bubbled on the stove-top, looking foul. He reached into his pocket for the vial of a Muggle's hair. 

He Apparated with Lupin's coordinates and followed his directions to the Weasleys' camp. He couldn't decide whether to be relieved or annoyed that Lupin's directions were perfect. The Weasleys had already pitched their tents and found success in building a fire, and everyone (Arthur Weasley, his four youngest hell-spawn, Lupin, Black the dog, Granger and Miss Potter) was sitting round it, already enjoying themselves.

Severus told the knot in his stomach to fuck off. He didn't look like himself, the Weasleys were friendly people, this wasn't a party he was attending; he was here to make sure Miss Potter didn't get trampled by any Death Eaters or fall afoul of a stray curse, not have fun or make friends.

Lupin had spotted him and was walking forward, to meet him. Black-the-dog raised his head from his paws and growled. Miss Potter put her hand on his head and he lay back down. Severus hated his fucking guts.

"Good, you got here all right, then," Lupin said, and when Severus glared at him, whispered, "We're trying to act as if we really _are_ friends, remember?"

Right. Fucking hell.

"Your directions were adequate," Severus said in what he hoped wasn't a Fuck You voice.

"Good," Lupin said genially—but that wasn't a good indication of Severus' acting ability, because Lupin was genial ninety-five percent of the time. "Come meet everyone, then.

"This is Ebenezer Jones," Lupin introduced him, and then winced. Severus tried his damndest not to glare at Lupin for getting the fucking name wrong. It was supposed to be _Eleazar_ , not Ebenezer. "Ah—Ebenezer, these are the Weasleys. . . Arthur, Fred and George, don't try to keep them strait, Ginny, Ron—and Hermione Granger and Harriet Potter."

The children did not seem remotely interested (except Miss Potter, who was looking at him curiously, for some reason). Arthur Weasley stood up with a smile to shake Severus' hand-that-wasn't-his.

"How do you do?" he asked. "Nice to meet a friend of Remus'."

"Likewise," Severus said shortly.

"You're welcome to some lunch," said Arthur (there were so many Weasleys, Severus might as well just call them by their first names). "We think the fire's finally hot enough for cooking, and the rest of my boys should be along shortly."

Severus wondered whether it would be appropriate to say _There's more of you?_ Someone else might have made the joke, but he was sure he would only make it sound rude. He had no reason to want to offend Arthur, despite his crime of producing far too many children for Severus to teach, and the twins in particular.

"Want to put your things in the tent?" Lupin asked, and Severus (gratefully, though he wouldn't in a thousand years let on) followed him to the tent.

The inside looked brand new. There was a sterilized, unlived-in feel to it, and all of the furniture had the featureless personality of a new hotel room. Even the air smelled of a kind of emptiness.

"New purchase?" he asked sardonically, choosing not to say _I'm surprised it doesn't already stink of dog_.

"Sirius ordered it when he got the tickets." Severus got the impression Lupin would rather have slept under a coat propped on sticks.

"How did _he_ order the tickets?"

"He still has access to his vaults. You know goblins, they don't care about prison sentences, only whether the gold is yours. Thank Merlin they're so tightfisted," he said, half under his breath.

Severus had to agree: if the goblins weren't as equally bloody-minded about sharing gold as information. . .

Wizarding society: where a man could be sent to prison without trial and have unrestricted access to his funds on the lam - enough to purchase Firebolts and Quidditch World Cup tickets.

"Take whatever bed you like," Lupin said. "Though, if everything goes according to our expectations, I don't imagine we'll be doing much sleeping. . .

"By the way," he said as Severus dumped his bag on one of the beds, and the tone of his voice made Severus look at him sharply. "Harriet had a dream about Voldemort that made her scar burn."

Severus flinched at the sound of that loathed name, but his fear was quickly subsumed by a different horror.

"She _what?_ "

"Wormtail was there, and she believes Voldemort killed someone. And is keeping a pet monster snake. She didn't remember all the details," Lupin said, his tone aware of how vague (and disturbing) this account was, "but she woke with her scar hurting."

Severus hated the sound of this even more than Lupin's regular conversation. "Has it done that before?"

"Only when Voldemort was physically present nearby. If it's happening through dreams now, I'm worried. Do you think it's a hold-over from her time-accident? That she might be remembering a vision of the future?"

"I don't know." His heart was beating harder and quicker than before. 

"In view of what's to happen tonight. . ." Lupin said quietly. 

For a moment they were silent. Severus would even have said they were united in grim preparation.

But then it was over (thank God), and Lupin was straightening his shoulders and saying in that mild way of his: "We should probably get back to the fire. They'll be wondering where we've gone."

The tent flap was cut low, so they had to duck. Miss Potter was starting to cook eggs and sausages, while several more redheads had sprouted up from the ground.

"Harriet, you needn't do that," Arthur was saying as if it distressed him to see one of his guests cooking.

"It's fine, Mr Weasley, I don't mind."

"Make mine an omelet," said the She-Weasley in what she evidently thought was a regal tone. Then, in a sly, knowing teenage girl tone: "How do you want _yours_ , Bill?"

"Make your own ruddy omelets, Your Highness," Miss Potter said, going bright red. "I'm doing them scrambled."

"Don't be a pain, Ginny," said William, tousling the She-Weasley's hair across her face and earning himself several punches.

Miss Potter had clear practice at cooking eggs: she was able to crack them one handed in the pan. She'd probably learned it by necessity in Petunia's kitchen.

She hadn't changed one whit in the past ten days. Her hair was still all that which Narcissa would deplore, her glasses were equally terrible, and she'd buttoned her shirt wrongly. He scrutinized her for any signs that she'd been having disturbing dreams. He thought she might look more tired than a fourteen-year-old girl on holiday ought to; but her predominate emotions seemed to be pleasure and excitement. Her feckless Weasley friend said something that made her laugh.

Lupin was making himself useful, cutting up sausages from a package.

"Guard your sausages once they're cooked," he told the children. "Padfoot will steal them off your plates if you aren't properly vigilant."

Black-the-dog gave Lupin what was clearly a You're Sleeping on the Couch Tonight look, which Lupin serenely pretended not to notice. It was good acting.

"Aha!" said Arthur, suddenly getting to his feet, "The man of the moment! Ludo!"

The notorious Ludo Bagman manifested from the constant stream of harassed-looking Ministry officials. An eyesore in his old Wimbourne Wasps robes, he'd once lost ten thousand Galleons to Narcissa at cards, and thirteen years ago had been tried for feeding information to the Dark Lord's supporters. Many people had thought he'd just been taken in, but Severus thought him morally dessicated. He'd surely been paid handsomely for that information, and it hadn't mattered to him who was buying. In fact, Severus had long suspected that Narcissa had had something to do with it: if Lucius had mentioned that Ludo Bagman was a notorious gambler, Narcissa could have fleeced him so he'd be ready to sell information at any price. It was the sort of thing both Malfoys would have done for pure enjoyment. 

With Arthur involved in Ludo Bagman's conversation and the children mostly listening to (or ignoring) that, Severus didn't have to make chat. He was relieved. But then Bagman said something interesting.

"Fancy a flutter on the match?" Bagman asked Arthur, jingling his pockets. 

"Oh, go on, then," said Arthur. "Let's see. . . a Galleon on Ireland to win?"

"A Galleon?" Bagman looked disappointed. "Very well, very well. . . any other takers?"

"They're a bit young to be gambling. Molly wouldn't like—"

"We'll bet thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts," said one twin, "that Ireland win—but Viktor Krum gets the Snitch. Oh, and we'll throw in a fake wand. . ."

"Did you mention anything to them?" Severus asked Lupin under his breath.

"Not a thing," Lupin said, twinkling in an annoying, Dumbledorian manner. "They're just prescient, I suppose."

"Boys," said Arthur in a quiet voice, "I don't want you betting. . . that's all your savings. Your mother—"

"Don't be a spoilsport, Arthur!" Bagman took the twins' gold with an air of excitement that Severus knew came from thinking he was going to make a killing. "They're old enough to know what they want. You reckon Ireland will win but Krum'll get the Snitch? Not a chance boys, not a chance. . . I'll give you excellent odds on that one. . . we'll add five Galleons for the funny wand, then, shall we?"

Severus would have placed a bet himself but for lacking confidence that he'd get anything out of Bagman. He could have advised the twins to save their money, but he thought (with malicious satisfaction) that it would do them good to be swindled.

"Couldn't do me a brew, I suppose?" Bagman asked as he tucked away his notebook. "I'm keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch."

Severus wasn't able to repress a cowardly pang of relief that he was Polyjuiced.

"Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?" asked Arthur.

"Not a dicky bird," said Bagman, unconcerned. "But she'll turn up. Poor old Bertha—memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She'll wander back into the office some time in October, thinking it's still July. . ."

Miss Potter was frowning. That was curious. What should she care that Bagman cared for nobody but himself?

_Crack!_

"Oh, talk of the devil," said Bagman. "Barty!"

Bartemius Crouch had just Apparated to their fireside, looking like the world's grimmest bank manager. His expression said that hunting up Ludo Bagman was a thankless task, but one he would pursue because it was his job.

"I've been looking for you everywhere," he said impatiently to Bagman, who offered him a careless patch of grass to sit on. "The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the Top Box—"

"Mr Crouch!" Percy made a bow that twisted him into a reef knot, making him resemble Lucius when confronted with his own mother. "Would like a cup of tea?"

"Oh. . ." Crouch looked at Percy. "Thank you, Weatherby."

Percy went pink; the twins sniggered. Severus could have told him there was no human being whom Crouch loved one iota as much as rules—and upholding them. It was still as true even now, if not more so.

"I expect you'll both be glad when this is over," said Arthur to Bagman and Crouch.

"Glad!" said Bagman. "Don't know when I've had more fun! Still, it's not as though we haven't got anything to look forward to, eh, Barty? Plenty left to organize, eh?"

His tone was like a joking elbow in the ribs, and Crouch looked about as pleased to hear it as he would have been to get the elbow. "We agreed not to make the announcement until all the details—"

"Oh, details! They've signed, they've agreed—I bet you anything these kids'll know soon enough anyway. I mean, it's happening at Hogwarts—"

"Ludo, we need to meet the Bulgarians, you know," said Crouch sharply. "Thank you for the tea, Weatherby." He pushed his cup back at Percy, collected Bagman, who cheerfully promised to see them all in the Top Box, and Disapparated (good bloody riddance).

"What's happening at Hogwarts, Dad?" asked one twin. "What were they talking about?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

"Do _you_ know?" Miss Potter asked Lupin.

"Why would _I_ know?" Lupin replied, but he was smiling.

"Maybe the other teachers told you."

"It's classified information until such a time as the Ministry decides to release it," Officious Weasley said repressively, looking annoyed that Miss Potter would dare seek information from any non-Ministry source. "Mr Crouch was quite right not to disclose it."

"Oh, shut up, Weatherby," said a twin.

With lunch finished, the children wandered away. Black-the-dog trailed after Miss Potter, Granger, the She-Weasley and her brother, as the rest dispersed.

"I'll mind the camp," said Arthur to Lupin and Severus, "if you boys want to take a look around."

So (after some suitably civil rejoinder from Lupin, and an offer to do the same later), they set off to see who they could find who might look like a masked rioter.

"Interesting to see Barty Crouch in this climate," Lupin said, as they passed a group of Nigerian wizards cooking round a purple fire.

"He works for Department of Magical Games and Sports," Severus said curtly. "Of course he's here."

"I think you know what I mean. . . Ebenezer."

"You couldn't even keep the fucking name straight."

"It _was_ an accident." Lupin's tone was apologetic, but Severus didn't believe he was really sorry. "I think you piqued Harriet's interest."

"What?" Severus was confused enough to ask, "Why?"

"You didn't do a double-take at her name. Everyone does, the first time they meet her. They look for her scar. It embarrasses her."

Was this Lupin's way of pointing out that Severus was making his own mistakes?

"She kept frowning at Bagman."

"I noticed that, too," Lupin said thoughtfully. "Did you notice what he was saying about Bertha having a terrible memory?"

"Yes, so?"

"Well, Bertha was at school with us, and I don't remember her having a terrible memory at all. To the contrary, she had a tenacious, even rapacious memory for gossip. . . it used to get her into trouble."

Severus had a hard time recalling any girls at school except for Lily. "What would Miss Potter know about her? Or care?"

"There's no telling. Fourteen-year-old girls aren't exactly confiding. . . Harriet least of all. But do you think he was lying?"

"How am I to know?"

"Well, what would he gain from the disappearance of a colleague?"

"Winning a bet, perhaps. He's always up to his ears in it."

"I remember he was brought up on charges of passing information to Voldemort's," Lupin ignored his flinch, "supporters. The jury let him off, but Crouch was. . . displeased that they weren't taking it seriously."

"You think Bertha Jorkins' disappearance has something to do with. . ." Severus refused to say _what's-his-face_ , it was even worse than _You-Know-Who._  And how ironic it was that they couldn't say  _You-Know-Who_  without alarming any eavesdroppers. "With him?"

"I don't know. If she's really as forgetful as Ludo Bagman said, it could be nothing. But I certainly trust Arthur's judgment more than his, and Arthur thinks she should be found."

 _And Miss Potter seems to recognize her name_ , Severus thought. _From a dream, perhaps?_

"So," Lupin said, as they passed by a segment of tents that, judging by the plethora of photographs displaying Viktor Krum's face, might have possessed some sort of Bulgarian allegiance, "blokes in masks levitating Muggles. . . and then fleeing from _his_ sign. That means they're likely to be _his_ former followers yes?"

"Anyone would flee his mark," Severus said. "Anyone this side of Azkaban. Whether they supported him and renounced him to save their own skins or spent his reign cowering in fear. In fact, the first sort would be the first to flee."

They had gone over this, but every now and then they circled back to it. Lupin returned to looking thoughtful.

"Is Lucius Malfoy here?" he asked, as if inquiring after an old acquaintance for politeness' sake.

Lupin had never asked for names. He had never intimated that Severus might know more about Voldemort's supporters than the rest of them, and he'd never made any reference to Lucius before. That he was doing so now, as if Severus would know, sent cautious ripples prickling along the back of his neck.

He watched Lupin for signs of satisfaction, alarm, disapproval; anything. But it was exactly like last year: Lupin remained unreadable,his eyes clear and blank. It was like sparring with Dumbledore—only not, because Dumbledore gave things away all the time, as freely as a fast-flowing stream gave water. He was only this inscrutable when he had something to hide.

Lupin was always inscrutable. Last year, he'd definitely had something to hide. Was it only habit now? Or was Lupin hiding something from him?

Just as he'd done last winter, Severus found himself wanting, needing, to find out what it was.

"Yes," he said, watching Lupin, "he is."

"Is his family with him?" Lupin asked, frowning.

"Of course they are."

As they walked, Severus realized how many faces in the crowd he recognized. He'd gone to school with many of these people, and he'd taught much of the rest. Former students were everywhere, some of them even surrounded by their own children. . . and so were the men who might be donning masks tonight and trailing a family of Muggles through the sky. Everything looked so bloody normal. It was superficial, and at the same time it wasn't: things, people, were normal until they weren't. 

"Harriet's account didn't mention her scar hurting, or seeing a vision of—him," Lupin said. "And she didn't mention staying at Hogwarts for the summer. . . Do you think it likely that _this_ part is going to be the same?"

Severus didn't want to say _I don't know_ , not to Lupin, not a second time. "My original theory was that Miss Potter's vision of the future extrapolated from events built upon what she was likely to guess. She was right about staying with the Grangers and going to the World Cup with the Weasleys. They are people she knows well, who have been kind to her in the past. So far she's been right about everything to do with the Cup, but larger events, things far outside of her scope, seem to have remained dark to her. It's not surprising, considering she isn't a true Seer."

Lupin made a pensive noise.

They had made three rounds of the camp, meandering up and down row upon row of tents, when nighttime begin its first sleepy stretches. The Ministry gave up on keeping order, and the air filled with cracks of saleswizards Apparating. An acrid miasma of fireworks and spells rose over the tents as the crowd's excitement reached a fever-pitch. Severus resigned himself to ending the evening with a headache and streaming eyes.

"Time for the Cup, then," said Lupin. A gleam of anticipation passed over his face. Could it be a real emotion? "Shall we go find the others?"

* * *

Clutching their souvenirs, Harriet, Ron, Hermione and Padfoot fought through the crowd back to the Weasleys' tents as a ground-shaking gong echoed beyond the dark heads of the trees. Before the sound had faded, a hundred green and red lanterns flared in the wood.

"It's time!" Mr Weasley said, looking as excited as any of them. "Come on, let's go!"

Harriet kissed Padfoot good-bye, and he lay down in front of the tents as if guarding them. She looked around for Remus but didn't see him. She hoped they ran into him on the way to the stadium, then. There would be no point in giving him the present after the game.

She spotted his friend first. He stood out—maybe it was the glare. He had these dark, glaring eyes that seemed to be trying to burn a hole through everything. It reminded her of Snape on the warpath. But he didn't move like Snape or even talk like him; he had a thick Northern accent, and he hunched a bit when he walked instead of swooping.

She knew he wasn't Snape, he just. . . Well, why was she thinking of Snape anyway? She ought to be thinking of the Cup.

"Hi!" she said as she caught up to Remus, who'd stopped with his friend to waiting for them.

"I needn't ask if you're excited yet," Remus said, smiling.

"No way! Here, I got these for you." She pushed a pair of Omnioculars into his hand.

Remus stared at the Omnioculars. Maybe he didn't know what they were? But the expression on his face seemed to be about something else. She didn't know what, but it made her feel uncomfortable, like she'd committed some sort of gaffe. 

"They're Omnioculars," she explained. "You can replay action and slow everything down. Well, that's what the saleswizard said—"

"You really shouldn't have," Remus said slowly. It didn't sound like something you said to be polite; it sounded like he really meant it. What was so bad about Omnioculars?

"I—we all got some. I thought maybe. . ." She glanced at Hermione for help, but she looked equally confused.

"I'll take them if you don't want them," said Remus' friend, and grabbed them out of his hand. "Bloody useful at these matches, where everything happens so fast you can't see a damned thing."

Remus didn't look amused, but his friend ignored him. Harriet had forgotten his name—Ebenezer-not-Scrooge. He didn't look like much of an Ebenezer, but a lot of wizards had strange names. He was about Remus' age and height but stocky, whereas Remus could have hidden behind a broomstick.

Ebenezer-not-Scrooge was twisting the dial on the Omnioculars. Remus gave up glaring at him and turned to Harriet with a smile that looked forced. Or maybe she was just being paranoid.

"Thank you, Harriet. It was quite thoughtful. I'm sure they'll come in handy."

Harriet smiled back, wondering if hers looked forced, too.

They walked through the wood for at least fifteen minutes, following the lantern trail. The woods were packed with excited noises—laughter, even snatches of songs—and the Weasleys were all in high spirits, but Harriet couldn't stop wondering why the Omnioculars had been such a bad present. She'd seen them and thought they were something Remus would never buy for himself, though they looked really cool. . . She'd spent half the summer at his rooms with him and Sirius, who was always buying her things and saying, "Consider it from me and Moony". . . She'd just wanted to give back like that, liking that she could, thinking it was just what you _did_.

Apparently it wasn't.

The woods fell away, and the crowd poured into the shadow of an immense, gold stadium blazing with lights. After the lantern-lit gloom of the forest, it was dazzling, and Harriet's agitation sizzle away. She was awed by how much magic could do, hiding this from Muggles. 

"Prime seats!" said the witch at the door who checked their tickets. "Top Box—straight upstairs, Arthur, as high as you can go. Ah—third floor, Section 32-FG," she added to Remus and his friend.

"You're not sitting with us?" This hadn't occurred to Harriet.

"Arthur's tickets are something rather special," Remus said with his usual smile, as if the awkwardness with the Omnioculars had never happened. "When the match is over you'll have to tell me what it's like."

"Or you can spy in there with these," his friend said, twirling the Omnioculars round in his hand. Remus glared at him again.

Harriet wondered if this was just more of grown-ups' being weird.

The stadium stairs were carpeted in purple velvet the same color as the sky outside, and lights glimmered on the walls like golden water flowing down a rock face. On the lower levels Harriet, Hermione and the Weasleys were pushed along on a tide of other people, but the further they climbed, the more the flood slowed, until at last they reached the top of the stairs alone.

The Top Box wasn't too large, all things considered (Harriet wondered if the Bulgarians had succeeded in getting their twelve extra seats) and made her feel like she was in an old-fashioned cinema. Four tiered rows of purple velvet-covered seats faced an enormous picture window that stretched the length of the box. At the highest point in the stadium, the box looked down on the emerald oval of the pitch and hundred thousand witches and wizards trickling to their seats.

The ticket witch had been right: these were prime seats. Harriet felt her excitement lifting like a balloon.

She wound up sitting between Ron and Hermione, at the end of the box nearest the door. Bill was all the way at the other end. She was embarrassed to notice this—and to notice how nice his arms looked in that shirt. . .

She looked desperately around the box for some distraction, and saw someone who looked an awful lot like—

" _Dobby_?" she said.

As soon as she said it, she was quite sure she was wrong: it _was_ a house-elf, but it was not Dobby. It was just so odd to see a house-elf in the Top Box, since, as Dobby had told her, the mark of a good house-elf was that you _didn't_ see it.

The house-elf, whose face was buried in its hands, parted its fingers to reveal enormous brown eyes.

"Did miss just call me Dobby?" the elf said, in a tiny, quivering squeak of a voice. Harriet thought that maybe this one was female.

Hermione and Ron twisted in their seats to look, and even Mr Weasley turned round curiously.

"Sorry," Harriet said. "I thought you were someone I knew—"

"But I knows Dobby too, miss!" The elf had moved her fingers away from her eyes but was still shielding her face. "My name is Winky, miss, and you. . ." Her eyes widened as they found Harriet's scar. "You is surely Harriet Potter!"

"Yeah," Harriet said, resigned. Maybe she should invest in bandanas or those exercise headbands. (She could just picture the look on Lavender's face.)

"But Dobby talks about you all the time, miss!" said Winky, finally lowering her hands with awed reverence that made Harriet determined to stuff Lavender's fashion sensibilities and find something to wear across her forehead.

"You work at Hogwarts?" she asked Winky.

"Oh no, miss, Winky works for her family." It was firmly said, as if Winky didn't want Harriet getting any wrong ideas. "I is knowing Dobby of old, miss."

Harriet hadn't thought about house-elves all knowing each other. She wondered how they found time to meet up, if they always had to be working.

Winky seemed to realize that she'd uncovered her face enough to see everything. With a terrified squeak, she pressed her hands over her eyes again. It would have been funny if she hadn't looked so frightened. 

"What's wrong?" Harriet asked.

"I is not liking heights, Harriet Potter," Winky said, her voice muffled by her hands.

"Shouldn't you get down, then?"

"Oh no, no, miss. Master—wants Winky to save him a seat." She nodded her head toward the empty seat next to her. It seemed wrong that she should be up here if heights frightened her so much.

"Well," Harriet said, frowning, "one of us can save it for him, if you want to get down—"

"Oh no, no, no!" Winky shook her head so hard that her ears flapped. "Winky does what she is told, Harriet Potter. Winky is a good house-elf."

Then, with her hands still over her eyes she buried her face in her knees. Harriet turned back to the front, communicating silently with Hermione.

"So that's a house-elf?" Ron muttered, so Winky couldn't hear. "Weird things, aren't they?"

"Now do you see what I mean?" Hermione hissed. "It's not right that she should have to follow orders that make her so uncomfortable!"

"What are you on about?" Ron asked, though he seemed more interested in twiddling the knobs on his Omioculars.

Hermione opened her mouth, but Harriet pressed hard on her foot. She didn't want Mr Weasley hearing about them sneaking into the kitchens or calling on house-elves. Granted, the twins had done much worse, but she thought it was better not to risk anyone finding out.

"Later," she muttered to Hermione.

Ron didn't notice a thing. "Wild!" he said, now peering through the Omnioculars. "I can make that old bloke down there pick his nose again. . . and again. . . and again. . ."

Hermione shook her head and, taking her velvet-covered program out of her bag, resorted to her favorite pastime: reading.

"'A display from the team mascots will precede the match,'" she read aloud.

"Oh, that's always worth watching," said Mr Weasley.

Harriet looked through her Omnioculars. The lenses bumped her glasses, and she had to hold them out a little. She'd thought about putting on her contacts back at the camp, but she hadn't wanted them bugging her throughout the match.

She scanned the crowd, looking for Remus. It was hard to find one person in a sea of so many, especially since it was such a strange and magical sea that she kept getting distracted. A group of Irish supporters had painted their faces in green paint that kept flickering across their cheeks and foreheads like a slithering snake. A witch wearing a magnificent, jeweled ruff had a boy carrying the long train of her gown. A group of Moroccan wizards were carrying ostrich-plume fans that were as wide as their arms were long.

Diagon Alley was nothing to this.

What had the ticket witch said? Third floor, section thirty-something-something. . .

There: she found him. He and his friend were sitting with a large group of children on Remus' side and a snogging couple on his friend's. His friend was screwing the lid back on a canteen, and Remus was saying something sharply to him. Harriet couldn't read lips, but it looked an awful lot like _Mind your own bloody business_ , while his friend looked amused, in a sardonic way.

Odd blokes.

His friend was still holding the Omnioculars. As Harriet watched, he raised them—straight at her. She quickly put hers down.

And elbowed Hermione, who'd leaned in to whisper in her ear, in the shoulder. "Ow! Sorry—what?"

Hermione's eyes darted to the right. Harriet saw that Mr Weasley standing next to the Minister for Magic, who was giving her an indulgent look. Harriet got uncertainly to her feet.

"Harriet, how are you, my dear?" the Minster asked like a distant uncle, shaking her hand. "This is Harriet Potter," he said to a pleasant-looking man wearing rich robes of black velvet. " _Harriet Potter_ —oh, come on now, you know who she is—this is the Bulgarian Minister," he said to Harriet, now looking less avuncular and more harassed. "Doesn't speak a word of English, and I'm no great shakes at languages. . . There it goes," he said wearily as the Bulgarian Minister pointed Harriet's scar and started speaking excitedly in Bulgarian. "Knew we'd get there in the end." Then he brightened. "Ah, and here's Lucius!"

With a nasty twist, Harriet saw three very blond people filing inside: Draco, his mother and father. They were all dressed impeccably like Muggles, but perhaps fifty years too early. Mrs Malfoy was wearing a hat with a net. Harriet would have liked to think it looked stupid, but it didn't; it looked glamorous. For a moment she wished she'd worn something other than an old work shirt from Oxfam, jeans and wellies—and then she told herself bugger that; wellies and jeans were more than good enough for some bloody Malfoys. Even a shirt she'd buttoned wrong. . . Shit, how had she not noticed? It had been like that all bloody day!

"Ah, Fudge," said Lucius Malfoy, holding out his gloved hand. In his other hand he carried a cane. He'd carried that two years ago when he'd tried to hex her and Snape had turned up. "How are you? I don't think you've met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?"

"How do you do, how do you do?" said Fudge, smiling and bowing to Mrs Malfoy, who inclined her head so slightly, you'd have missed it if you blinked. Draco put on a smile that was probably supposed to look aristocratic or something, but to Harriet only made him look like a smarmy git.

Mr Malfoy had taken in the number of Weasleys, as well as Hermione and Harriet, with a sneer of well-bred contempt. Mrs Malfoy, for some reason, was staring straight at Harriet. It made her skin crawl, and she felt even shorter than usual. She put up her chin, glaring back.

Mrs Malfoy looked away, as if she'd lost interest entirely. Harriet wasn't sure whether to be relieved or furious.

Draco sneered at her as he filed past her with his parents to their seats. Harriet thought about flipping him off, but in the end she sat back down trying to pretend as if no Malfoys existed anywhere in the world.

"Slimy gits," Ron muttered.

"I couldn't agree with you any bloody more," Harriet said.

There was flurry of movement at the door, and Ludo Bagman charged in.

"Everyone ready?" he said, his round face shining. "Minister—ready to go?"

"Ready when you are, Ludo," said Fudge.

Mr Bagman pointed his own wand at his throat and said, " _Sonorous!_ "

* * *

Severus would have been pleased he'd managed to annoy Lupin, except that he'd only stumbled upon one of Lupin's major hang-ups. And Lupin's hang-up was so stupid it only irritated him.

"I'd think you'd be thanking me," he said. "I saved you from having to make some very awkward excuses to Miss Potter about whatever your bloody problem is. Allergic to Omnioculars, are you? Are they part of some debilitating childhood memory?"

"It's none of your bloody business, frankly," Lupin said, looking so annoyed that Severus would have suspected someone had Polyjuiced into him if he'd not been stuck with the bugger the whole day.

Speaking of which, it was time for another dose. He took a mouthful from the flask in his pocket and did his bloody-minded best not to gag.

Then he ostentatiously raised the Omnioculars, pointing them at the Top Box. Miss Potter was peering straight at them. When she saw that "Ebenezer" had discovered her, however, she snatched her arm down, elbowing Granger.

Severus watched as Miss Potter shook hands with Cornelius Fudge and was introduced to the Bulgarian Minister. Lupin was right: looking at her face, it couldn't have been clearer that she hated every point-and-gape at her scar, and the Bulgarian Minister was doing it freely.

Now Miss Potter's expression was mingled distaste and surprise, as if she'd gone to pull on her shoes and found something decomposing inside. Ah, Lucius had arrived.

Narcissa was scrutinizing Miss Potter. Shit.

"You keep them, then," Lupin said dryly. "Since you so clearly enjoy spying on the Top Box."

Now it was Severus' turn to be annoyed. It was unfair: Lupin could rankle him by something so simple as existing, and when he was _trying_ to be provoking. . .

"Lucius has arrived," he told Lupin, still looking through the Omnioculars as if watching the Malfoys filing to their seats was a riveting sight. Miss Potter was now ostentatiously pretending the Malfoys weren't sitting right behind her. Draco was glaring at the back of her head, and Narcissa was watching the both of them, her face as remote and cold as the moon.

Now Ludo Bagman was dashing into the Box and raising his wand to his throat.

" _Ladies and gentleman, welcome_ ," boomed Bagman's voice, sending an ecstatic ripple across the thousands in the stands, " _to the final of the four-hundred-and-twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!_ "

Severus did not feel excited, not even a tiny bit, as the scoreboard wiped itself free and proclaimed BULGARIA: ZERO, IRELAND: ZERO.

" _And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce the Bulgarian Team Mascots!_ "

"Oh, they've brought Veela," Lupin said, his bad humor now stuffed inside whichever lock-box that stored his real feelings. "Let me borrow those Omnioculars, would you?"

Severus would have said something like _You mean_ your _Omnioculars, that Miss Potter bought you?_ but the Veela were gliding into formation, and he needed his hands free to stuff his ears. As they began to dance, his mind felt like it was floating on a gently bobbing tide.

Blocking the music wasn't enough. He wrenched his attention (which dug in its heels, like a mule) away from the Veela and fixed it on Lupin. To his relief, that incinerated the sense of dreamlike arousal.

Lupin was peering at the Veela through the Omnioculars without any sign of the blissful idiocy they caused everyone else. The man seated next to Severus had climbed onto his chair and was trying to do a handstand, while his highly displeased girlfriend tried to stop him.

Severus could tell the music had stopped when all the men nearby started regaining their senses. He unplugged his ears to angry shouting as the Veela wafted across the pitch to line up against one side, their preternaturally beautiful faces serene and shining.

"Doesn't work on werewolves," Lupin told Severus in an undertone as Bagman's voice roared above the roars of the crowd, " _And now, kindly put your wands in the air for the Irish National Team Mascots!_ "

"Don't they know it's fake gold?" Severus snapped as the people around them went into an even greater frenzy than before, scrambling to get the coins that were pinging and clattering off the seats and their own fat heads.

"I don't think you can expect dignified forbearance tonight," Lupin said. He seemed to have recovered his spirits entirely. He was watching the Bulgarian and Irish teams assemble in mid-air with every appearance of wholehearted enjoyment.

While Lupin was trying himself into a pretzel so greedy children could paw underneath his seat, Severus stole back the Omnioculars and checked the Top Box. Miss Potter and her two sidekicks, even Draco, were all watching the Irish and Bulgarian teams' introductions with the breathless excitement of the young. Lucius, being an insufferable ponce, _was_ the picture of dignified forbearance. Narcissa looked like a queen being driven to the guillotine.

" _Theeeeey're OFF!"_ screamed Bagman. " _And it's Mullet! Troy! Moran! Dimitrov! Back to Mullet! Troy! Levski! Moran!_ "

Severus never bothered going to professional Quidditch games. There were other things he'd rather spend his money on, and since Miss Potter had come to Hogwarts, having to watch those benighted Gryffindors pummel his House (a disgrace which the rest of the school took such delight in) had rather soured him on the whole bloody sport. But this game was played at such a speed that there was no time for Bagman to add any idiotic commentary; all he could do was belt out the players' names. The Irish Chasers, moreover, were so talented that their flying provided its own pleasure. There was an artistry to the way they flew, and their instinctive interplay seemed almost telepathic.

The Bulgarian Chasers were nothing to them, but their Beaters were doing their best to adjust for the disparity: they slung the Bludgers at the Irish team with a ferocity that increased for each Irish score, and it was they who finally permitted Bulgaria to make their first goal.

Quite a few men were too slow to prevent themselves from being mesmerized by the Veela, who struck up a triumphant dance, and only came back to themselves when the Veela had stopped. Severus only uncovered his eyes when he heard Bagman shout:

" _Oh, I say!_ "

Viktor Krum and Lynch were plummeting through the air, knifing straight down through the formation of Chasers, as fast as if they were Muggle sky-diving. (Miss Potter could probably fly that fast if she tried.)

"They're going to crash!" screamed someone in the stands nearby.

At the last moment, Krum ripped out of the dive and spiraled away, ascending almost as fast as he'd descended; but Lynch hit the ground with a thud that they probably heard in the Top Box.

" _It's time out as trained mediwizrds hurry onto the pitch to examine Aidan Lynch!_ " Bagman announced.

"Oh dear," Lupin said, torn between sympathy and amusement. "I hope that doesn't give Harriet any ideas."

"I'll take a hundred points off Gryffindor if she tries," Severus said, as a dozen alarming images of Miss Potter plowing herself into the ground popped into his head.

Now Lupin was turning the sympathy-amusement on him. "Is that really necessary?"

Severus just jabbed a finger at the pitch. Below, a half-conscious Lynch was barely visible amongst a cloud of mediwizards.

"I do see what you mean, but I think Harriet's a better flyer than that." Lupin raised the Omnioculars and followed Krum through the air as he circled the pitch, scanning for the Snitch. He read aloud, "'Wronksi Feint—Dangerous Seeker Diversion.'"

" _Two_ hundred points," Severus said.

He didn't know why it had never occurred to him that Miss Potter might pick up dangerous ideas from watching professional Quidditch. Second year she'd caught the Snitch while hanging from her broom by her knees after that fucking house-elf's Bludger had knocked her off while _breaking her arm_. She'd probably be attempting the bloody Wronksi Feint tomorrow.

Lynch having escaped paralysis, the Irish team gained new heart. As their lead steadily increased, the Bulgarians worked more grimly to stave off their own defeat. With the Irish team one-hundred-and-twenty points ahead, the Bulgarians knew that catching the Snitch was their only hope of success, and their endeavors shifted accordingly not to scoring, but to preventing the Irish Chasers from scoring before their Seeker caught the Snitch.

" _Penalty to Ireland!"_ shouted Bagman after the Bulgarian Keeper elbowed one of the Irish Chasers in the face.

Between the mascots, matters were also getting nasty. The leprechauns formed a gloating formation of ' _HA HA HA!_ ' and the Veela started dancing fiercely in response. On the leprechauns this had no discernible effect, but the referee was caught unprepared. He lost his head and started strutting up and down in front of them, flexing his arms and smoothing his mustache. Lupin laughed outright, but Severus would have admitted the werewolf wasn't _always_ torturous company before he showed his amusement.

He was almost disappointed when one of the mediwizards ran forward (fingers in his ears) to kick the referee in the shins. But while this knocked the man back to rights, it didn't improve matters: he was clearly so embarrassed that he tried to order the Veela off the pitch.

"Clever," Severus snorted.

" _Now_ there's _something we haven't seen before!_ " Bagman said.

"This can't be good," Lupin said as the Bulgarian Beaters dismounted and started shouting. The referee shouted back, and there was a brief waving of furious arms. Judging by the enraged pointing, the referee was ordering them back into the air, and when they refused to budge, he blew his whistle in two angry bursts.

" _Two penalties for Ireland_!" Bagman reported, while the Bulgarian crowd howled abuse down at the pitch. " _Volkov and Vulchanov had better get back on those brooms. . ._ "

They did, but that amusing interlude didn't improve matters. The stakes were even higher now, and the ferocity of the players was amplified. The Beaters on both sides became ruthless, and the Bulgarian pair didn't seem to care whether they hit Bludger or player.

Severus had watched his Slytherins losing to the Gryffindors often enough to recognize when a team was letting their resentment overtake their sportsmanship. There came a point where you didn't care that you lost or even how you did, as long as you made the other team as angry as you were, and bruised into the bargain.

The Bulgarian Chaser gained his team another foul when he tried to knock the Irish Chaser off her broom; the leprechauns responded by forming themselves into a rude hand sign. This was the breaking point for the Veela. Although Severus couldn't _hear_ it, he imagined the rippling sound their scales made as they erupted from their moon-white skin, the creak of their beaks from their perfect noses, the susurrus of their leathery wings from their shoulders. The air lit with red and green as the leprechauns darted down to weave between the handfuls of fire the Veela tried (and sometimes succeeded) to blast them with.

A stray handful of Veela-fire caught the referee's broom-tail on fire, so the mediwizards were left to deal with the dueling mascots, while the Bulgarians and the Irish roiled furiously through the air. One of the Irish Beaters cracked Krum in the face with a Bludger; blood exploded from his nose, blinding him. Still on fire, the referee was in no shape to call a time out, and in the next moment quite a few people screamed as the Irish Seeker plunged toward earth.

"Do you think he's seen it?" Lupin asked, trying to wrestle the Omnioculars away from Severus.

"I thought you didn't want them?" Severus demanded, hanging on.

Krum, heedless of his broken nose, went hurtling after Lynch. Blood flecked the air behind him as he dove and poured down his chin, but he not only didn't seem to notice, he seemed perfectly able to see through it. He leveled with Lynch and even overtook him—

"They're going to crash!" shrieked the same person as before.

"They're not!" shouted someone else.

"Lynch is!" yelled a third someone.

There was another reverberating _thud_ as Lynch hit the ground with tremendous force, and was immediately stampeded by a hoard of angry Veela. Severus actually laughed (only once before he caught himself).

"Where's the Snitch!" screamed the nervous person who kept predicting crashes half-accurately.

"Krum has it!" Lupin shouted back.

He was right: glistening with his own blood, Krum was rising into the air, the fist held over his head showing a glint of gold.

The scoreboard flashed several times in succession, as if trying to get everyone's attention. BULGARIA: ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY, IRELAND: ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY.

There was a moment of hushed silence, as if the crowd had not quite caught up with what had happened. Then an enormous roar built among the Irish supporters, starting as a rumble and then powering into wave after wave of screams of delight that made Severus' arms prickle with gooseflesh and his ears ring.

" _IRELAND WIN! KRUM GETS THE SNITCH—BUT IRELAND WIN—good Lord, I don't think any of us were expecting that!_ " Bagman bellowed.

"Some of us might have," Lupin said, his eyes shining with enjoyment.

* * *

"That was so _cool!_ " Harriet said as they headed down the velvet-covered stairs. She felt like someone had hexed her ankles with a Bobbing Curse; she couldn't stop bouncing.

"He was very brave, wasn't he?" Hermione said. "Krum, I mean. He looked a terrible mess."

"He was _brilliant,"_ Ron said. "I can't believe we got to see him so close. . . !"

"You can dream about it for years to come, little brother," said Fred, but he sounded cheerful. He and George were having trouble finding a place to put all their gold.

" _Don't_ tell your mother you've been gambling," Mr Weasley implored.

"Don't worry, Dad, we've got big plans for this money. We don't want it confiscated."

Harriet wondered if it had anything to do with Weasleys Wizard Wheezes. Mr Weasley seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he didn't pursue the matter.

The walk back to camp was chaotic. People kept bellowing songs out of tune and in a hundred different languages; the leprechauns went streaking back and forth over the forest, cackling; and some people who had already started drinking fell sprawling across the path. At the camp, the noise was even greater. People settled in to celebrate, some of them with fireworks and instruments, and everyone was flourishing ever more alcohol and even louder singing. Harriet wondered how anyone would be sleeping tonight _._

Padfoot knocked her flat again in his enthusiasm, but she was in such a good mood that she only thought this funny, and wondered if it was midnight yet so that she could say she _had_ gone the rest of the day without ending up on the ground.

Once again, Remus hauled Padfoot off and helped her up.

"Did you enjoy the game?" he asked, smiling, as he dug an admonishing knee into Padfoot's side.

"It was amazing!" she said, hugging Padfoot.

"We're all having hot chocolate," Mr Weasley told Remus, "if you and your friend would like to join us. I should warn you, though, there will most likely be constant game replay, so if you've had enough of Quidditch for one night. . ."

Remus laughed. "How could they talk about anything else?"

But he declined coming over. He did it so nicely that Arthur chuckled and nodded, but Harriet's stomach squirmed. Was Remus not coming because he was still upset with her?

As everyone settled round the kitchen table with mugs of hot chocolate, she peered out of the tent flap and saw Remus and his friend walking off into the camp. It struck her that though Remus had pitched his tent with the Weasleys, he'd spent hardly any time with them and almost all of it with his friend.

Just then, his friend glanced over his shoulder—straight at her. Her heart jumped, and she pulled back from the tent flap. There was an unnerving intensity to it that reminded her of Snape all over again. Right now, it was Snape-catching-her-snooping.

She couldn't stop feeling jittery. It didn't help that she'd somehow wound up sitting next to Bill. At least he was caught up in a debate with George about the Hawkshead Attacking Formation.

She didn't know how long they all stayed at the table, only that they'd gone on talking Quidditch for so long that Hermione was looking unutterably bored. The Ginny fell asleep right at the table, spilling hot chocolate all over Percy.

"Bed," said Mr Weasley firmly. " _Everyone_."

In the Girl Tent, Harriet pulled on her brand new nightgown that Jean had insisted she buy to replace her tatty old Oxfam pajamas. She took off her glasses and climbed into the top bunk, since Hermione was afraid of rolling off. Ginny, already tired and used to sleeping through ruckus, was the first to pass out, while Harriet lay dreamily watching shadows flicker on the canvas overhead. It reminded her of the way the Irish Chasers flew.

"Harriet?" Hermione whispered. Harriet barely heard her over the singing and the occasional firework bang.

"Mm?"

"Oh, good. I can't _sleep_ with all this going on. . ."

Harriet rolled to peer over the edge of the bunk. Hermione had twisted so that her head was hanging off the bed, the pale shadow of her face turned up toward Harriet.

"Want me to read you Quidditch replays until you get so bored you fall asleep?" Harriet whispered.

" _Please_ no." When a particularly explosive firework netted the tent in light and shadow, Harriet saw that she was smiling.

Harriet climbed down and crawled into Hermione's bunk so they could talk without waking Ginny. Though they couldn't possibly be any louder than that group singing "Ruby Tuesday."

"Why do you think Remus acted like that about the Omnioculars?" Harriet asked, hogging Hermione's pillow.

Realizing this was a Serious Question, Hermione stopped trying to elbow her off the pillow. Harriet obligingly shifted to the over so Hermione could claim her half.

"You know him much better than I do, Harriet. . ."

"But why would _someone_ do that?"

The bunk filled with a Thinking Silence. "Well," Hermione said slowly, "Ron didn't want you to buy him a pair at first. . . it was only when you said 'There's your Christmas present for about ten years, mind,' that he was able to be pleased. Lupin's never seemed like he had much money. . . I know there are all these horrid laws about werewolves that make it really difficult for them to have a job. . . Maybe he felt embarrassed, like Ron did?"

Hermione was probably right. Remus' clothes were shabby and everything he owned fit into a suitcase—a magically enlarged suitcase, maybe, but still a suitcase. Sirius lavished presents on her but never seemed to buy Remus as much as a butterbeer. Was that because Remus didn't _want_  him to?

She and Hermione lay in silence, listening to the singing and laughter, maybe even drifting half into sleep. Harriet kept seeing Krum moving through the air as if he was weightless, and Remus pulling away from her, and wasn't sure whether she was daydreaming or night dreaming.

She came fully awake when outside the tent, Padfoot started barking.


	52. The Dark Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the shadow of the Dark Mark, Harriet learns the truth of some matters, but it only raises questions of others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting to thank you all for leaving such lovely comments, spurring me on and being excited. This is because when I read them, I dash off and start feverishly writing. Consider the quick continuation of this fic my truest thanks to you - if it weren't for you, I'd never get it done.
> 
> More canon dialogue and events in this chapter.

Harriet sat up so fast that if she wasn't so short, she'd have bashed her head on the bunk. Padfoot wasn't a real dog, he was Sirius—he wouldn't bark at something stupid.

Hermione grabbed her arm as she tried to climb out of bed.

"Listen," she whispered. When a burst of firework lit the canvas, Harriet saw that her face was tight with fear.

And Harriet heard it: the singing had turned to screaming. Another burst of light whited out the canvas, showing a mass of shadows streaming, shoving, stampeding, to get away.

She and Hermione scrambled out of bed. Harriet left Hermione to shake Ginny awake while she dashed outside.

Padfoot was planted in front of the Girl Tent, barking and snarling. People were tearing past their camp and down the hill, headed toward the woods. Something was moving, some dark mass in the night, emitting crackles of light and noises that cracked like gunfire.

But the air above them was moving. Harriet squinted—

"Oh my God," Hermione said from behind her in a sickened voice, as Mr Weasley burst out of the Boy tent, his Muggle golfing jumper pulled over his pajamas, his wand in his hand. Fred and George clambered out after him, also still in their nightclothes, looking bewildered but awake.

"What's going on?" Ginny asked shakily.

"Is that—is that the campsite manager?" Hermione's voice wasn't much steadier, and the hand she pointed at the struggling figures was trembling .

One of the tents had caught fire, and Harriet could see the manager's terrified face clearly as it passed over the light. As he was flipped upward, she saw him reaching toward the other Muggles who were floating and spinning alongside him.

 _His wife and children?_ Harriet thought with a flare of anger that echoed the bang of spell-fire.

"That is sick," Ron said as one of the wizards started spinning the smaller Muggle child as fast as a top. "That is really sick. . ."

Padfoot snarled.

Bill, Charlie and Percy ducked out of their tent, fully dressed with wands drawn. That must have been what Mr Weasley was waiting for, because he turned to Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Harriet, and shouted, for the noise only kept rising, "We're going to help the Ministry! You lot get into the woods and _stick_ _together_! I'll come and fetch you when we've sorted this out!"

Bill, Charlie and Percy were already running down the hill toward the marching group, which seemed to be amassing followers. A few people, whom Harriet could only assume were Ministry wizards, were sprinting toward the trouble, but had to fight against the stream of terrified people running the other way.

"Come on, Harriet!" Hermione cried as she ran after the Weasleys. Padfoot barked—

And Harriet realized she hadn't seen Remus. She dashed to his tent and shouted, "Remus?" but it was dark, and before she even shoved the flap aside she knew he wasn't there. Had he already gone to help the Roberts family down?

Padfoot was pulling on her sleeve with his teeth and growling. Well, Remus was a grown wizard, and he'd taught Defense; he would be all right, surely. She looked round for Hermione and Ron—

But the frantic crowd around her was full of strangers. 

Someone slammed into her shoulder, spinning her around. She stumbled; an elbow caught her in the cheek. She'd have fallen to the ground and maybe even have been trampled if a hand hadn't grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her to her feet.

She glanced up—at Remus' friend. Padfoot barked and snarled at him.

"Where are the others?" he demanded.

"Mr Weasley went to help the Ministry—I was supposed to go to the woods, but I don't know where Hermione and the others are—"

"It was foolish to let yourself get separated," he snapped. She bristled.

"It's your business, I _don't_ think," she snapped.

"Of course not," he said with heavy sarcasm, making her want to kick him. "You were clearly quite safe on your own."

Padfoot growled again and chopped at his ankles. Remus' friend glared down at him.

"You ought to teach your mutt some manners." His tone suggested Padfoot could understand the insult.

"Would you know manners if they _bit_ you?" Harriet retorted.

"Very good, Miss Potter," he said as he pushed her into the trees. "That was almost clever."

Once again, Harriet found herself reminded of Snape. She'd never met anyone else so insufferable. And the way he was bossing her around and chivvying her through the woods was distinctly Snape-like. But (although she'd never tell him, not in a katrillion years) she was glad _someone_ was there and she didn't have to blunder through the wood alone, not when it was like this.

Her original plan of shouting for Ron and Hermione would have done no good: the wood was so full of people yelling for Johnny and Deirdre and Shernaz that you'd only find someone if you bellowed in their ear as they stumbled past in the dark. The colored lanterns had vanished, though that didn't stop people from running pellmell through the trees. The only light came from the fire and spell-blasts from the camp, but it was no comfort; it lit only odd patches of people's strained faces and wide eyes.

Harriet was pushed by faceless people milling in a panic, and would have been knocked off her feet again if it weren't for Remus' friend. He shoved people who blundered into them (even kicked and hexed a few, judging by the yelps) as Harriet clutched his jacket and used him as a shield. Padfoot tried to stay near her, but with all the chaos he kept having to weave away or get kicked in the ribs.

Finally they had kicked, hexed, and shoved their way far enough that the crowd thinned. People stood clumped together, their necks swiveling to glance behind them so often it looked as if they'd been the victims of some not-so-funny hex. Harriet thought of the Muggle child spinning and shivered. Padfoot pressed against her side and whined.

A bang like too-close thunder made her jump, and she didn't object when Remus' friend wanted to keep walking. He didn't say anything to her; he didn't even look at her, but when Harriet tried to take her hand off his jacket, he said sharply, "Leave it," without looking round.

He had his wand out. Thinking she'd feel better holding her own, she reached into her dressing-gown. . . only she hadn't brought it. She swore.

"What?" He looked round then, as sharp-eyed as Snape.

"I didn't bring my wand. . . well, I didn't know!" she said defensively when his glare became incredulous. "I heard Padfoot barking and came out of the tent to see what was going on, and I never had a chance to go back in. It's not like I sleep with my wand in my pocket!"

" _Don't_ you dare get separated from me. Or your bloody dog." He steered her next to him and started walking again.

Harriet wondered how deep into the woods they were headed. The sounds from the camp had faded into the nighttime clicks and rustles of the forest. She knew she was safe because Padfoot wasn't trying to attack Remus' friend (although he didn't seem to like him very much), but where were they going?

Well, she couldn't read minds.

"Where are we going?"

"I want to be able to see the camp without being anywhere near it," he said without stopping.

They passed a group of goblins standing round an enormous sack of gold. They were speaking in low, flowing guttural sounds like an underground stream. The trouble at the camp didn't seem to disturb them at all, although it was so distant now, anyway.

Although  _someone_ was shouting nearby—several voices, it sounded like—

Through a netting of branches, a silvery glow moved toward them. Remus' friend stopped; Harriet stopped with him—and then he swore (using a much worse word than she had) and stuffed his fingers in his ears as three Veela glimmered into sight.

If Harriet had thought their beauty was eerie at the game, she thought doubly so up close. Their skin was the same moonlight-white, their hair still rippled as if from a breeze that touched only them, and they glided as if their feet were made of smoke and not bone; but there was something unsettling about them. Maybe it was because she'd seen their faces transforming into raptors'. . . but Harriet didn't quite think so. She thought it was more like she could see the predator under that unearthly beauty.

The Veela were trailed by a group of young wizards with slack, awestruck faces who were shouting in an effort to get the Veela's attention. The Veela did not seem at all fazed by this—but one of them was looking straight at Remus' friend, and now so were the other two. 

He dove off the path into the trees , branches crashing. Harriet picked up the skirts of her nightdress and dressing-gown and hared after him, Padfoot with her. It was hard running in the dark, and she almost sprained her ankle, but at least Remus' friend had broken a path of sorts for her. The sound of the Veela-drunk wizards' shouting had disappeared by the time Harriet caught up with him.

He was leaning against a tree, breathing like he'd run twice the distance, his fingers still stuffed in his ears and his eyes screwed shut. Harriet tugged on his sleeve and he opened his eyes, and when she mimed pulling her fingers out of her ears he dropped his hands. There was an even more Snape-like expression than usual on his face as he straightened up.

"Are they really that bad?" Harriet asked.

"What do you think?" he snarled.

Harriet took a step back, but not at his tone. He seemed to be transforming, like a Veela—his face was twisting up, his nose curving and lengthening—

Swearing again, he pressed a hand over it, as if he wanted to hide it—a pale, long-fingered hand that looked familiar—

"Nice going, Sniv," said Sirius' voice behind her. Harriet's heart nearly exploded in her chest.

"What are you—!" she shouted but the words froze in her throat as with a final, soft _pop!_ Remus' friend changed completely into Snape.

Harriet gaped. Snape kept his nose covered, as if she wouldn't recognize him like that, and then dropped his hand with his fiercest glare.

"You!" she uttered. It would have been "you bastard" except her throat had locked up. Then she turned on Sirius, who looked both sardonic and amused. "And you! And Remus!" she added, as she realized the extent of this triple treachery.

"Blew our whole cover, Snape," Sirius said, like he was enjoying ribbing him.

Snape told Sirius to do something that from his tone was really foul, though Harriet didn't know what it meant. She vowed to find out.

"It was those fucking Veela," he snarled.

"They can reverse Polyjuice?" Sirius said with a mocking, innocent air.

"Fuck off and die, Black, they _distracted_ me—"

Sirius snorted.

"And what's _your_ _bloody_ _excuse_?" Snape spat at him. "Get back to a dog before someone fucking sees you!"

"He's right, Sirius, what were you thinking?"

Sirius actually looked hurt. She tried to make her voice less accusing. "I _don't_ want someone seeing you. Nothing's going to happen to Sn—Professor Snape if somebody sees _him_."

It was Snape's turn to snort (maybe because she'd almost called him by just his surname).

"All the same," he said sardonically, reaching into his jacket and pulling out the flask she'd seen him drinking from in the stadium. "I'd rather not pique anyone's interest."

But as he raised it to drink, he stopped. An odd expression came over his face; an unsettling stillness. Harriet realized she could see him better than before . . . because the wood had filled with thin, greenish light.

Out of the darkness, the screaming started again. Harriet's heart started pounding like running footsteps. 

Snape's green-tinted face wore an emotion too complicated for her to comprehend. Sirius was staring up through the canopy overhead, his expression so like Snape's, they looked, on some deep level, almost identical.

Harriet looked up, too, but she couldn't see anything through the trees except for a film of green, the color of a dying neon sign.

Sirius breathed out. "Too late, then."

"Too fucking late," Snape said.

Then he swallowed the Polyjuice. His skin rippled; his nose straightened and shrank; his long, greasy hair paled from black to brown and corkscrewed into short curls; his fingers shortened and his hands grew wider. Only the eyes were the same: black and fiercely intent. Harriet wondered if he'd picked the man's hair for that reason.

But Sirius did not transform. Instead, he put his arm around Harriet, pulling her against his side.

"If anyone sees us," Snape said coldly in his own voice, without Ebenezer's Yorkshire accent, "I'm hexing you and turning you in on charges of attacking Harriet Potter."

Sirius only snorted again. "Come on, then, I want to see it."

"What is it?" Harriet asked. Snape's and Sirius' expressions had scared her—and the screaming of the crowd—but now the two of them seemed to have got control of themselves. And if it were a. . . a _murder_ , she couldn't see Sirius saying he wanted to see it so calmly as that.

And what were they too late for?

Snape didn't answer, only started walking. She and Sirius followed, Harriet stumbling in the dark and hoping she hadn't ruined her new nightdress, which kept snagging on prickly things.

They emerged from the wood where its boundary met the moor. Polyjuiced Snape stood in the shadow of the trees—but there wouldn't have been enough light to cast a shadow if that . . . thing . . . hadn't been hovering in the sky.

It reminded her of the Hogwarts' ghosts, the way they were almost made of mist, only the ghosts had skin, at least a ghostly memory of it. This . . . thing . . . was a skull. It was green, the color of the spell that killed her mum in her memories; green mist, staining all the clouds, the earth, the inside of her. Everything was green, everything.

"What is that?" Harriet asked. Her voice was too quiet, like all its power had been sucked out.

"Voldemort's sign," Sirius said, staring up at the sky. He had that look on his face again, the one from earlier, and something else, something much grimmer.

"The Dark Mark," said Snape. He, too, was staring at the sky.

"Voldemort and the Death Eaters used to toss it into the sky whenever they killed," Sirius said. His voice was as complicated as his expression, but she could hear disgust and menacing anger. "Their way of gloating."

 _Voldemort and the Death Eaters? Sounds like a rock band_ , Harriet thought, rather hysterically.

"Wh-what's a Death Eater?"

"That's what his bloody followers called themselves," Sirius said.

"Why's it there?" Harriet's heart had started that thundering beat again. She'd had a dream about Voldemort, Voldemort and Wormtail . . . and Remus had thought this was significant . . . and her scar had hurt . . . and now here was this thing, this sign of Voldemort's . . .

And why did she feel like she'd seen it before? Not the just image or a drawing, but _this_ exact thing, green and monstrous, hanging in the night sky like the smoke from a bomb.

"We don't know," Sirius said.

Harriet looked from him and to Snape, who'd turned his back on the Dark Mark. She had an odd, fleeting wish that he wasn't wearing a stranger's face. The sight of Snape glaring was so regular it might have been comforting.

"Did you _know_ this was going to happen?" she asked them. _Too late, then, too bloody late._ "Is this why you all came and had this, this subtor—subtarn—"

"Subterfuge," said Snape, the stranger's face looking sardonic.

"Yeah," said Sirius, far more kindly. "We did. Or at any rate, we thought it might . . ."

"We need to get back to the camp," Snape said sharply.

"Why, Sirius?" Harriet asked, glaring at Snape.

"Get moving," Snape snapped, and stalked off.

"Well," Sirius said, falling into step with Harriet. "You know that time-spell—"

"Turn back into a dog, you—" Snape restrained himself, seemingly with Herculean difficulty, from calling Sirius something foul and educational. "Tit!"

"I will, _Snivellus_ , if I can trust you to mind your fucking manners around my goddaughter—"

Harriet wondered if they could stand out there insulting each other until the sun rose.

"Sirius, _please,_ I don't want someone seeing you."

He made the same hand gesture towards Snape as the leprechauns at the Cup. h=His form blurred and he was a dog again.

"Eloquent," Snape sneered. "What an economy with words."

"I think you _like_ being mean to each other," Harriet said. She would not have dared say it to him at school, but there was something about seeing him and Sirius squabbling that made her feel as if she was the only mature one.

"Keep walking," was all Snape said.

Harriet hurried to catch up to him, Padfoot trotting along beside her.

"Why _are_ you here?"

"Temporary insanity," Snape said without looking at her.

"Why are you here with Remus and Sirius?"

"I shan't repeat myself."

Harriet couldn't decide whether this was funny or bloody aggravating. Suddenly she felt exhausted. This was the third night in a row where she'd had almost no sleep—actually, this night she _had_ had no sleep. She'd at least sneaked a few hours on the nights before. Now that the fear had worn off, she could have lain down on the edge of this moor and passed out.

At least, she hoped she could. Something unpleasant coiled in her belly, like the misty snake overhead.

"What?" Snape said. Harriet looked up to find him frowning at her.

"What?" she repeated.

"No impertinent rejoinder?"

"I'm tired, is all." Another thought, as unpleasant as anything this night, occurred. "I hope Ron and Hermione are okay. And all the Weasleys—and Remus. Where _is_ Remus?"

"He went to help the Ministry while I came to find you."

Harriet wasn't sure whether to feel pleased or not. Although . . . she did feel pleased. There was a little burst of something like happiness amongst the snakes of anxiety. But it hung there uncertainly inside her, not knowing whether to evaporate because Snape was only set on protecting her in memory of her mum, or to stay because Snape was . . . was what? He still didn't really care about her. She was in danger again, that was all, and he had some sort of duty.

 _Severus is the least dutiful man I know,_ Dumbledore's voice echoed in her memory. She paused . . . but then she shook her head. What did that mean, anyway?

What did it matter?

Sounds of the camp welled over the trees. They'd come around the woods in such a way that they had to wade across a large portion of the camp to find the Weasleys' plot. Harriet stared at all the tents torn down and trampled, the broken glass (which Snape scoured away with his wand) glittering in the mud, the rivers of dirty water that flowed through the trash. The air was hazy and smelled like burning. Harriet rested her hand on Padfoot's ruff, digging her fingers in. Snape was grim and silent.

Finally she made out three tents at the top of the hill, none looking singed or trampled (though the boys' was listing a bit). Remus was pacing back and forth in front of the Boy Tent, alone. When he turned and saw them climbing the hill, he actually ran down to meet them, kicking up a stream of mud that splattered Harriet's nightdress.

"Thank God," he uttered, and grabbed her in a hug.

It wasn't a slight hug, either: it was strong, desperate with fear that she could feel turning to relief as he hugged her. Harriet was gobsmacked. 

He pulled back and put his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching her face.

"Are you all right?" There were dirty streaks across his forehead and a spell-graze on his cheek. "You're not hurt?"

Harriet shook her head. She realized she was happy: really, fully happy, without having to wonder if she ought to be. She smiled. Remus smiled back, and kissed the top of her head.

"Come inside," he said. Then he looked around at Padfoot (who licked his hand) and at Snape (who was staring at them ). "Where are Ron and Hermione and Arthur?"

Happiness vanished. "They're not here?"

"Oh thank Merlin, there they are," Remus said, his voice heavy with gratitude as he looked over Harriet's shoulder. She turned quickly to see Mr Weasley fighting his way through a crowd of frightened-looking people who were pelting him with questions.

"Of course it's not him," she heard him saying. "We don't know who it was, it looks like they've Disapparated. Now excuse me, please, I want to get to bed—"

Hermione had spotted Harriet. She scrambled up the hill and threw herself on Harriet, rather like Remus had done.

"Blimey," Ron said, catching up with them. His freckles were stark on his white face. "You all right, Harry?"

"We lost you!" Hermione said tearfully. "When the Dark Mark came up, we thought—" She gulped, like she was swallowing the words she couldn't bear to say.

"Everyone else is here," Remus was saying to Mr Weasley as Charlie poked his head out of the tent.

"Thank Merlin, there you all are," he said. "We've got Fred and George and Ginny, Dad."

They all ducked into the tent, even Snape and Padfoot (who glared at each other whenever the crowd of Weasleys forced them within five feet of each other). Bill was sitting at the kitchen table holding a bed sheet to his arm, which was bleeding in a long gash too big for a tea towel. Percy resembled Viktor Krum after the Bludger had hit him, and Charlie's shirt was ripped, as if he'd only just dodged a slashing curse. Fred, George and Ginny didn't seem to be hurt, but they looked shaken. Ginny was clutching a throw pillow with both her arms wound tightly around it.

"Did you get them, Dad?" Bill asked sharply. "The person who conjured the Dark Mark?"

"No. We found Barty Crouch's elf holding Harriet's wand—"

" _What_?" said Harriet and Remus.

" _Harriet's_ wand?" said Fred.

" _Mr Crouch's elf_?" Percy uttered.

"—but we're none the wiser about who actually conjured the Mark," Mr Weasley finished.

"We got separated from everyone," Hermione said in a shaking voice. "Here, Harriet, your wand—we were with Fred, George and Ginny when we got into the wood, but then Ron tripped—"

"And that bloody git Malfoy was there," Ron said angrily, "leaning up against a tree like he owned the whole ruddy forest, _enjoying the view_ —"

Harriet couldn't help glancing at Snape. As if he felt her looking at him, his eyes flicked from Ron to her, but they didn't linger, and she couldn't read his expression.

"And _I_ realized," Hermione said in a firmer voice, as if trying to get Ron back on track, "that Harriet wasn't with us—but I thought maybe you'd gone on with Ginny and the others and just not noticed us falling back—"

"So we kept going until we were in the woods with nobody else around," Ron said, "and we heard this deep, creepy voice. . ."

Mr Weasley took over the story from there. When he'd finished, Percy, who'd been swelling like an indignant bullfrog, burst out:

"Well, Mr Crouch was quite right to get rid of an elf like that! Running away when he expressly told her not to, embarrassing him in front of the Ministry—how would it have looked if she'd been had up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of—"

"She didn't do anything!" Hermione said angrily. "She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!"

Percy drew back, blinking behind his cracked glasses. Bill and Charlie exchanged a silent look, and Remus frowned.

"Hermione, a wizard in Mr Crouch's position can't afford a house-elf who's going to run amok with a wand!" said Percy.

"She didn't run amok!" Hermione was almost shouting. "She just picked it up off the ground!"

"House-elves don't need wands anyway," Harriet said when Percy opened his mouth. "They've got their own magic that's loads easier to use. What happened to the Muggles?" she asked quickly, because Hermione and Percy both still resembled a pair of bad-tempered bullfrogs. "Did you get them down?"

"Not so much for our efforts," said Bill, and Harriet was _almost_ too tired to feel embarrassed that he was talking to her. "When the Dark Mark showed up, it scared the Death Eaters away the moment they saw it. They all Disapparated before we'd got near enough to unmask any of them. We caught the Robertses before they hit the ground, at least. They're having their memories modified right now."

"Those were Death Eaters?" Harriet asked, taken aback. She noticed that no one else asked what a Death Eater was and was glad she'd already asked Sirius, who wouldn't think she was stupid. "But I thought the Dark Mark was done by a Death Eater?"

"It had to have been," said Mr Weasley, sounding even more tired than Harriet felt. "No one else would know how to cast that spell."

"But why'd they run, then?" asked Ron, voicing Harriet's next question. "Wouldn't they be pleased to see it?"

"Use your brains, Ron," said Bill (making Harriet very glad she hadn't been the one to ask). "If they really were Death Eaters, they worked really hard to keep out of Azkaban thirteen years ago—told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they'd be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they'd ever been involved with him when he lost power, and went back to their daily lives. . . I don't reckon he'd be over-pleased with them, do you?"

Harriet wondered how fair it was (or wasn't) for someone so good-looking to be so clever. Or for someone so clever to be so good-looking.

"So," she said slowly, "whoever conjured the Dark Mark . . . were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters or to scare them away?"

"Your guess is as good as ours, Harriet," said Mr Weasley. "Listen, it's very late, and if your mother hears what's happened she'll be worried sick. We'll get a few more hours' sleep and then try and get an early Portkey out of here."

Harriet left the Boy Tent with Hermione and Ginny, who was shivering. Remus, Snape, and Padfoot ducked out after them. Harriet glanced at the men (and dog) and said to Hermione, "You go on. I'll be in a bit."

Hermione nodded and ducked into the tent after Ginny (who'd gone in straightaway, as if she didn't want to be outside).

The Dark Mark had been blown apart on the wind, but its ugly haze still hung over the camp, which looked shrunken and forlorn, as if all the happiness had been sucked out of it. Harriet supposed it had.

"It's almost three in the morning," Remus said gently. "You should really try to get some sleep."

"I don't think I'll sleep much." It was true: she felt exhausted and heavy-headed, but thoughts flickered inside her head like a lightning storm. "I've got too many questions." She couldn't resist adding, "Like what's Snape doing here."

Remus' eyebrows flew into his sweat-streaked hair, and he shot an alarmed look at Snape.

"The Polyjuice wore off while we were in the wood," Snape grit out, the stranger's face looking thunderous, and he stalked into the tent, shoving the flap so roughly that the whole tent swayed.

"Oh dear," Remus muttered. He beckoned Harriet after him, and Padfoot followed, blurring upward into Sirius as soon as he was inside.

"Padfoot!" Remus said sharply, pointing his wand at the tent flap so that the canvas whipped down and the ropes twined together, tying it shut.

"No one's _around_ ," Sirius said, running a hand through his hair.

"That was his excuse for transforming in the wood, too," Snape said.

"Shut it, _Snivellus,"_ Sirius snarled, making Harriet wince. "It's your fucking fault we missed being there when whoever it was fucking threw the fucking Mark into the fucking sky—"

"You transformed?" Remus demanded, breaking in on this stream of profanity. "Are you insane?"

Sirius looked mutinous. It wasn't the way Ron looked mutinous when Hermione nagged him or the twins when their mum was scolding them about Ton Tongue Toffees; it was a much more grown-up expression, almost . . . dark.

"I can make my own bloody fucking choices, Remus."

Remus stared at him. Sirius stared back, that shadow still in his face.

Harriet fretted, wondering what she should do. Should she try to stop them before this became a real row?

Snape was snapping his fingers together almost soundlessly, trying to get her attention. When she blinked at him, he shook his head once, a small gesture but unmistakable: _Leave it._ She hesitated. Snape hated Remus and Sirius. . . he might be saying it because he _wanted_ them to row. . .

But then Remus turned back to the table, his expression so calm it was hardly believable, and the tension slipped away. Sirius glowered off to the side and slouched down in his chair.

"I don't suppose any of you saw anything, then," Remus said. 

"Nope, because Snape got distracted by the fucking Veela while we were on our way," Sirius said.

Snape's glare was like a poison arrowhead. Harriet almost groaned.

"Well, so does everyone," she said before Snape could try to verbally tear a hole in Sirius' windpipe. "I mean, all the blokes do. _You_ were a dog, Sirius."

"That's _one_ explanation," Snape said in a distinctly nasty tone.

Harriet knew Snape had said something significant when Remus had such a non-reaction that it _was_ its own reaction and Sirius' face darkened again. But she decided that anything that lined Snape's face with vindictive satisfaction, shut Remus down, and ruffled Sirius' hackles was something she ought not to inquire about. Not in front of all three of them, at any rate. Remus and Sirius might tell her later once Snape was gone, if she asked right.

"What _I_ want to know is what you're all doing here," she said. "You had to have been planning to come for a while, not just after I had my dream, because the tickets would've been all sold out."

"Is that a bad thing?" Remus asked. "Our planning to come?"

"No, but—why didn't you tell me?" She frowned. "And why be in disguise? It makes it seem like you're . . . up to something."

Was it her imagination, or were Remus and Sirius trying not to smile? Snape, well, he probably didn't now _how_ to smile. Harriet glowered at them, but this only appeared to increase their difficulty. Sirius made a snorting noise like a muffled snigger.

" _Well_?" she said. 

Remus pulled something out of his pocket: a much-folded piece of parchment. For a moment she thought it was the Marauder's Map, even though she knew it should be in her trunk at the Burrow.

Snape muttered under his breath as Remus held the parchment out to her. Harriet unfolded the square in a way that she hoped looked extra defiant.

The parchment was covered with somewhat familiar writing. There were a few tea-ring stains on it, and the edges were tattered, the creases so well-folded they'd made a few tiny holes at the corners. But as she read down the page, her confusion only grew.

"I don't understand."

"When you had your time-accident," Remus said, "and you were raving—you actually weren't. You were predicting the future."

Harriet stared at him.

"At the bottom," Snape said coldly.

She read the final line: _but those blokes in masks, they fled when the Dark Mark showed up in the sky._

 _She'd_ said that?

"Is this why you were saying you were too late?" she said, staring at that line. This had only happened tonight, but this parchment was so well-read it had to be weeks, maybe even months, old. A chill skittered across the back of her neck.

"We were trying to find out who was responsible for the chaos tonight," Remus said, his voice heavy and his lined face wearier than usual. "I failed, too, with the group attacking the Muggles. Even with foreknowledge, there was nothing we were able to do."

Snape's and Sirius' faces were both equally grim, as if they'd come to this conclusion, too. Sirius glared at the tabletop, his expression frustrated and menacing. Snape kept drumming his fingers on his knee, restless.

She wasn't sure whether to be angry that they'd kept this from her. All she felt right now was a kind of blankness as she started at the top and read about the Grangers, the Weasleys, the World Cup . . things that had happened a long time after this piece of parchment had been stained with tea for the first time . . . and a few things that hadn't. There was nothing about staying at Hogwarts for half the summer, but the pink foofy dress was in there (though the Malfoys were missing).

It was all so . . . surreal. She'd been impressed by magic several times today, but this was more than that. It was almost scary.

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you," Remus said. "We didn't want to worry you."

"Is there _more_ of it?"

"I'm afraid not. You were talking backwards the whole time, you see, so what's at the bottom of the page is the last thing we know. By the time Severus figured out what was going on, you were predicting the events of tonight."

 _Snape?_   She glanced at him. His expression was aloof, displeased, and frosty, as if he didn't think Remus should be telling her this. He was still Polyjuiced as the Muggle. He must have sneaked another drink while she wasn't looking.

If he'd copied this down from her own words . . . that meant he'd been with her while she was ill. For a moment, she was confused all over again. Dumbledore's words drifted back to her, _Severus is the least dutiful man I know._

But she'd been in danger then, hadn't she? In danger of losing her mind, but it was danger all the same. Snape always came round when there was danger. He just wasn't around when there wasn't.

"That still doesn't explain the disguise, you know."

"I have taught every single one of those bloody Weasleys," Snape said, surprising her that he'd speak at all. "I _don't_ want them knowing I'm here."

Harriet supposed she could believe that. The twins would certainly have tried to slip something into his tea. She was sure Mrs Weasley hadn't managed to confiscate _everything_.

"Is that enough for tonight?" Remus asked her, though he was smiling and his tone was understanding. "Do you think you can sleep now?"

"I suppose." She folded the parchment over. "Can I keep this?"

"By all means," Remus said. "We have other copies. We'll see you in a couple of hours," he promised as she stood to leave.

Sirius gave her a rough, one-armed hug, while Snape did not even watch her go.

Outside, the air felt vast and empty. A few people were still moving round the camp, some even packing up to leave, but most seemed to have retreated into their tents. Maybe like Ginny, they didn't want to be outside.

The Girl Tent was dark, but Hermione whispered, "Everything all right?" as Harriet made to climb up to her bunk.

"Yeah," she whispered back. Honestly, she wasn't sure.

She lay staring up at the blank, shadowed canvas that no longer flickered and listened to muted noises in the night. Her thoughts wouldn't lie still. They paced like Remus outside the tent, crackled like the spell-light during the attack, and came apart like the green mist of the Dark Mark. When she finally slipped into sleep, she dreamed of monsters: a giant snake with Voldemort's nose-less face and red eyes; the beautiful Veela with their leathery wings and beaks; and Snape turning into stranger after stranger, only his glaring eyes remaining the same.

When Mr Weasley woke them up to leave just before dawn, she felt like she hadn't slept at all.


	53. Questions of Great Pitch and Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The adults have much to talk about in the wake of the World Cup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look - no canon dialogue or events at all! Only one plagiarized line: "questions of great pitch and moment" should be "enterprises of great pitch and moment," if it wanted to be faithful to Hamlet.

The moment Harriet was gone, Snape and Sirius set a match—and a pack of dynamite—to their tenuous pretense of good behavior.As they rounded on each other, it was harder to tell which face showed more loathing.

"You fucking arsehole, Snape, you had no right to bring that shit up in front of her—"

 _"Speaking_ of which, do you mean you haven't told your precious, darling goddaughter that you and the werewolf—"

" _Don't you fucking call him that_!" Sirius roared, the volume of his voice almost shaking the tent's walls.

"Surely you aren't ashamed?" Snape's eyes were glittering in a way that made Remus wince inside. "No, why should you be, just because _you_ _and the werewolf—_ "

Sirius lunged at him; Snape sidestepped, drawing his wand. Face twisted with fury, Sirius shoved his hand into his jacket.

"You know, I was hoping to go to bed," Remus said, managing to sound calm. It was difficult when the sound of that much hatred was winding him up inside. He'd never been able to decide whether it was the wolf's reaction or if he despised confrontation so much that even other people's rows made him tense. "Without the lullaby of profanity, strange as that sounds."

"Get out, _Snivellus_ ," Sirius snarled, without acknowledging Remus had spoken.

"I will, Black," Snape said, his voice growing more whip-like and venomous with each word, "straight away, because I _always_ do what you tell me."

"You've got no fucking business being here! You were useless as shit anyway—"

"Yes, it's a good thing you and the _werewolf_ were able to put a stop to everything when _I_ failed—"

"We all failed," Remus said sharply, though they were both so busy shoving their wands in each other's faces that neither of them spared him a glance. "There's no use apportioning blame now it's done with."

"He shouldn't have said that in front of Holly-berry," Sirius said. He might've been addressing Remus, but his eyes never left Snape. It was probably a good thing, though: Snape looked just as ready to let off a scalping hex as Sirius did. "Fucking arsehole—"

"It flew straight over her head." Snape bared his teeth in a way that suggested he wished it hadn't. "Surely if she asks you, you'll be able to lie? Surely even Miss Potter isn't immune to your chronic inability to tell the truth?"

"You were the one in a fucking disguise!—Where are you going, Moony?"

"I'm going to sleep outside," Remus said. "It's been a long day, so I'll leave you two to bite and snarl in peace."

" _Don't_ bother, Lupin," Snape said, in a tone of deepest loathing. "I'm leaving. It _hasn't_ been a pleasure."

Sirius treated the tent to a virtuoso bout of swearing as Snape's heel disappeared out of the tent. Remus went and lay down on one of the bunks and shut his eyes, thinking to let Sirius have it out. But he was reaching for his wand to throw a silencing spell around his bed when Sirius finally ran out of steam, or perhaps ran out of swears.

"I don't like that fucking bastard," he said, his voice just above Remus' head.

"I'd _never_ have guessed," Remus murmured without opening his eyes.

"Dammit, Moony, don't you channel that fucker. I'm serious. _Don't,_ all right _._ "

"You're not in the mood for Sirius-puns?" Remus asked, finally looking up at him. He was really asking, _Did he get to you that badly, then?_ but it had always been their way to disguise serious questions as something else, so the other could ignore it if he wanted.

"I don't like the way he treats Holly-berry. Or the way she talks to him."

Remus blinked. He'd always been rather relieved that Harriet was somewhat impertinent with Snape, since it suggested her relatives hadn't so badly damaged her that she couldn't stand up for herself. Sirius was the last person who should have a problem with any Snape-directed impertinence, unless he wanted her to be outright nasty. "What way she talks to him?"

"All. . ." Scowling, Sirius made a vague, twirly gesture with his hand. "You know."

"I really don't."

"In the woods she said, 'I think you like being mean to each other.' To him." When Remus only stared at him with total incomprehension, he flapped his hands. "She shouldn't be saying that sort of cute stuff to _Snape_! It's all. . . _familiar!_ She's supposed to hate his guts!"

"You hate his guts," Remus pointed out.

"They're the sort of guts any decent person would hate!"

"I don't hate his guts. I'm not saying I'm looking to take another holiday with him any time soon," he said, as Sirius gaped in slack-jawed outrage. "Only that I don't hate him."

"Moony, he's an ass and a wanker!"

"Well, so were you tonight. I suppose I've become accustomed." He couldn't tell whether Sirius was genuinely offended or not, so he made his tone more placating. "Why should Harriet hate Severus?"

"Because he's a complete prick, and he's all sneering and nasty to her, and a total git and a tosser."

"I've always thought him rather restrained with her, actually."

"Whose side are you on?" Sirius said, incredulous.

"There are no _sides_ , Sirius." As Sirius spluttered, Remus said, "You can't think I'd sit idly by if Severus were being genuinely cruel to Harriet. She manages to hold her own against him quite well, I think. Most of the students at Hogwarts would cross themselves if they heard his name."

"Nasty old _creep_ ," Sirius muttered, reminding Remus rather strongly of one of his students. "Harriet's a bright girl—why _was_ he in disguise, eh? I don't buy that rubbish about not wanting the Weasleys to recognize him. He gets his rocks off when people stampede the other way at the sight of his greasy beak of a face."

"I don't think anyone _enjoys_ being hated," Remus said. "And Fred and George would certainly have tried to get him to drink something that would turn him into a giant purple aardvark at best."

"You're just taking him at face value, then?" Sirius said, staring hard at him.

"No," Remus sighed. "Not entirely."

Not at all, in fact. As they'd made their rounds through the camp yesterday (God, was it only yesterday?) Severus had not pointed out anyone that had surprised him, but Snape had been _certain_ of every person whom he thought might don a mask and join the Death Eater brigade—not merely suspicious, but certain. And if Snape was a Death Eater, or at least possessing loyal ties to Voldemort, he wouldn't have wanted other Death Eaters to see him kicking round with a family of blood-traitors and a werewolf.

But if Snape was a Death Eater, why help Remus? Why be with the Weasleys at all? Why watch over Harriet? And going even further afield than tonight, why be allowed to teach at Hogwarts and be so obviously close with Dumbledore?

Could Snape be a _reformed_ Death Eater?

It was seeming more and more likely; or at least the most likely explanation Remus had thought of. It would explain the secrecy, because they all knew that Death Eaters who tried to break away from Voldemort found it to be the last thing they ever tried to do. But he didn't want to mention any of this to Sirius, who despised Snape so much that it seemed improbable he could permit him to be a reformed anything. . .

 _Honesty is so inconvenient_ , came the whisper in his mind.

Yes, it was.

"Not entirely," he repeated. "I noticed something interesting, while we were going about yesterday. . ."

* * *

Leaving Lupin and Black and all those bloody Weasleys behind was like getting a smoke after too bloody long. He lit a fag as he strode away from the camp, in fact.

At least he'd managed to get under Black's fucking worthless, furry skin before he'd left.

His own susceptibility to the Veela had mortified him. He'd seen Veela before—Lucius had once brought one in a gilded cage to the manor—but not three of them together with their power at full strength. Still, he shouldn't have struggled that much; he shouldn't have let it distract him to near-disaster. It was pathetic that he should have to thank Miss Potter's good sense for her continued safety and thinking to follow him when he'd completely lost his head. To have been reduced to that laughable state in front of anyone—any student—Miss Potter in particular—and then Black not remotely affected—

 _Fuck._ He stomped the fag end into the dirt and lit another, so angry he could have uprooted a few trees.

He'd gone doughy in the last thirteen years, apparently. He couldn't afford to unravel like that. Tonight had been nothing, really. There would only be more to lose from here on in.

_Well, it's not as if you've ever had to resist a seduction._

Speaking of resistance . . . Black was lucky Severus hadn't hexed his aristocratic nose off his arrogant fuckng face. If it hadn't been for Miss Potter's wide eyes, he would probably have lost that battle with himself without much of a fight. Yes, Black was just bloody fucking lucky he had Miss Potter for a goddaughter, hovering round and looking anxious—especially when he and Lupin had started in on each other. It was an old fight, clearly, the sort that broke relationships. Lucius and Narcissa had plenty of those. So had his parents. At least Lupin was bloody in control of himself. Miss Potter didn't need to be exposed to that.

He hadn't anticipated that they hadn't told her about them. It was a pleasant secret to have in his arsenal of torments, but he wished to know why. Which of them was forestalling that revelation? Lupin was used to keeping secrets, but Black had grown up in a world where homosexuality was so taboo, even the admission of it to oneself was almost never done. And to lie with a werewolf . . .

Severus was even beginning to wonder whether Potter or Lily had known. Free from wizarding prejudices, Lily might have figured it out, but Potter would have been raised in Black's mindset, and some things Simply Weren't Done.

He'd walked far enough that he'd smoked his cigarette down to the filter. Enough. 

He ground the cigarette against a tree and Apparated back to Spinners End. The stagnant pall of the trash-logged river filled his mouth as he picked his way up the bank, ducked through the hole in the fence where the links were twisted up, and emerged silently onto the shadowed street.

No city street could be truly dark with light pollution bleeding from the sky. Electrical light pollution, that is; in Diagon Alley and those other wizarding avenues of London, ancient blackness dwelt that Muggle electricity had never tamed. But Spinners End was industrial Muggle working-class. Its darkness was shallow and sullen, tinted with the cast-offs of a million lights that never slept.

He was unlocking the alley gate when something black and feathery swooped down on his head. When he snatched it out of the air, the owl screeched indignantly, beating at his face with its wings.

He threw the owl into his kitchen and slammed the door behind him. When he flicked on the lights, the bird was glaring at him with all the haughty cruelty of a sharp-beaked face.

It was Narcissa's eagle owl.

Grimly he untied the finger-length cylinder from its foot and spelled the end open. It smelled of lavender, as all of Narcissa's letters did. Unike many of Narcissa's letters, it was brief, though every sheet of this hot-pressed letter paper cost seven sickles. 

_Come to the manor as quick as you can. Please, Severus._

He vanished the paper and chucked the owl out the door, getting another indignant screech. He might as well go now. He was too wired to sleep, and now he was curious to see how Lucius was faring.

However, he couldn't go as a Muggle. He mounted the creaking stairs by the light of a Lumos and went into the bedroom he might as well call his own, he'd used it for so long. He'd never moved out, even when his father's death and his mother's leaving had abandoned the larger room.

Clicking on the lamp, he pulled off the Muggle clothes and stuffed them in a drawer. Then, reaching into the wardrobe, he saw what lay on his own arm.

The Dark Mark, for so long invisible, had darkened to a shadow.

He stared at it, in the industrial silence of the house.

Then he dragged down his robes, threw them on, and clicked off the light.

* * *

The Manor was dark in those thin, ghostly hours between night and morning. From the front walk he could see only faint, undulating patches of light and shadow playing against one of the upstairs windows. But before he'd mounted the steps to the front door, it clattered open and Narcissa appeared. She'd thrown a dressing-gown over a fine, billowing nightdress, and her long hair was pulled to one side in a braid.

She met him halfway on the stairs and seized his hands.

"Has it darkened?" she said, sounding out of breath. "Has yours darkened, too?"

"Yes." (Her fingers tightened on his.) "What's happened?" he demanded, for she wasn't to know where he'd been or that he'd seen it. Here were the first lies of many he'd need to tell . . . only they weren't the first, were they? He'd been lying in bits and pieces for thirteen years. 

"Come inside." She pulled him into the house.

"It was at the World Cup," she said, breathless, as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. " _Ghastly,_ abominable—I came home, of course, who can sleep in those wretched tents? And Lucius was carousing with all that uncouth _rabble_ —and they got so blinding drunk they paraded through the campsite levitating Muggles like a pack of fools, when the grounds were crawling with Ministry wizards—"

She threw open the library doors and bore down on the figure in front of the fireplace. Lucius was slumped in a chair next to the fire that had drawn those swatches of light on the window pane. His elbows rested on his knees and his head was in his hands, and his pale hair hung disheveled around his face.

"Tell him," Narcissa said harshly. The firelight turned her eyes almost wholly to pupil and bled the color out of what remained of her irises.

"The Dark Mark," Lucius said hoarsely without raising his head. "In the sky. Someone cast it."

" _Show_ him."

Lucius reached for his unbuttoned sleeve and pushed it up. Severus could just make out the Mark hovering like a bruise. Then Lucius did look up, his expression bleak, his eyes red.

Severus stared at them, trying to project that his speechlessness had its source in dread, when in reality he was taken aback by how quickly they'd come to pieces. He'd known they would fear the Dark Lord's return, but he had not anticipated it would put reduce them to such a terror as this, a panic verging on the pathetic.

"Your mark's darker too, isn't it," Lucius said grimly.

"Only a shadow."

"Yes, but it hasn't even been _visible_ before now." Lucius stood, leaning his weight on the mantle. He curled his fingers up against his palms, cracking his knuckles. "I heard Narcissa regaling you with this evening's merriment. None of us cast it, Severus."

 _No; you'd all be too terrified to do any such thing._ No Death Eater who'd escaped prison would use the Dark Lord's symbol any more lightly than his name. Bill Weasley had the right of it: they'd be even more frightened to see him return . . . for a time. Then they would rise to the call of their own resourcefulness and plot ways to smuggle themselves back into his good graces. The Malfoys were scared now, but soon they would be stocking plans, keeping them for the day when they'd be needed.

"Tell me everything that you know," he said harshly. "Everything, by Merlin. Who was with you at the camp?"

"Oh, the usual." Lucius waved his hand in irritable contempt. "Crabbe, Goyle, Avery, Macnair—even Nott, though he's getting on in years. Only seems to make him more determined to drink himself blind, though—"

"Who else?"

"The _usual_ , Severus, everyone who got off clean. And as we marched along our merry way, more and more of our fellow Quidditch carousers joined us. Better to be on our side, in control, than running frantic through the wood like frightened rabbits."

 _Same old story,_ Severus thought, knowing that Lucius wasn't talking only of that night.

"The Ministry cretins were afraid to attack in case we dropped the Muggles, but when we saw the Mark . . ." He shivered. " _I_ Disapparated. I assume the rest of the fools did the same—well, if they aren't fools."

"And where is Draco?" Severus asked, remembering Ronald Weasley's words.

"I told him to wait for me in the woods, naturally I went back and got him."

 _But you came here first, didn't you?_  Was it his imagination, or was there a bruised hand print on Lucius' cheek? Had Lucius remembered before Narcissa slapped his head on straight?

"I wrote for you as soon as he'd told me the whole," Narcissa said to Severus. "Severus—what this means—Draco thinks it's a _lark._ "

 _Of course he does; you've painted it as a noble crusade_. "He's a child, it's not surprising. He remembers nothing."

"If the Dark Lord returns, he will be the perfect age." Narcissa was wringing her hands. Severus hadn't seen her so discomposed since she had come to him fifteen years ago and said, _I must have children, Severus, or I shall die._ "What can we _do_?"

Lucius was rubbing his hand across his mouth, staring into space. No help there.

"We must find out everything about the event that is possible to know," Severus said coldly, "and then keep digging. Take nothing on faith, Lucius—you were all masked, anyone could have slipped away and done it."

 _But not everyone_. _Someone who had access to Miss Potter's wand. Someone who was close enough to her to be able to steal it._

The Malfoys had been in the Top Box, sitting directly behind her. But if Lucius was responsible for the Dark Mark, he wouldn't need to pretend to be devastated.

"Process of elimination?" Lucius said, mouth twisting.

"You still frighten most of our former comrades," Severus said coolly. "Use it."

"Leave the wives to me," Narcissa said. She had regained some measure of control over herself. By the time she was dressing in the morning for her first attack, her composure would be even stronger, and while she terrified the first woman of her acquaintance, she would be feeling quite collected.

The Malfoys would be well, for now. They'd spent so long bribing and extorting for sheer pleasure, they'd be able to call in favors when needed. If he were a better person, he'd have thought disgusting, the way their dissolute habits doubled as insurance.

Perhaps he did, just a little. Perhaps he was rather glad to get out of there and make for his next stop. A different type of relief than escaping Black, Lupin and the Weasleys, but still, to his surprise, a relief.

* * *

During his terms at Hogwarts, Remus had appreciated the silence of the Hogsmeade-Hogwarts road in the deep watches of the night. The profound quiet seemed to stretch from the earth to the heavens. But as things turned out, it was not so hard to rent that silence with the crack of Apparition and the rabble of a continued row.

Sirius had Disapparated from the Quidditch camp before Remus had a chance to blink, but he hadn't known the man for all these years without learning a thing or two hundred about the way his mind worked. Since Sirius didn't know where Snape lived, he would head for the next best thing.

"Padfoot!" Remus shouted after the shadow ahead of him, separated from the deep darkness only by the gossamer light of his wand. "Would you _please_ just—"

"No!" Sirius bellowed. "He's going to explain to me what the sodding hell he thinks he's playing at!"

"It's the middle of the night, for Godric's sake! And damn it, would you _transform?_ You're going to be seen!"

"By bloody who? I don't care, how can I care?! I need to know why he trusts that creeping, conniving—"

"I wish I hadn't told you!" Remus said furiously. "I wish I'd kept my bloody mouth shut, if this was how you were going to take it—"

Sirius finally stopped, though only to round on Remus. The wand-light carved his face into planes of shadow, and the effect it had would have chilled another person. "If you'd kept this from me, Remus—"

"Well, it's not a banner day for common sense, is it?" Remus snapped.

"I'm going to see Albus," Sirius snarled, "and he's going to give me a damned good _fucking_ explanation why he's trusted that fucking _Death Eater_ with my goddaughter all these years."

"There's no _evidence_ he was a—" But Sirius had stomped off up the path again. Remus threw his hands in the air and followed.

The gates were shut when they reached them. "Don't!" he said in alarm as Sirius raised his fist to bang on the bars—but the locking spells clicked open, the wards shimmering like a golden curtain, and with a creak the gate unlatched itself.

Sirius paused for a moment, then he shoved the gate open. When Remus went through likewise, the gate politely shut itself and the wards re-knitted.

"Would you please turn back to a dog?" Remus hissed, grabbing Sirius' arm. "Albus isn't the only one here." He could sense that Sirius was about to tell him to piss off, so he played his trump card: "What would Harriet say if you were caught?"

Sirius shook him off, but a moment later his form melted down to a shaggy black dog's. He growled and snapped his teeth at Remus' knees, and took off with an angry whuff.

A similar hospitality met them at the front doors, and the staircases civilly swung over to make their path to the headmaster's office quick and easy. Whether it was the lengthy walk or these signs of Albus' prescience, Padfoot simmered down . . . to an extent. Grim silence radiated from him, but at least it was no longer the aura of blistering fury.

When they reached the Headmaster's gargoyle, Padfoot stopped. He growled long and low at the immobile gargoyle, who stared back (ha), stony-faced.

"Albus's passwords are usually candy-related," Remus said, unsurprised when this got him a glare. "Let's see, the last one was . . . Ice Mice?"

The gargoyle came alive as the door scraped upward. Remus was surprised Albus hadn't changed the password in the past two weeks . . . but they'd been expected after all, hadn't they?

Padfoot didn't waste the invitation. His tail was whipping out of sight before Remus started up after him. Nor, at the top of the stairs, did he bother knocking. It wasn't because it was hard to knock with paws: he'd transformed halfway up, heedless of whoever else might be at the top, and threw open the door as a man whose thunderous expression was as forbidding as centuries of well-bred censure could make it.

Though it was half past four the morning, Albus stood fully dressed beside his window, overlooking the darkened grounds (though what he could see, in all that blackness, was anyone's guess). His phoenix was perched on his arm, and he was gently stroking its feathers.

"Good morning, gentlemen," he said before Sirius could draw breath to start bellowing. "I say 'good' as a matter of courtesy. . . though it is always a pleasure to see you, I believe the events of last night somewhat preclude its being a truly good morning."

"Good morning, Albus," Remus said. When Sirius didn't launch straightaway into a Snape-related diatribe, Remus glanced warily at him, but Sirius had gone oddly silent. His lips were pressed together so they almost disappeared into each other, and he was staring hard at Albus. Perhaps his hind-brain had remembered that Albus was one of the few people he truly respected and had tempered his temper accordingly? It had been like that in the old days, but Remus had been afraid that had gone, too, with a lot of Sirius' other habits.

"I thought you might come to report what had happened," Albus said, looking curiously between them. "Though I confess I wasn't expecting to see you quite so early in the day. Or is it late in the evening? Well, I'd have made sure breakfast was prepared, in any case. Forgive me. I can remedy the oversight in a trice—if you'll take a seat?"

"That would be lovely, thank you," said Remus, who was always hungry. It was a werewolf thing. Bugger enhanced strength and senses; all he got was a superhuman appetite. 

Albus gestured at a heavy, ancient table, the sort that had probably seated an entire cloister of medieval monks. It was covered in books at one end. Sirius slouched into his mismatched armchair, looking broody and mutinous and slightly minatory. It wasn't just Azkaban that had put that look in his face; Sirius had always had a Dark strain. He was just less adept at controlling it now.

Covered platters appeared on the table within a few minutes, the smell of food rising in tantalizing vapors. Remus barely awaited Albus's invitation ("Please don't stand on ceremony, gentlemen") to pile his plate with sausages and eggs and fried tomatoes. Only decades of training against looking like a rabid animal let him wait until he'd set down his plate and picked up his fork, instead of eating straight out of the platter. He could have tackled the whole dish of sausages in forty-five seconds. Lily used to say it was like sharing the table with the Tasmanian Devil.

"Marmalade?" Albus offered the pot. It had short legs with tiny feet that wriggled in the air.

"I want to know if it's true Snape was a Death Eater," Sirius said.

Remus didn't stop eating, even though Sirius' voice scraped his ears like granite. It was foolish to waste good food just because someone was about to have it out at the breakfast table.

Albus didn't even blink. His air of polite solicitude never wavered, though it gained an edge of gravity.

"Naturally, this would be a matter of great import," he said, setting down the marmalade pot (which scuttled behind a platter of eggs). "I understand why it's brought you to see me in the middle of the night."

"Was he?" Sirius asked, leaning forward. He wouldn't order Albus to answer the question, but he wouldn't let it drop until he had the answer, either.

"Remus, you don't seem surprised by this question," Albus said.

"He's the one who brought it up," Sirius said, perhaps because he didn't appreciate Albus's deflection, or because Remus' mouth was full of bacon and he didn't want to wait. " _Was_ he?"

Albus looked at him for a moment before replying. The pause was brief, but Remus knew that Albus could think quickly enough that he didn't _need_ a pause to collect his thoughts and gauge the most appropriate way to move forward. He was deliberately hesitating—yet Remus would bet that Albus had held his answer in reserve for weeks, even months.

"You are aware that we had a number of useful spies in Lord Voldemort's camp during the last war," he said, and the fact that he put _last_ on it, that he did not simply call it The War as everyone else did, almost froze Remus' fork. Hearing it from Albus was more sobering.

"I thought most of them were killed," Remus said, swallowing his bacon.

"They were," Albus said heavily. "Lord Voldemort proved too adept at uncovering spies who had been planted in his ranks. We only ever had one who came to us from the other side."

"Snape," Sirius said, his voice so flat it was harsh.

"Severus," Albus said, without flinching. "Yes. In 1981 he came to me with information that turned the tide of the war. You must remember how heavily we were losing."

"What information?" Sirius demanded.

"I cannot tell you that. Severus wishes it to remain between us. I have given him my word."

"You trust that evil, creeping—"

"Yes," Albus said, in such a tone that Sirius actually stopped. "I do. I trust him with my life and with my safety."

"Do you trust him with Harriet's?" Sirius asked. Harriet—not Holly-berry. That was significant.

"I trust him with Harriet's most of all."

" _Why_?" Sirius' fury was so powerful it resembled like grief.

"That is a matter between Severus and me," Albus said, though gently.

" _Bollocks_ to that." Sirius shoved his empty plate aside with a clatter. "Bloody hell, Albus, she's _my_ goddaughter, James and Lily wanted _me_ to look after her, am I supposed to let some murdering—"

"Sirius," Albus said, quite seriously. "Do you trust my judgment?"

"I don't know," Sirius snapped. For a moment he looked surprised by himself, but he didn't stop. "Not anymore—not in this."

Albus was silent, though he did not look away. Remus wondered if he should stop eating. Perhaps it was heartless to be going on with kippers and toast while questions of great pitch and moment were raising themselves at the same table. But he'd gone without breakfast too many times to give it up for the sake of delicacy. He hoped they'd forgive him.

"What do you wish for me to do, Sirius?" Albus asked at last. "When the war returns—as it will—I will need Severus more than I can describe."

"You're going to send him back to spy?" Remus said, so startled that his toast stopped halfway to his mouth.

"He has agreed to undertake it," Albus said. There was no reading his expression.

Remus lowered his toast. "Will he survive that?"

"We believe Lord Voldemort will not want to give up _his_ spy—a spy in the Order, at Hogwarts."

"So if you think he's your spy and Voldemort thinks he's his," Sirius' face was hard as the stone gargoyle's down below, "whose is he, really?"

"I have answered that question already, Sirius," Albus said in a tone that would not permit it to be asked again. "Do not let your personal feelings for Severus cloud your judgment, or lead you to—"

He broke off as a little glass globe on his desk shimmered green. He blinked, then looked rueful.

"Oh dear," he murmured.

"Is that your doorbell?" Remus asked.

"It lets me know someone's coming up. I have it color-coded so I know who—you were still on the registry, Remus, so I knew to open the gargoyle for you—"

"Who's green?" Sirius asked suspiciously.

Albus' visitor opened the door and walked in without knocking. His heart practically exploding with panic, Remus scrambled to shove Sirius under the table, until he saw who it was.

Snape stopped and actually eyed them with horror. "Christ, not you again."

"Good morning, Severus," Albus said, smiling at him. "Breakfast?"

"Funny, it seems to have suddenly gone off," Snape said, his sneer settling into its comfortable spot on his face.

"Must've been at the sight of your face," Sirius threw at him, winning the hour's first-place award for immaturity.

"Gentlemen, you are not to old for me to set lines," Albus said, earning himself two incredulous glares. "Severus, do have a seat. Sirius, please return to yours. From the way Remus has been sampling everything," (a smile was sent Remus' way) "I would say the house-elves have outdone themselves. Eat," he added, with just the slightest emphasis.

Sirius stabbed a sausage so viciously he almost knocked the platter onto Remus' lap, and Snape deigned to take a piece of toast, though from the way he was handling it you'd think it had been cooked by Hagrid.

"Excellent," Albus said, again with that spiderweb-thin thread of emphasis. "Tea? Do have some," he said when Sirius only chewed his poor sausage with extra viciousness, glaring at Snape down the table, and Snape tore at his crust as if he wished it was Sirius' eyelids. Albus directed the tea, cream and sugar pots in an intricate ballet, to all appearances ignoring the air of loathing that was trying to eat the table like acid.

"I apologize for not expecting you, Severus," Albus said as four teacups floated to their final destinations, "but when Remus and Sirius showed up without you, I had thought you might not be coming for the night."

Snape slid a mistrustful glance along his cheekbones at Sirius and Remus while his long, clever fingers methodically tore the toast into increasingly smaller bits.

"We were just here to ask Albus if you were one of Voldemort's old pals," Sirius said, baring his teeth in a parody of a smile—or maybe not. Maybe he was imagining biting Snape on the ankle.

"Lupin must have figured that out," Snape said with an air of sneering boredom. "Seeing as you were so occupied sniffing your own arse all day."

Sirius chose to respond to that with some language Remus was very glad Harriet didn't hear, as she'd learned quite enough from the pair of them already. He could have sworn Albus appealed to the ceiling with a look.

"I'm sure _you'd_ know all about it," Snape said to Sirius.

"What kept you, Severus?" Albus asked firmly.

"The Malfoys wished to see me," Snape said to him, now ignoring Remus and Sirius rather ostentatiously.

"Malfoys?" Sirius said, looking, in fact, even more disgusted than he did with Snape.

"Inbred cousins of yours. Only that would apply to everyone in your family tree, so never mind—"

"Piss on you, Snape, only inbreeding could be responsible for a mug as ugly as yours—"

"I have learned a new and rather powerful silencing spell," Albus said. "Does anyone wish to see it? No? It's quite fascinating, so perhaps some other time. Please continue, Severus. I am all ears—and several feet of beard."

"Lucius' Mark has darkened."

Remus didn't know what this meant, and neither did Sirius, although it had a definite effect on Albus. A sort of sharpness came over him, an alertness that seemed to travel to the core of his being. His eyes appeared brighter, his attention more focused.

"May I?" he asked Snape, to Remus' confusion.

Snape set down his mangled square of toast and rolled up his left sleeve. He didn't once glance at Remus or Sirius, but stretched his bared forearm out to Albus, who touched it lightly. Remus saw a shape like a bruise. Sirius actually stood up and leaned over the table to get a better look.

"What's _that_?" he asked, revolted. "It looks like the bloody—"

"Yes, it's the Dark Mark," Snape said in a bored voice that didn't quite reach his expression.

Somehow, seeing it was more affecting than guessing at his allegiance, even more powerful than Albus' admission. Voldemort's sign was on his arm. Snape had been a Death Eater.

Remus wondered if this was what people felt like when they learned he was a werewolf. Most recoiled in disgust, though Sirius and James had not. Had they had that visceral reaction, though? And then had their better natures asserted themselves, cataloging all the good things they knew about him, everything that made him their friend? Snape wasn't Remus' _friend_ , but he couldn't help remembering how Snape had protected Harriet in the forest last winter. He'd have taken a werewolf bite, any number of injuries, even death, to keep Harriet safe. And the Patronus—he'd cast a Patronus of such strength it had driven away a hundred Dementors. Surely that meant more than a shadow on his arm? No matter who'd put it there. Surely.

Remus looked at Snape's face. His eyes were glittering in that strange way that never boded well, and there was a hint of . . . satisfaction . . . not quite hidden in his expression. It was almost as if he was pleased they finally knew this about him.

"I can't fucking believe," Sirius said, his voice, starting so quiet that Remus almost had to strain to hear, rising with each word, "I can't _fucking_ believe you'd led some murdering traitor—"

" _Very_ good, Black," Snape said. "Did you get that out of your own press cuttings?"

Sirius stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. It wasn't a spindly table chair; it was an arm chair, with a heavy, wooden frame and a great deal of stuffing.

"Gentlemen!" Albus' voice had lost all its indulgence. "Severus, not another word. Sirius—with me. I will speak with you alone."

He stood and walked over to a door partially secluded behind the bookshelf. Sirius strode after him, spearing Snape with a look of such loathing it was as good as a spoken threat. Snape watched him go, unflinching, that peculiar satisfaction lingering in his face.

The door clicked shut behind them. Not a sound fluttered against the silence. The door was probably sealed with a permanent Silencing Charm.

Remus glanced back at Snape, who had picked up his discarded square of toast and was methodically mangling it once more.

"I'd never heard of the Dark Mark," Remus said. "I mean, not on . . . arms."

"Of course you hadn't, idiot. It was meant to be a _secret_. They faded when the Dark Lord disappeared."

 _His followers called him the Dark Lord,_ Remus remembered Snape saying in the forest that night with Peter. _And they would never have dared call him by his name._

"So there was no tracking any of them after his fall," Remus said slowly. "But why didn't we know this during the war?"

"Only a select few were Marked. _Think_ , Lupin. If that knowledge were made common among you lot—"

"It would have jeopardized your position. I see." He tried not to stare at Snape's arm. His sleeve had slipped down again anyway.

"Lucius Malfoy's looks exactly like yours?" Remus asked.

"Yes." The toast was now little more than one inch square, and Snape was still tearing strips off of it.

"Does he have any idea who—"

"No. He was prepared to swear it was none of the fools who caroused with him, but I think I've convinced him not to be a complete cretin. Narcissa is prepared to use her talents of . . . information extraction to find out what she can."

" _Narcissa_?"

"You don't know much about pure-blood women, do you? She's skilled at blackmail and extortion."

"I can see how much I've been missing all these years, being ostracized from polite society. Is she motivated?"

"She has a son in who is nearly grown. What do _you_ think?"

"But that could cut both ways, couldn't it?"

"The Dark Lord has always used his followers almost as ill as his opponents." Snape's voice was dismissive, but again, his face said otherwise. "Narcissa is clever enough to have noticed."

Remus was silent for a few moments, mulling over this unlikely helpfulness of the Malfoys, however self-preserving it would be. "Do you think they're likely to turn anything up?"

"No." Snape had finally torn the toast into so minuscule a fragment he had to give up on it. "Anyone remaining out of prison would be playing a deep, double game. I'd have said it was Pettigrew if it hadn't been done with Miss Potter's wand."

"Meaning it had to be someone in the Top Box—probably acting opportunistically."

"Yes."

"The Malfoys _were_ there," Remus pointed out.

"There'd be no need for them to play-act being frightened," Snape said, with the contempt for which he was so renowned. "On the contrary, they'd be much more likely to have sent for me tonight to gloat if they were the fools responsible for it."

Remus sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I have the feeling we're missing something really obvious."

Snape didn't reply. He did, however, scowl at the door behind which Albus and Sirius had disappeared. "I don't have all night to wait for Black to vent his damned spleen. Tell the Headmaster I've gone home. If he can ever tear himself away from Black's scintillating tirade, he can send me a note."

"Sirius is just worried about Harriet," Remus said, and then felt rather stupid for trying to put Sirius' hatred in a less prejudiced light.

For the first time, Snape's face showed a flash of fury. "Yes," he bared his teeth, "I'm sure he got very _adept_ at that in prison. Maybe one day his godfatherly ambition will venture past revenge and assault and move on to something a young woman can actually benefit from."

And with that high-minded parting shot, he left, slamming the door behind him. Remus was left to dwell on the fact that although Snape was perfectly right, he was also a perfect ass.

When Albus returned a few moments later with a simmering Sirius in tow, Remus couldn't help wondering if Albus had known when Snape finally left.

Sirius stalked straight past the breakfast table and out the door, thudding it shut behind him no more carefully than Snape had. He didn't look at Remus, or at Albus, as he left.

"I suppose that's my cue to say good-morning and thanks for the breakfast," Remus said to Albus.

"It was my pleasure. Even you couldn't manage to out-eat our larders." He smiled as he shook Remus' hand. "How are you faring at the croft?"

"Exceedingly well. Thank you for letting us put up there. It sets his mind a little at rest to be nearer Harriet, I think."

"How is he doing?"

"As well as can be expected."

Albus' light blue gaze pierced like an X-ray. It held that strength for a moment, then dissipated until it was nothing more than a friendly, commiserating smile.

"'Give it time,'" he said. "I found myself saying that over and over last spring, when Harriet and Severus were ill. I find I must say it again now. Give him time. Sometimes, that is all we can do."

Remus nodded; Albus touched his shoulder in farewell.

How much time, Remus wondered as he rode the spiraling staircase downward, would twelve years of misery and despair require?

* * *

The sky hung heavy and dark overhead, with the faintest touch of light glinting on the forest's horizon, and Padfoot was pacing in front of the gates when Remus caught up with him. The wards had apparently been waiting to let them both out, for they shimmered obligingly, and in a few moments he and Padfoot were on the Hogsmeade-Hogwarts road again.

They walked in silence through the dawn twilight toward the Apparition point. Sunrise wasn't far off, now, though the light was still ghostly pale. Padfoot stayed with Remus until they were wading through the trees toward the clearing, and then he transformed into a man, as if he couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"Do you think I'm a bad godfather?" 

Remus glanced at him. Sirius had never been subtle. Unlike the Malfoys, his expressions didn't freeze a mile below the surface. The Blacks had always been volatile and contentious, their emotions and psychoses so close to the front of their thoughts, you could burn if you weren't careful. Right now, Sirius' face was a mixture of anxious, sullen, and wounded.

"I think you love Harriet very much," Remus said.

Sirius seemed to frown with his whole body. "That's not what I asked."

"It's the only truth I can give you. You do love Harriet. As to the rest, I think we're both on a steep learning curve."

Sirius snorted. "Since day one."

Remus felt an inappropriate stirring of mischief. "At least _I_ never dropped her."

"It was only once," Sirius said indignantly. "And only onto the bed. And you swore _never_ to speak of it, Moony."

"I doubt anyone's around to hear us."

"I wouldn't put it past Lily's spirit to come after me from the grave." He fell silent again as they scaled a fallen tree so tall that they couldn't climb over it without using the remaining branches like a stepladder.

"I love her like she was my own," he said as he dropped to the grass on the tree's other side. "My own blood, I mean."

"I know." Remus wondered how different their lives would have been if James had felt for Sirius the way Sirius felt for him. With a pretense of mock gravity, he added, "It's a good change from the sulking."

"Oh, shut up," Sirius said (sulkily). "How was I to know?"

"It's true, nobody could have predicted what a soppy godfather you'd be. Particularly considering how churlish you were all through the pregnancy."

"And the honeymoon, and the wedding, and the dating," Sirius said, in the voice of one who's been ribbed about this a million times. "All right, then, Moony, you've made your bloody point."

"You moped from the first time Lily stopped smashing her dessert in his face whenever he asked her out, until graduation," Remus went on, ignoring this heartfelt, if mulish, plea. "And then they had the gall to get engaged and it set you off again. Poor dear, you didn't even have time to recover from the wedding before they were expecting the baby—"

"Oh, shut up," Sirius repeated. "I'm over it now. I'm so far over it, it's a dot to me." Then he gave Remus a pointed look. "Glad to see some of that's wearing off on you."

"What are we talking about now? The that or the it?"

"You being all weird about Holly-berry," Sirius said patiently. "Acting like you're afraid of giving her werewolf cooties." He rolled his eyes. "It was the same when me and James found out about your furry little problem, don't think I've forgotten. You always come over thinking people are only being _polite_ when they say they don't give a flaming damn you're a werewolf. Every time Holly-berry gave you a hug, you'd give her this ginger little pat, like you were afraid of exploding her. Yeah, I noticed. Glad to see you got over it."

It was Remus' turn to be silent as they walked. It was true, but . . .

"I kept telling myself she was with you, and Snape, and she'd be fine," he said quietly. "I even had myself convinced, I think—until she turned up. She wasn't even hurt, but I suddenly realized she could have been, and . . ."

Sirius made a satisfied noise.

"It's about time, Moony." He clapped Remus on the shoulder, close to his neck, and then dragged his fingers up through Remus' hair, ruffling it. "You dreary old werewolf."

 


	54. You Think You Know a Person

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some canon dialogue & etc. toward the end. Not much.
> 
> Credit: Waldo Hawkridge is the name of a Georgette Heyer hero.

Harriet's second summer at the Burrow felt even more filled to the brim than usual. Bill and Charlie stayed on, and there was Hermione this time; but in fact, they only made up for the chronic absence of Mr Weasley and Percy, who were gone to the Ministry every day from daybreak until long after supper. Percy was happier than a clam in high water to be so useful and needed and important, but even so, he beat Mr Weasley home almost every day. Mrs Weasley could be seen watching the clock in the evenings while her hands were busy knitting, cooking, folding.

Hermione had finished all of her assignments within the first week of her summer holiday, even rewritten them twice to accommodate her new readings and her trip to France, but she could still be found at almost every moment with a quill and parchment roll in hand, scribbling away. But it wasn't homework: it was a letter to her parents.

"Read this for me," she said to Harriet, sticking a final full stop on the last line, so hard she almost punctured the parchment. "And tell me what you think."

_Dear Mum and Dad_ , Harriet read.

"No—" Hermione snatched it out of her hand. "Never mind, not yet, I know the beginning is just awful, all—and the next part—" And she'd subside, muttering to herself, scribbling more furiously than ever.

"I think 'Dear Mum and Dad' sounds very natural," Harriet said quietly to herself, so that Hermione couldn't hear.

At least Hermione's preoccupation meant that Harriet could work on her summer assignments in peace. Hers were a little different than Hermione's and Ron's anyway: they were mostly review, so the professors could see what she remembered and still needed to learn. At this point, though, Harriet was having trouble figuring out what was leftover from her magical amnesia and what was just her memory naturally not being so great at remembering school things.

And for some reason, Hedwig still wasn't back. In the days that ambled along after their return from the World Cup, the skies remained Hedwig-free. Harriet started to worry. Had Hedwig got lost on her way back? Had something happened to her? Had something happened to Sirius and Remus?

For the millionth time, she wished wizards used _phones_.

Sultry and sunny days followed one right after the other. There were Quidditch games on most of them, with Fred and George, Bill, Charlie, Ron and Ginny. There was the garden to de-gnome and the hills to roam. Harriet saw a house like a squat tower, which belonged, according to Ginny, to a couple of nutters called the Lovegoods. The children in Ottery St. Catchpole thought they were mad scientists. If they caught you, they'd pull out your heart and stick it on a string in their garden to float like a balloon.

When Hedwig finally appeared as a snowy dot on the bright blue sky about five days after they'd come home from the Cup, she brought a note—from Sirius. It looked like it had been scrawled in a right hurry.

_"Meet me in the woods, fifteen minutes walk from the Weasleys' back garden, tomorrow after breakfast. Don't send Hedwig with reply. If you can't make it, just don't come, I'll know what happened._ "

It was signed with a muddy paw print.

Fear and worry gripped Harriet's heart, but they unraveled quickly to confusion. There was a haste to the _letter_ that suggested something was wrong, but this wasn't the best way to communicate about an emergency. Surely if something was really wrong, Remus would have come to tell her. Or Padfoot would have, and broken down the Weasleys' door.

"Ooh, who's the letter from?" Ginny asked over her shoulder.

"No one," Harriet said quickly, stuffing the letter in her pocket. Ginny didn't know about Sirius, and Mrs Weasley was overseeing a salad chopping itself in the kitchen not ten feet away.

"A secret admirer, is it?" Ginny wore a sly look to match her sly voice.

"It's from _Remus_ ," Harriet said, rolling her eyes.

Ginny had developed an annoying habit of teasing Harriet about boys. Her first target was always Bill, and Harriet was so sick of it that Ginny was pretty well killing all her admiration, if only because he had such poor taste in little sisters. If they went down to the village, Ginny teased about any boys that Harriet glanced at, even if she wasn't actually looking at one but was trying to see someone behind him. And if any boy looked back at Harriet—or, God forbid, smiled—Ginny was merciless. Harriet had developed a loathing for several boys in town based purely on the fact that they had accidentally grinned in her direction.

But there was no teasing material with Remus; he was too old and not even handsome. Before Ginny could scrounge up something embarrassing, Mrs. Weasley sent her off to set the table, and Harriet was left in peace.

The next morning after breakfast, Harriet slipped away and trooped down the footpath through the woods for fifteen minutesish. Having no idea how long fifteen minutes of walking felt like, she was just checking it for the twentieth time when she heard a familiar bark. She hadn't thought barks could sound familiar, but Padfoot's did: like an excited burst of laughter.

"Hi," she said, smiling broadly as Padfoot loped toward her. He reared onto his hind legs to snuffle her ear, dropped onto all four paws to snuffle round the dirt at her feet, then started herding her back behind some bushes off the trail, where he turned at last into Sirius.

Unlike Remus, Sirius was never shy with hugs. He practically picked her up off the ground each time, grinding her bones together. She liked it, though. She liked to feel that much love coming through someone's touch. It was the exact opposite of the Dursleys' distance and hatred.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him when he'd set her back down on her feet. She looked at the Remus-free forest around them. "Where's Remus? Did something happen with the—"

"Remus is fine," Sirius said quickly. "Sleeping off the full from last night. I needed to talk to you."

Harriet blinked. "Okay. About what?"

"About—" He dragged a hand through his increasingly shaggy hair. "About Snape."

Harriet was even more bewildered. One of the sausages from breakfast did a brief little samba in her stomach. "Er... why?"

"He's a Death Eater."

The wind moved through the branches overhead, shifting the leaves and their shadows. Spots of brightness and shade fluttered across Harriet's eyes.

"Wh... what?"

"Remus figured it out." Sirius pulled his hand through his hair again. His grey eyes swept across the clearing. "At the Cup—spent the whole day with Snape, and Snape knew exactly who was going to start that romp with the Muggles." His face darkened, like the wind had bent the trees over him. "Dumbledore didn't deny it, either."

"P-professor _Dumbledore_ knows?"

"He thinks Snape's working for him—spying, I mean, he thinks Snape's his spy against Voldemort. But I'm telling you, Holly-berry, you don't come back from the Dark Arts like that, and the Death Eaters are as much about Dark Arts as they are about killing Muggles."

Harriet felt like she'd been hit between the eyes with her Firebolt. She couldn't seem to get her thoughts in gear. It was like everything in her head had jammed up. Every hard line in Sirius' face was stamping itself into her memory.

"I-I don't understand," she said, because she didn't, really.

"Harriet." Sirius gripped her shoulder, hard, but it was the use of her real name that really startled her. He looked grim, grave and solemn. . . and something more, something. . . fiercer.

"My family were Dark. The ones that are left still are. I know what Darkness is like. I know. . ." His hand tightened on her shoulder until it was painful. "I know how it never leaves you, not really. It's a stain that doesn't wash out of your soul. If Snape was a Death Eater, I don't care if Dumbledore trusts him, you've got to be careful. All right? You've got to watch out."

Harriet didn't know what to say. Thoughts and memories swirled together in her head, a dizzying whirlpool of color, too chaotic to pick any one thing out.

" _Promise_ me," Sirius said, his fingers digging in. "Promise me you'll be careful, Holly-berry. You won't be alone with him or go looking for him or anything like that. All right?"

"A-all right." Harriet nodded. Her shoulder was going numb. "All right. I... I promise."

Sirius put his hand on her other shoulder and pulled her into a hug. "Good girl," he said gruffly. Then he let go, scrubbing both hands back through his hair. "Listen, I'd stay longer, but I need to get back in case Remus needs me. Not that he'd let me pass the sugar if both his arms fell off."

"All right," Harriet repeated. Her voice didn't sound like hers. "Tell him I hope he feels better soon."

Sirius gave her a final hug, kissing her roughly on the temple. Then with a crack, he was gone.

Harriet stood for a few moments in the windy silence of the clearing, trying to clear her head. The sound of the wind was rushing through it, hollowing out her thoughts.

Snape, a Death Eater?

She didn't really know much about Death Eaters. Hermione had read about them in book called _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ , and she'd told Harriet some of it, but... and the fear of everyone at the World Cup... the spinning Muggles... the shape in the sky, which Sirius had said Voldemort and his followers (Death Eaters) cast over the houses of people they'd killed...

The day was warm and the glade was only pleasantly cool, but Harriet felt clammy. She started walking back the way she came, her heart beating as hard as if she were running.

How could Snape be one of those... _people_? It didn't make sense. He practically gave himself a heart attack every time something almost killed her. If he was a Death Eater, allied with Voldemort, she'd be his major enemy; her mortal danger ought to have him jumping for joy. Well, figuratively. Snape didn't seem like the jumping type, joyous or not.

And the Patronus. And he'd loved her mum...

She stumbled on a trail of creeping ivy and gave it a vicious kick. She'd thought that was the explanation... if he was, or had been, a Death Eater, it seemed unlikely... but none of it made sense anyway, so what was one more nonsensical thing?

Her thoughts in a tumult, she wandered back toward the Weasleys, hardly seeing where she was going.

* * *

In the days that followed, Harriet couldn't stop thinking about the Snape-being-a-Death-Eater thing.

It got on her nerves that she couldn't stop thinking about it. She tried, sometimes. Others, she just let herself obsess over it. At night it was especially hard to do anything else. Darkness was profoundly boring, and the ghoul would sometimes bang and howl in the attic, keeping her awake. Ginny would fall asleep right away and snore gently, but Hermione was so quiet Harriet knew she wasn't sleeping either.

She'd finally sent her letter off to her parents. Without showing it to Harriet.

The Weasleys noticed that Harriet was distracted. Mrs. Weasley in particular kept asking if she was all right, if there was anything she wanted to talk about. Even Fred asked her if something was bothering her when she crashed her Firebolt into the canopy of a tree during one of their Quidditch matches.

The Weasleys also kept a copy of _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ _._ Though it had a historical preface, it mainly told of the two great magical wars of the twentieth century, Gindelwald and Voldemort.

The Death Eaters had a chapter all to themselves.

"... _responsible for torturing, experimenting, and murdering... Muggle killings for pleasure... propagated a reign of terror unequaled in magical memory... new Dark curses of unspeakable horror..._ "

The night she read that chapter, she didn't sleep at all.

When an unfamiliar owl showed up three days later with a letter in Remus' handwriting, Harriet grabbed the bird so hard she almost strangled it, blurted out a brief excuse, she didn't even know what, and fled out the back door.

The owl blasted off scattering feathers as soon as she got the letter off its leg, like it feared for its life with her. She ripped Remus' letter open and read:

_Harriet,_

_I'm so sorry for not writing you sooner. Sirius waited until I was recovered before he told me what he'd done. I am extremely_ (it was underlined twice) _angry with him for telling you in that stupid way. It was entirely unnecessary for him to go springing it on you like that._

_We were both present when Dumbledore told us about Snape, and I can assure you that Dumbledore was adamant that he trusts Severus, even with his life. Dumbledore has assured us that Severus is on our side, that he no longer has any allegiance to Voldemort. As I trust Dumbledore completely, I thereby trust Snape. He's protected you when he could have had nothing to gain from it, and I believe that says a great deal._

_Sirius is biased against Severus, and against the Dark Arts and Death Eaters in particular. He has reason to be, but for that reason you should take whatever he tells you about Snape with this in mind. I won't tell you what to think, Harriet, as I am quite sure you can make up your mind on your own. You know a different side of Snape than Sirius does. But for all Sirius' distrust—which is augmented for your sake—you may also take Dumbledore's trust. He's a brilliant man, and hard to fool._

_If you want to write back, please do. I can visit if you'd like to talk face to face. Please don't hesitate to ask, for anything._

_Love,_

_Remus_

Harriet's thoughts whirled almost as much after this letter as they'd done after Sirius' visit. Somehow, hearing it from Remus made it even more real. It was like she'd only heard it as a piece of gossip that she couldn't quite believe before, and now she had the proof. Remus said... and Dumbledore...

Snape really had been a Death Eater.

(Dumbledore trusted him anyway.)

Harriet put more faith in Remus' assurances than Dumbledore's. Dumbledore was kind and everyone said he was very wise, but Remus was much closer to her. She _knew_ Remus, while Dumbledore was a distant, kind figure who everyone said was very wise.

She looked at the letter again. Her fractured mind was torn between ' _Sirius is biased against Severus, and against the Dark Arts and Death Eaters in particular'_ and ' _Love, Remus.'_ Remus had never signed with love before... and he'd hugged her twice at the Cup... that night of the riot, and then the next morning as they were all leaving... He'd given her a real hug, not like that usual nervous thing of his.

After his letter, she felt better. Not well, but... better.

She didn't write back immediately. Instead she dithered like Hermione, probably for the same reason. She didn't want to sound too anxious or obsessed or preoccupied and was afraid she would sound all three—because she was. The sight of the Dark Mark hanging in the sky over the forest would leak into her head while she was serving herself potatoes at the dinner table. The spinning Muggles would invade her sight while she was trying to get those damned contacts in. Snape's and Sirius' faces beneath that green light floated through her dreams. She kept putting the letter off, thinking, _I'll answer it tomorrow._

Then it was the night of 31st August, she still hadn't answered it, and there was no more time. They all stayed up late, packing away last minute laundry and textbooks and homework assignments that had migrated under furniture and beneath cushions and beds. Ginny couldn't decide which poster of the Weird Sisters to take to Hogwarts, and Hermione had to make two trips to get all of her books upstairs.

"I'll get the others for you," Harriet offered as Hermione crouched over her trunk, trying to cram all her books and robes in. "I'm packed."

" _Thank_ you, Harriet—Ginny, just pick one, for goodness' sake, and get the rest of your things put away!"

"Excuse me, it's my packing, I'll take care of it when I take care of it," Ginny snapped. Harriet supposed all the space-sharing was wearing everyone down.

She trooped down the stairs, squeezing herself to the side as Percy bustled past her, eating a late roast beef sandwich and trailing a long office report. She heard Mrs. Weasley's voice floating up from the kitchen:

"...worried, Arthur... really think we should say something..."

"...don't have all the facts, Molly... could be wrong..."

Curious, Harriet did her best to disguise the squeaks of her footsteps as she crept down to the landing. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were clumped together in the kitchen below. He, his thinning hair hanging limply, was eating a very late dinner, and Mrs. Weasley was standing over him holding a very crumpled bit of parchment.

"I think we ought to at least find out," she said. "If something _is_ going on—"

"That letter could mean anything, Molly."

"But why have her meet him in all this, this urgent secrecy? And when the other letter came, you weren't here, you didn't see how she reacted. She's been so distracted, the poor child, something's clearly wrong—"

"Molly, Harriet is a bright girl."

Harriet drew back a little further into the shadows on the stairs. This was about _her_?

"She realizes that if You-Know-Who's agents are active again, she could be in danger. He targeted her once, he could do it again."

_More than once, Mr. Weasley._

"Besides, you don't even know if that letter _is_ from Remus Lupin."

Harriet's stomach did a back flip. The letter in Mrs. Weasley's hand—that was _her_ letter? It couldn't be the one about Snape because that had been signed _Love, Remus_ ; they'd know it was from him...

_Meet him in secrecy..._ It was _Sirius'_ letter?

In a flash, she remembered she'd stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans, to get it away from Ginny. Mrs. Weasley had just done a whole pile of her laundry. She'd found the letter and thought Remus had sent it. But... what did that matter?

"How well do you know him?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Well... I can't remember exactly how long it's been, Molly. He's helped me out a few times with work business, you know, charmed artefacts and the like. He knows a lot of useful people."

"Lowlifes, you mean, Arthur, don't you?"

Harriet couldn't decide whether she was annoyed by the disapproving expression on Mrs. Weasley's face or interested by the information. Maybe it was a bit of both. Remus knew lowlifes?

"He's always seemed a very decent fellow to me, Molly."

"But there's nothing that says he couldn't..." Mrs. Weasley looked strangely flustered. " _You_ said he contacted you and wanted to know if he could stay on your lot at the Cup. And he came to surprise Harriet. That's what all the children said—he was very fixated on Harriet. I know he taught her, but he taught them all, and I certainly don't consider it appropriate for a former teacher to be surprising his students on holiday. Ginny said Harriet was thrilled to see him, they hugged one another, and he even kissed her goodbye—"

"That's all true..." Mr. Weasley had finished his supper. Before he could take the plate to the sink, Mrs. Weasley floated it off the table and sent it to soak itself in the dishwater. "But you haven't any proof that letter is from him, Molly. There's nothing incriminating in it in itself. For all we know—"

"All I'm saying is we should _ask_ , Arthur. She hasn't anyone to look out for her. Anyone could, any... If it were Ginny, would you hesitate?"

Mr. Weasley was silent a moment. Then he said heavily, "Of course not. If I were even suspicious. All right. Ask her."

Harriet had heard enough. She did not want to be part of any conversation like this, not now or later.

She crept back upstairs, her heart beating hard and her face hot with something more than anger.

"Sorry," she muttered to Hermione when she got back to the room. "I couldn't find them..."

She locked herself in the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet to think.

She wasn't so stupid she couldn't read between the lines. Mrs. Weasley thought Remus was molesting her or—or something. It made her heart boil, thinking someone thought that about Remus. Was that why he hadn't wanted to hug her for the longest time? And he'd only been at the World Cup to protect her. It was just so monstrously unfair.

A timid voice in her head was trying to say that Mrs. Weasley was just worried about her and only wanted her to be safe, and this was just a misunderstanding that she could easily clear up. Mrs. Weasley didn't know Remus at all, had never even met him. She'd found out Remus had been at the Cup, thought it was odd, and then used him to explain Harriet's freak-out about Snape's Death Eater Past. Harriet could smooth this over...

Someone rattled the doorknob. "C'mon, Ginny!" Ron's irritated voice called through the door. "There are other people in the universe who need the bloody bathroom, you know!"

Harriet unlocked the door. "It's all yours," she said, walking past him.

Ron went a shade of maroon that clashed with his hair. "Sorry, Harry," he mumbled. He beetled inside and tried to shut the door, but didn't turn the knob properly and it banged back open. He slammed it shut.

Shaking her head at this undignified interruption of her inner torment, Harriet went back to Ginny's room and lay down on her bed. Hermione was still trying to cram her remaining books into her trunk.

"Just chuck those in mine," Harriet said. "I'll get to it in a bit."

Hermione laid her books tenderly on Harriet's freshly laundered robes and sat down on the edge of her cot.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

Harriet gaped. "A-about what?" How could she know about Mrs. Weasley's suspicions _already?_

"Whatever's been upsetting you. I know you like to work through things on your own, but... you just looked more upset than usual. Which is saying a lot." She smiled slightly. "Do you?"

Her face was calm and understanding. It made Harriet think Mrs. Weasley was more wrong than she knew. Harriet did have people looking out for her. Hermione, Sirius, Remus... and...

"Not really." She draped her arm over her eyes. "I'll just be glad when we're back at Hogwarts."

* * *

Next morning, Harriet dared to hope that Mrs. Weasley wouldn't be able to find time to speak to her. Mr. Weasley had an urgent firecall from Amos Diggory, Cedric's father, and the usual chaos of getting six people and all their things together had Mrs. Weasley's hands, arms, and wand full. Still, Harriet was careful to keep as far from her as possible while the trunks were being loaded, and was relieved when Mrs. Weasley climbed into a different taxi.

It rained hard all the way to London, and if they'd managed not to get soaked at the Burrow, they didn't fare so well at King's Cross. Still, they had no further problems than Hedwig causing an enormous racket and Crookshanks breaking free of his basket to claw their arms and faces, and they made it to Platform 9 ¾ drenched, but with all their arms and legs on.

But then Harriet's luck ran out.

"Harriet, can I speak with you, dear?"

Harriet couldn't think of a good reason to refuse. Bill, drat his dragon-earringed head, obligingly took her trunk and cage and stowed them aboard the train, leaving Harriet with no option but to follow Mrs. Weasley to the back of the crowd, away from the others.

"Harriet..." Mrs. Weasley hesitated, and then disarmed Harriet's heart completely by hugging her and saying, "You know that I love you, I hope?"

Harriet didn't know what to say or even how to react. A sound came out of her mouth that might've been "Gerp," but she wasn't sure of even that much.

Mrs. Weasley framed Harriet's face with her hands. "I just want to be sure you're safe."

_She doesn't have anyone to look after her..._ There was a lump in Harriet's throat. "I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley."

"Are you, dear?" Mrs. Weasley's eyes searched Harriet's face. "Something's been worrying you, I know."

"It's just Voldemort," Harriet said, ignoring Mrs. Weasley's flinch. "Really, I'm okay." Mrs. Weasley didn't look convinced, nor did she look like she was ready to give up. Well, was Harriet a Gryffindor or wasn't she? "Remus hasn't got anything to do with it."

Mrs. Weasley looked badly started. "I—what?"

"I heard you and Mr. Weasley last night." Harriet was glad the anger from that conversation no longer burned through her. "It's okay. Remus... knew my parents. He was one of their best friends. He's like my... godfather or something. That's all."

"Oh." Mrs. Weasley looked as flummoxed as Harriet had been by her hug. "Well. I—I see. I only wanted to be sure—but if you're sure—"

"Mum!" Charlie's voice called through the steam as a thrumming whistle sounded. "Where have you and Harry got to? She's going to miss the train!"

"If you're sure," Mrs. Weasley repeated, hurrying Harriet toward the train. "You know you can write me and Arthur, about anything, anything at all..."

Harriet just nodded. Mrs. Weasley squeezed her arm and guided her gently aboard the train.

"Thanks for having us to stay, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said, leaning out the door.

"Oh, it was my pleasure, dear. I'd invite you for Christmas, but, well, I expect you're all going to want to stay at Hogwarts, what with one thing and another."

She was smiling, but Ron and the twins only looked irritated.

"Mum!" Ron said. "What d'you three know that we don't?"

"You'll find out this evening, I expect. It's going to be very exciting. Mind you, I'm glad they changed the rules—"

"What rules?" said all the boys and Ginny together.

"I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will tell you at the feast tonight. Now, behave, won't you? _Won't_ you, Fred? And you, George?"

The pistons hissed and the train lurched forward.

"Tell us what's happening at Hogwarts!" Fred bellowed out of the window as Mrs. Weasley, Bill and Charlie sped away from them. "What rules are they changing?"

But Mrs. Weasley only smiled and waved. Before the train had turned the corner, she, Bill and Charlie had Disapparated.

"They wouldn't stop teasing us," Ron griped as he, Hermione and Harriet trundled down the shaking corridor to their compartment. "Going all 'I sort of wish I was back at Hogwarts this year'... that was Bill... and 'I might be seeing you all soon'... Charlie... My own _mother's_ keeping secrets from me, can you believe it?"

"Well, she must have a good reason," said Hermione. When Ron gaped at her in outrage, she cleared her throat. "What did she want to talk to you about, Harriet?"

Harriet was saved from having to reply—by Malfoy, of all people. As Hermione and Ron waited for her answer, his stupid, drawling voice crawled in through the open compartment door.

"...Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. He knows the Headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore, the man's such a Mudblood-lover, and Durmstrang doesn't admit that sort of riffraff. But Mother didn't like the idea of me going to school so far away. Father says Durmstrang takes a lot more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defense rubbish we do..."

Scowling, Hermione slid the door shut, snuffing out his voice.

"So," she said, bright spots of color in her cheeks, "he thinks Durmstrang wold have suited him, does he? I wish he _had_ gone, then we wouldn't have to put up with him."

"Where's Durmstrang?" Harriet asked, mostly to keep Hermione distracted from asking again after Mrs. Weasley. "Not in Britain, surely?"

"Well, nobody really knows, do they? Traditionally, you know, the location of magical institutions is kept a secret, even from other wizards. Even Hogwarts is Unplottable. In 1734, when Headmaster Waldo Hawkridge tried to petition for its location to be made public, he was asked to step down on the grounds of clear mental instability. Durmstrang must be someplace quite cold, though," she said thoughtfully, "because they have fur capes as part of their uniforms."

"Oh, just imagine," Ron said, a dreamy look passing over his face. "We could've pushed Malfoy off an iceberg and made it look like an accident. Shame his mother likes him."

* * *


	55. Storm and Stress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Man, did the end of this semester blow. It really made me lose my groove, so I'll solicit your infinite kindness and patience, dear ones, to bear with me while I get back on track. I feel like the Tin Man, writing-wise.
> 
> -Only one canon paragraph in here, wootah. (Dumbledore's bedtime speech)

It was still raining when the train pulled into Hogsmeade station - except "raining" was too blithe a word for it. More accurately, it was probably what the world would be like if it were tipped over so that all the oceans flowed out of their beds.

The rain beat a rhythm on Harriet's skin on the platform and drummed on the roof of the carriages. The thrum of falling water filled her ears and gushed from the gargoyles' spouts. The enchanted ceiling above the tables churned like a whirlpool and flickered with lightning, and when the thunder cracked outside, the windows rattled long and loud. Only the ghosts, drifting through the guttering candles, looked unconcerned. And dry.

As she dumped water out of her shoes, Harriet was grateful she'd hidden in the bathroom that morning to put on her contacts as way of avoiding Mrs. Weasley, because her glasses would've been so water-spotted she'd have been blinded, and she didn't have a dry piece of clothing to clean them with. And it wasn't like she was a witch or anything, with magic.

 _Oh, right_ , she thought sarcastically.

"What's that drying charm?" she asked Hermione. Her hair was dripping icy water down the back of her neck and driving her mad.

"It's _Adsicco_ ," Hermione said, pointing her wand at Harriet with a cranking motion.

Harriet didn't feel anything like a wave of sunlight wash over her; it was more of a sucking sensation. Her clothes rippled, and _some_ of the water vanished. Her hair made a _phoomp_ noise like a dandelion exploding.

"Don't you dare point that thing at me, Hermione Granger," said Lavender, staring at Harriet in horror.

"It's not my fault!" Hermione said defensively. "It's the nature of the charm!"

Harriet reached up and patted her hair. It did seem a lot... poofier than usual.

Parvati shuddered. "I, I don't know if you want to look," she said, passing Harriet a rhinestone-studded compact mirror.

Harriet snapped it open and tried to get enough of her head visible in the little round mirror to gauge the damage. It was hard, since her hair was about three times its normal size.

"Nice look, Potter!" shrieked Pansy Parkinson's voice across the chatter of the hall and the sounds of people squealing and falling squelchily on the slippery flagstone floor.

"Well, it's _dry_ ," Hermione said, but she was blushing.

"Would you like me to dry _you_ off?" Harriet asked sweetly. The compact gave a sinister snap as she shut it.

"Er..." Hermione looked alarmed. For once, even her hair wasn't at bushy as Harriet's now was. From what Harriet had seen in the mirror, her head now resembled a Puffskein colony.

But Hermione and her water-logged hair were safe: Professor Dumbledore stood from the High Table, raising his hands, and everyone fell silent (except for the people still slip-sliding to their seats). The doors to the Great Hall opened and Professor McGonagall marched in, trailing a long line of shivering, sopping first-years.

Harriet used the Sorting to try and de-fluff her hair, though it stubbornly refused to cooperate. Pansy and Malfoy, instead of watching the Sorting, pointed at her and doubed up with laughter. Harriet hated them even more than her stupid fucking hair.

She missed the sight of Remus at the staff table. He'd be sending her some kind of sympathetic look right now.

They'd have some other Defense teacher this year. Some woman at the Ministry, Dolores Umbridge, had passed new legislation less than a month ago that barred Remus almost completely from getting a job. Remus hadn't said anything to Harriet, of course. He never did. Sirius was the one who'd told her. Before, though werewolves had to disclose themselves when applying for a job, employers could make their own decision as to whether or not to hire them; but now anyone wanting to hire a werewolf had to apply to the Ministry for a permit. If the position was something the Ministry deemed too dangerous to allow a Dangerous Beast to fill, the permit would be denied. Sirius had called Umbridge a few names and advised her to do a few things that it was better Remus hadn't heard, because he'd have put a stop to it and Harriet had found the list very educational.

But. . . there were no new faces amongst the other teachers, only two empty seats: one for Professor McGonagall, and the other, Harriet reckoned, for the new Defense teacher.

Well, whoever the new teacher was, they couldn't be as good as Remus, and she certainly wouldn't go out of her way to like them, but she hoped they'd be closer to Remus' level than to Lockhart's. Or Quirrell's, who'd tried to murder her, being an agent of Voldemort and all.

Speaking of agents of Voldemort. . . She glanced down the table, looking for. . .

Snape was staring straight at her.

Her face fluctuated hot, then cold. She had absolutely no idea how to react. Should she look away? Pretend she didn't care? Glare?

Before she could decide, _Snape_ looked away. In fact, he was watching the Sorting almost immediately. The act was so good, she'd almost have believed he hadn't really been looking at her and had just been glancing around the Hall (except she found it hard to believe he could really be interested in the Sorting even the tiniest bit).

Remus had told her she could make up her own mind, but she didn't know how to. She didn't know what to think, or how to deal with what she _was_ thinking.

It was just. . . bloody fucking _confusing._

Everyone around her was clapping long and loud. She shook her Puffskein head to clear it and managed to clap a few times before Professor McGonagall swept the Sorting Hat away.

Professor Dumbledore gave the signal for dinner, and the plates bloomed with food.

"Eaf omfing, 'arry," said Ron, his mouth already stuffed with potatoes. "Ehair's not _hat_ badf."

"That's what _you_ think," Lavender said, looking revolted, though whether it was by his manners or his poor judgment in hair, Harriet couldn't say. " _You're_ a boy. _You_ wouldn't know."

Harriet couldn't stomach the thought of eating potatoes after seeing what Ron was doing to them, so she served herself some green beans instead.

As dinner went on, she felt herself relaxing. It was something about being back at Hogwarts. . . The Great Hall, so noisy and full of people completely unconcerned about everything that had been bothering her—Snape's Death Eater-ness, Mrs. Weasley's misunderstanding about Remus, even the riot at the World Cup. . . It made all of that seem further away, less important. And Professor Dumbledore's trustworthiness increased tenfold when he was nearby, like it radiated across the tables and aisles between them and gently enveloped the coldest of her doubts. His robes were only a shade lighter than the sky outside, and studded with delicate golden threads, so he glowed gently in the candlelight like a nebula.

Snape was passing him the salt cellar. Surely that meant. . . _something._ Maybe people who tortured and murdered had to pass salt cellars to other people at some point, but surely Professor Dumbledore would know the difference. Remus had said Professor Dumbledore trusted Snape.

After that, she managed to give some pork roast a pretty decent go, and even to join in the boys' conversation about the World Cup. They were talking about only the game, of course. Riots meant less to them than Ireland's win or Krum's spectacular catch. Neville hadn't been able to go, and Ron, Seamus and Dean's replay was hard enough to make sense of even when you'd seen the real thing.

She was giving Neville a straighter version of the game when the food disappeared and Professor Dumbledore stood. As he smiled across them all, the sounds of the Hall washed into silence.

"Good evening and welcome back to you all. I have some exciting news, about an event taking place at Hogwarts this year. . ."

* * *

Remus was deeply annoyed with Sirius.

This wasn't a new occurrence. Sirius could piss off the Pope without effort, and could have provoked a group of young nuns to a murderous rage with his pseudo-contrition. Whenever he did something wrong, Sirius tended to adopt one of two behavior patterns: Regal Martyr or Kicked Puppy. Regal Martyr wore stitched across his chest on an invisible tabard, "I didn't do anything wrong, though I appreciate that you think I did," while Kicked Puppy trailed forlornly after you wearing a collar with little bell that tinkled, "I'm ever so sorry and pathetic and won't you please forgive me?"

Currently he was being the Regal Martyr, so Remus was giving him the Silent Treatment. Neither of them would win any awards for maturity, but Remus refused to speak to Regal Martyr Sirius. Especially since Harriet had never written back. Remus interpreted her silence as, "I'm upset but I don't want to you to know I am." As a lifelong practitioner of secrecy, Remus knew the signs.

Sirius, of course, understood no such thing.

The front door clattered open; the sound of the driving rain pounded against Remus' ears, even louder than the insistent thrum on the roof. His lamp didn't gutter because it was lit with magic, but he felt the damp on the backs of his hands.

Sirius sloshed in, spelling water off himself, and shook his head like a dog ridding his fur of water. His hair flopped into his eyes, and it didn't even have the decency to look bedraggled; on the contrary, there was an attractive messiness to it that would've made James explode with envy.

He shambled over to the sitting-area and draped himself across an armchair. Remus pretended to be absorbed in his book, which was one of Harriet's bodice-rippers that had somehow stolen away into his things over the summer.

Sirius picked up a magazine that Albus must have subscribed to— _Magical Glassblowing for the Artistically Inept_ —flipped through it, and then tossed it back onto the pile. He looked at Remus' ormolu clock on the mantle. The sound of its ticking was lost somewhere in the rattle of the rain.

"Holly-berry must be back at Hogwarts by now."

Remus made a vague humming noise and turned a page in his book. He should probably be appalled that Harriet was reading something this racy, but no book could be nearly as damaging as long-term exposure to Sirius.

Sirius stretched out a leg and kicked at the coffee table. They'd discovered immediately that its one gimpy leg would lift off the floor and clunk back down again if weight was applied to the wrong end.

 _Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._ Pause. _Thunkthunk. Thunkthunk._ Pause. _THUNK. THUNK._

Remus exerted all of his considerable powers of self-control and turned another page rather than chucking the book at Sirius' head. It wouldn't do to break Harriet's book.

Sirius dropped his foot onto top of the table, eliciting the loudest thunk yet.

"How long are you going to snub me?" he asked.

"Until you admit you were wrong," Remus said, not looking up from the page. "So, probably forever."

"Merlin's saggy balls, Remus, it's only Snape."

"As usual," Remus still did not look up, "you manage to miss the entire point. I don't care what you said about Snape, Sirius, so much as what you said _to_ Harriet."

"So I told her the bloody truth."

"Yes, Sirius." Turn the page, slap it down. "That's the problem."

"She's old enough to know the fucking _truth,_ Moony."

"Is she? I'm not so sure."

"Helga's tits, Remus, she's not a bloody fainting porcelain princess," Sirius snapped. It finally made Remus look up, because underneath the vulgarity was real feeling, as if this was something Sirius truly felt strongly about. Well, he may, but it could be a Strong Feeling of Loathing Snape, and that was the problem.

He shut Harriet's book. "Sirius. . . do you remember how painful the lesson was, that people aren't always who you thought they were? Maybe even most of the time they aren't."

"Harriet already knew that—" 

"Did she?"

"We told her about Wormtail—"

"Told her, yes. She didn't know him the way did. She knows Snape."

Sirius snarled, "Snape's not her bloody _friend_."

"Well, no." But Remus filed that vehemence away into the Sirius/Snape Vendetta folder. "She still _knows_ him. If nothing else, he's been in a position of authority over her for several years—"

"What's your bloody point, Moony?"

"My _point_ is that you've given her information that would be difficult to process even when you're used to the idea that people can be different than you thought, and that's how you chose to teach her that lesson. You just dropped it on her, Sirius—"

"Holly-berry deserves to know the truth," Sirius said, about as yielding as iron ore. "She resents it when people withhold the truth from her."

He punctuated that statement with a look like a spearhead, as if to say, _Like you did with Lily and James._ Remus was silent.

Sirius didn't understand the need, even the compulsion, for secrecy. As far as he was concerned, everything should be open and upfront, even things that were painful. Sirius was never ashamed for very long, and certainly never cowed. James had been the same way. Harriet was a little more hypocritical, but she was young and she'd been brought up very differently than a child ought. She demanded the truth from others but resented their requiring the truth from her. She wanted information while still maintaining the sanctity of her own secrecy. Remus understood why.

And in all fairness, most of the information she wanted, and much that she did not receive, were things that pertained to her life. Her future. The things she had lost. The things she might lose.

Remus hated unpleasant truths.

"I'll make you a deal," he said. "If Harriet has made up her mind to take your advice about Snape, I won't try to convince her otherwise. But if she's decided to trust him, then you are not to try and sway her from that decision."

Sirius opened his mouth, his expression outraged. Remus expected a string of profanity, but Sirius just shut his mouth without saying a single "bloody fuck."

"I don't like it," he said eventually, frowning so heavily it was almost a glare. "That bastard could be manipulating her."

"It's much easier to believe bad things of Snape than good ones," Remus pointed out. "I really can't imagine that he could manipulate a house-elf into thinking he's harmless and misunderstood, let alone Harriet."

* * *

". . .The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October," Professor Dumbledore said, "and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your wholehearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!"

He sat back down and turned to talk to Mad Eye Moody, who still did not appear to have dried himself off, but remained absorbed in his dinner.

"They can't do that!" Harriet heard George saying mutinously over the racket of everyone getting up from their seats and streaming, babbling, out of the Hall. But Harriet wasn't paying attention, because she'd just spotted someone she wanted to talk to. Asteria had stood up from the Slytherin table, noticeable for her height and very long, fair hair. Harriet hadn't got any letters from her that summer, despite having written to her at the beginning of the holiday, and with a pang of guilt she had just remembered she'd never tried sending anything after the first silence.

"I'll meet you upstairs," she said to Hermione.

"But the password—!"

Hermione's voice vanished into the tide as Harriet beetled across the room to the Slytherin table. Luckily for her, Asteria was waiting for her sister, and Daphne was dawdling. Harriet could've done without Tracey, too, but at least Pansy had hurried off with Malfoy.

Daphne and Tracey stared at her like she was a gnome in a tutu. She wondered if her hair was still doing its Puffskein impression. There was no telling just by their reactions; they'd be staring at her like that either way.

Harriet raised her chin a little. They weren't more intimidating than a pack of drunken Death Eaters. Well, they shouldn't be.

"Hi," she said, looking at Asteria, who smiled in a nervous, hopeful way.

"Potter, what do you want?" Tracey asked coolly.

"For you to butt out of my conversation," Harriet retorted. To Asteria: "How are you?"

Asteria opened her mouth to reply, but Daphne stood from the table and turned so that she was blocking Harriet, showing the back of her perfect blonde head.

"Come, Aster. We don't want to be late for Professor Snape's start of term speech."

She grabbed Asteria's arm and started herding her away. Asteria hesitated, but when Daphne said, " _Aster_ ," she allowed herself to be led away, sneaking an apologetic look over her sister's head.

Tracey followed after them, raising an eyebrow at Harriet.

 _"Bloody_ Slytherins," she muttered as they disappeared through the side door. Which Snape was standing next to, watching her.

"What?" Harriet asked, putting up her chin again. For some reason, her heartbeat kicked up as a hot feeling pulsed through her chest. "I'm allowed to talk to your students, aren't I?"

"You aren't allowed to be out of your common room after curfew," Snape said coolly, "which will begin shortly. I advise you to hurry up."

This reply was so maddeningly condescending—so adult-to-a-child—that Harriet couldn't find anything to say to it that wouldn't make her look like a stupid little kid. She sought refuge in a dignified silence, and stalked out of the Great Hall.

* * *

"The _Triwizard Tournament_." Minerva rapped the tea kettle with her wand sharply enough that the jet of steam which erupted from the sprout knocked Flitwick's hat off his head. "I do beg your pardon, Filius—"

"Not at all," he said as his hat grew a set of tree frog-like legs and crawled up his chair, back onto his head. "It went quite over my head."

"I can't decide whether I should be just a _touch_ excited," Minerva glared at the kettle as if it was one of the amoral backbirths responsible for the Triwizard Tournament's revival, "or _strangle_ the people responsible for bringing that medieval bear-baiting competition to our school."

 _One can never go wrong with strangling,_ Severus thought. 

"At least it's only the older ones who can participate," said Sprout, somewhere between consoling and resigned.

"And at least it will only be _one_ of ours," said Flitwick. "We shall all stand behind them, and may prop each other up."

"A chance of glory and the certainty of grey hairs." Minerva gave the kettle another irritable jab, and this time it meekly rose into the air and circled the table, dribbling tea into all their cups. "Well, I'm grateful for the age restriction, at least, and in more ways than one. _This_ way there's very little chance of Harriet Potter getting in to it somehow."

"Snape old boy, have you learned to throw your voice?" asked Sprout. "That was an uncanny imitation you did of Minerva just now."

He could _sense_ Dumbledore twinkling at him from across the room, where he was talking with that cretin Moody. Severus sought a reply that was neither too cutting nor somehow praising Minerva's good sense.

"I should think three years' acquaintance with Miss Potter would be enough to make anyone realize she could find a way to land herself in fatal danger in an empty room," he said. "All she'd need is a Basilisk slithering through the pipes in the walls."

"But there are precautions," said Flitwick. "Albus himself will be setting the age line. There will be no cracking that."

"I was only joking, Severus," said Minerva, though she looked rather troubled. "Though I do worry about her. That business at the World Cup—I've learned she was _there_. When I think of what could have happened to her, surrounded by those maniacs. . ."

"We'll keep an eye on her, old girl," said Sprout. "She's at Hogwarts now."

"Yes, because Hogwarts has been proven maniac-proof," Severus said, with a sarcasm he didn't bother to suppress.

"Sometimes these things get into Hogwarts, aye," said Sprout with unflappable good nature. "Which only proves they can get in anywhere, so long as there's people to bring 'em. But we're always the ones left standing in the end."

The rest of their talk centered on which of the sixth and seventh years they thought most likely to be chosen. Out of politeness' sake, they all mentioned students from each other's houses and not their own, demurring against the praise but smugly accepting it nonetheless. If Hogwarts won the tournament, they'd all be pleased, but the House would definitely be important, for the bragging rights if nothing else.

It said something about the others' good-will that they even bothered mentioning Slytherin students as candidates. Students from his House bad been selected in previous centuries, and one of them had even won in the tournament of 1368, but she had taken the trophy under a cloud of suspicion, as the Durmstrang candidate had met with a nasty accident that knocked him out of the running halfway through.

For his part, Severus barely participated in the chat. Perhaps it was just habit, but a sense of impending doom had started percolating in the back of his brain over the past few days. Why it had started only recently and not after the World Cup, he didn't know. He couldn't pinpoint anything that had happened that should have caused it if the darkening of the Mark hadn't.

Mad-Eye Fucking Moody being around wasn't going to help. Miserable, misanthropic old goat.

_That description would fit you to a T._

It was probably habit. A new school year had started; someone, or something, would try to kill Harriet Potter.

Why did she seem angry with him? Answer: she was a teenager. They were moody little brats. Why did it bother him? It didn't. Shouldn't. What was the fucking matter with him?

Maybe it was the lack of glasses. Why had she got rid of them? Her glare was a great deal more potent when it wasn't hidden behind those monstrosities.

It was odd, though. He hadn't felt like it was Lily glaring at him, the way he would have thought. It had felt like pure, indignant Harriet Potter.

Movement around him: the others were leaving. He heard the _clunk, clunk, clunk_ of Moody's clawed foot retreating. Good riddance to bad fucking rubbish.

Dumbledore took Minerva's vacated seat as Severus was preparing to stand. The fire divided his face into a bright plane and a curving shadow.

"You didn't sample much of the tea," Dumbledore said. "Could I interest you in any of my Oolong?"

"If I drink any more caffeine, I'll be up all bloody night."

"Do you now manage to sleep the first night, then?" Dumbledore asked in surprise. "I'm glad—"

"No," Severus muttered. "Fine. Tea."

Dumbledore's office did change, but the alterations were always so subtly integrated into the chaos that you could never pinpoint what it was. At least, most people couldn't. Severus had drawn up an obsessive mental catalog of everything in the study, as well as its position, and memorized the lot. In addition to maintaining mental discipline, it was also a useful skill to have as a spy.

"That's new," he said, looking at a small jade figurine—a statue of an elephant—resting on a bookshelf. It was at eye-height when one was sitting.

"Not new, precisely," said Dumbledore as he conjured a tea service to appear on his table near the fire. "I found it among some old things as I was cleaning out the croft for Remus and Sirius. An old friend sent it to me, oh, ages ago—decades before you were born. He was studying herbal lore in Southern China at the time. He asked me to join him, you know. It sounded fascinating, but by then I was working at Hogwarts, and, well. . ."

He smiled, gently directing a teacup to float into Severus' hand, but the smile had an interesting quality to it. It was partly genuine and partly not, as if the memories behind it were mixed with pleasure and gravity.

Severus examined the figurine as he drank his tea. Dumbledore had stuffed it away for decades, and upon finding it, was now displaying it. The gesture meant something, as did the statue itself, but what?

He'd been working for Dumbledore for thirteen years as a professor, even longer as his spy, but he couldn't really say he _knew_ Dumbledore. Most of the time, he didn't even bother to wonder about him, except when he was getting on Severus' nerves. He accepted the fact that Dumbledore was a tiresome enigma wrapped in a bloody maddening riddle.

"What happened to him?" 

"He died in a rock slide about two years later. In Nepal, I believe it was."

Severus blinked. "Marcus Fortinbras gave you that?"

"He was a pioneer in bringing Asiatic medicine to the European potions discipline," Dumbledore said calmly. "A very brave man, and immensely clever. His death was a great loss."

And the reason he'd left England was due to a scandal involving another young man. Not Dumbledore; someone from a stainless family who'd committed suicide when the scandal broke. Marcus Fortinbras _had_ been a pioneer in his field, but his theories had only been published posthumously, almost fifty years after he'd died.

Severus was being entrusted with something significant. Dumbledore knew that he'd memorized everything in the room; he'd known he would take note of the figurine and comment on it, the way he always did. And Severus knew that Dumbledore did not feel any compulsion to be honest. Even a simple relay of information was unnecessary. He could have said, _Oh, something I found in a drawer_ when Severus asked, or simply left the next question with, _He died_.

"How is the tea?" Dumbledore asked, smiling slightly.

"It's fine." He wondered if Dumbledore understood he was answering the other question, the one left unspoken. "Teaching Transfiguration was more important to you than pioneering with plants?"

"Hogwarts was more important to me," Dumbledore said, but his eyes drifted toward the figurine. "It has been my. . . sanctuary against the world." Then he glanced back at Severus, the blue of his eyes clear as water, his thoughts as opaque as smoked glass. "Would you leave, if given the opportunity?"

"Yes," Severus said without hesitation. Had Dumbledore expected that answer, or not?

"Would you, truly?"

"Yes. There is a world out there I've barely tasted." He couldn't help looking at the figurine, too. "Not that I imagine I'll ever see the chance."

Dumbledore was silent for a time. The fire popped, a log settling in. The storm roared around the tower, tinting the windows with white light.

"You shouldn't plan your life as if it were sure to end prematurely, Severus," Dumbledore said quietly. "Even in these dark days. There is always a bright spot, if you keep looking."

"I'm a Slytherin, Headmaster," he said with irony. "We may be short on optimism, but we always have our contingency plans."

"I hope that you do," Dumbledore said, looking entirely serious. "I hope that you do."

* * *

The news of the Triwizard Tournament at least gave everyone something to talk about.

Among the boys Harriet knew, the conversation revolved around finagling a way past the age line. Fred, George and Lee Jordan seemed to be dead serious about it, whereas Ron, Seamus and Dean were just eaten up by the fantasy. Ron admitted to Harriet (when the others were long out of earshot) that he'd just as soon not make a prat of himself in front of the whole school. Neville flat-out told everyone he hadn't learned enough to enter, although his gran would probably want him to. Privately, Harriet thought that if that was true, she didn't care much for his gran; Neville got stuck in the trick stair on the way to Gryffindor Tower every time, and people had died in the tournament in the past.

Lavender and Parvati were mostly concerned with making a mental list of all the good-looking boys they thought should enter and hoping the contestants from the other schools weren't too ugly. This irritated Hermione.

"And what if a girl becomes the Hogwarts champion?" 

"Who wants to watch a _girl_ compete?" Lavender asked, rolling her eyes.

This annoyed Harriet the way their list of boys hadn't. "Why wouldn't they? _I'd_ like it to be a girl. That would be loads more interesting."

"Oh, you barely notice boys exist," Lavender said, rather disdainfully. "It's like you've got something missing."

Since this was something Harriet had wondered a few times herself, this cutting assessment rather stung.

Hermione snapped, "Just because Harriet _isn't_ so empty-headed that she can only think about what boy she fancies this week based solely on his looks, it doesn't mean she's got something missing! The only thing _you're_ missing, Lavender Brown, is a brain! Come on, Harriet!"

And grabbing her bag in one hand and Harriet in the other, she stormed out of the dorm.

Harriet let herself be towed across the nearly empty common room, past the yawning Fat Lady, and through the shafts of watery sunlight that lay across the stairs.

"Now that," she said, about three floors down, "was a cutting assessment. Glad to think you don't think I'm as empty-headed as _that_."

"You know I don't think you're empty-headed!" Hermione said, her tone fluctuating between annoyed and fretful.

"I was joking." She waited for a group of third-year Ravenclaws to pass them before asking, "Do you think she's right?"

" _I_ think that if Lavender Brown is ever right, it's only because she ran into it by accident," said Hermione with scathing loftiness as she marched down the stairs. "Just because _she's_ got no interest in anything except boys and her silly horoscopes, it doesn't mean that's the only way to be. You've got more important things to worry about."

"Do you think it works like that?" Harriet asked skeptically as they sat down at an empty stretch of Gryffindor table. Hermione's dramatic exit had brought them down to breakfast earlier than most of their House. "I'm not sure it works like that."

"Does it really bother you?" Hermione asked, as if she realized for the first time that it did. "You shouldn't let anything Lavender says upset you. Honestly, if she ever _approved_ your behavior, _then_ I'd worry."

"It's not so much that she said it, it's more like. . . well, all those boys they talk about. . . I don't know, I just think they look boring."

"So?" Hermione seemed honestly bewildered.

"Well. . . do _you_ think they're handsome? Like Cedric Diggory, Michael Corner. . . ."

"They're handsome, yes. I'm not sure I'd say they're attractive to me personally, though. There's a difference."

It was Harriet's turn to be bewildered. "Is there?"

"Of course there is. You can think someone's handsome without being attracted to them, and you can be attracted to someone whom you don't think is handsome. Besides, why are you worrying that you don't spend half your day mooning over Cedric Diggory? You liked Bill well enough, didn't you?"

Harriet imagined her face filling with steam like a tea kettle. "Well. . . yeah."

"Even if Ginny drove you away from him." Hermione sighed. "Honestly, I hope her personality stops growing before she's channeling Fred and George outright. Anyway, there could be a hundred reasons why you don't fancy the same boys as Lavender and Parvati. As long as the boy's good-looking, that's all they need. I doubt they even look past that."

"But I _don't_ think they're that good-looking. They just look sort of. . . bland and boring."

"Well, what's wrong with that? People aren't all attracted to the same sort of person."

"Who do _you_ think is attractive?"

Hermione went pink. "No one really."

Harriet couldn't resist. "Other than Lockhart."

"Oh, _do_ shut up. I admit, I got carried away. It was just a silly—"

"You can fancy someone, you know. I won't tease you about it. I mean, more than I already have," she added fairly.

"I don't fancy anyone," said Hermione primly, but she was still pink in the face. "Anyway, we're talking about you. Another reason could be that these boys simply don't interest you. Bill's rather older, and he's done a lot of exciting things. He was Head Boy, Captain of the Quidditch team, and he breaks curses for Gringott's, ancient Egyptian ones, which wouldn't _nearly_ be easy, some of those curses are thousands of years old—"

"Sounds like you fancy him a bit, too," Harriet said, rather amused.

"I _don't_ ," Hermione said, re-pinkening, "I'm just saying. . . Bill's rather impressive and highly fanciable. None of the boys at Hogwarts are exactly like him, are they?"

"Are you saying I'm some kind of boy snob?" Harriet said, still amused.

"I'm _saying_ it might take more to impress you than a pretty face."

Harriet mulled this over. "Is that why you liked Lockhart?"

"His face was a large part of it," Hermione muttered, as if it pained her to admit this deep, personal failing. "If he hadn't been so good-looking, I don't think it would have taken me as long to notice what a, a _fathead_ he was. I think he really must have had some kind of narcissistic personality disorder."

"That's not your fault. Honestly, for all that cool stuff Bill's done, I think what really got me was his hair. I guess we're all just slaves to our hormones."

They served themselves porridge and toast, Harriet loading hers with butter and cream and brown sugar. A few first years, so nervous they must have gotten up quite early to make it to the Great Hall on time, sat clumped together at the foot of the table, looking rather green to be starting their first day and desperately relieved they had made it down to breakfast without getting stuck inside a suit of armor.

The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were quite full, but Harriet noticed very few Slytherins had made it upstairs yet. Maybe they were as lazy as the Gryffindors. She didn't see Asteria.

"You. . . you know," Hermione said timidly. She was mashing her spoon methodically into her porridge. "If you want to talk. . . about something. . . you can. Just because I don't like to talk about it—I mean, my own things—that doesn't mean I can't. . . be there for you if, if you need me to be."

"Okay?" Harriet said, confused. "We're talking about it now."

"I just meant, if, if it was someone you thought you. . . maybe shouldn't talk about. That's okay. I won't. . . judge."

Each hesitant, supportive syllable only increased Harriet's bewilderment. "Like who?"

"Well." Hermione coughed. "Like. . . a girl."

"A _girl_?" Harriet laughed at the expression on Hermione's face. "I don't like girls. I mean, not that way."

"Oh." Hermione looked relieved. "Good. I mean—there's nothing good or bad about it, not at all, I just meant that's good I didn't get it wrong. I didn't _think_ that was it."

Harriet was amused by the confession that Hermione would be a lot more troubled about getting something wrong than about Harriet's being gay.

"Were you really thinking I was, or is this just you covering all the possibilities?"

"I couldn't really tell either way, to be honest. I just wanted to let you know you can talk to me, even if it were a boy, a girl, or. . . a man." Now she was looking embarrassed again.

Harriet blinked at her. "A man? Like, a grown _man_?"

"Well. . . please don't be offended," Hermione said quickly, "but I'd been wondering if. . . if you fancied, erm, Professor Lupin."

Harriet's mouth fell open. "Not you, too!"

"Not me _too_?"

Harriet groaned. She glanced around, but none of their year was at the table yet. Still, it was probably better to drop her voice. "That's what Mrs. Weasley wanted to talk to me about. She thought he was. . . and me. . . you know. It's not like that," she said, a bit sharply, when Hermione's eyes widened.

"I never thought _he_ might," Hermione said quickly. "I thought—well. Since the spring, when you were getting your memories back, sometimes you'd be quite happy and cheerful like everything's normal, and then you'd seem rather listless and unhappy. At first I thought it had to do with your time-accident, but I asked Mrs. Patil, and she didn't think so—"

Harriet wasn't sure whether to be touched, amused, or offended that Hermione was researching her mental state. Well, it _was_ Hermione.

"—and then you were spending all that time with Professor Lupin, so I wondered. . . and at the World Cup, when we first got there you were quite happy, but when he was acting a bit odd about the Omnioculars, it upset you. You seemed to make it up, but the longer we spent at the Burrow after that, the more distracted you became, and you got those two letters—"

"You've been thinking a lot about this," Harriet said. It was dizzying to realize that you were the subject of one of Hermione's mental puzzles. "I thought you were just worried about, you know. The baby."

"Well. I was." Hermione mashed at her porridge again. "I was also wondering about. . . this. If I should bring it up. Erm. You aren't—aren't angry, are you?"

"No," Harriet said honestly. "I don't fancy Remus. He's like my other godfather. It's just that he. . . acts weird sometimes. He's really secretive. So sometimes I wonder. . ." She shrugged, not wanting to go on, because she didn't want to admit a fear that drifted formlessly through her, something she couldn't name, whenever Remus seemed to pull away from her.

Hermione looked relieved. "That makes sense. I mean, that it bothers you when Professor Lupin acts—secretive. You mean distant, don't you?"

When Harriet nodded, a peculiar expression overtook Hermione's face. It was part Scholarly Questioning Research Hermione and Hesitant Worrywart Hermione. Uh oh.

But before either Hermione could vie for prominence, Ron slouched onto the bench next to Harriet.

"Morn—" He was stopped by a huge yawn. "—ing."

"Morning," Harriet said, relieved the conversation couldn't go forward with him there.

 _Well, you wanted to talk about boys_ , reminded an unfairly fair-minded voice in her head. _Maybe next time you'll think twice about that._

Professor McGonagall passed out their time tables as more of Gryffindor oozed in. By the time the post owls streamed in through the windows, the Great Hall was ringing with noise. Harriet caught sight of Hedwig, an elegant white spot among all the grey and brown.

"Hey, girl," she said when Hedwig alighted on the table next to her. The envelope on her leg had to be from Sirius. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to send Hedwig telepathic signals whenever he wanted to send something to Harriet.

She unfolded the parchment and found herself reading a very odd letter:

 _Dear Harriet_ (it was in Remus' handwriting), _Sirius and I have come to an agreement: We will neither of us try to sway you to our way of thinking about Snape once you've made up your mind. Perhaps you already have, and perhaps you aren't as troubled as I think you are, but I interpreted the lack of a letter from you as not wanting us to know you're bothered. All I'll advise is that you remember there are two sides to every story. Sirius should demonstrate this better than anyone._

It was signed "Love, Remus," like the last; and then, following it, was a block of Sirius' handwriting:

_Trust him to bring that one up, Holly-berry. Don't let that innocent act fool you, he's one canny werewolf bastard. Fine. Snape may be some noble and misunderstood spy, and I think I just busted an intestine writing that out, Moony, are you reading this? but he's still a Class A creep and a Grade A wanker and I've got some stories that would straighten your hair, Holly-berry._

Then again, in Remus' handwriting:

_Sirius, of course I'm reading it. That was very restrained, Harriet, really it was._

Then Sirius' handwriting again:

_Have a good time at school. Write us the date of the first Hogsmeade weekend, and lots of girly letters. And if Snivellus gives you lip, write me and I'll. . . Moony's glaring at me, I can't write it out here, but it'll be worth it, you'll see._

It was signed with a sloppy sketch of a dog's paw.

"Good letter, then?" Ron asked. Harriet looked up to see him piling his toast with kippers and ketchup.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, folding it away. "The fact that I'm reading it instead of stuffing my face?"

"It's got to be a good letter to take over breakfast," Ron said, mock-sagely. "But you were smiling."

"It's from Moony and Padfoot," she said, and picked a muffin out of a basket. But she smiled again, because it was a nice feeling, receiving odd letters from something that was almost like home.


	56. Extra Curricula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harriet's attitude/opinion expressed toward the end of the chapter isn't in any way meant to be a dig at the good ship Draco/femHarry - it's only what I think this fic's Harriet would feel at the moment of conversation, based on her experiences as I've written them c:
> 
> As ever, thank you, my dears, for your continued enthusiasm, support and encouragement.

"Severus, have you got Miss Potter's list?" Minerva asked at breakfast, apropos of nothing.

Severus was distracted. He'd let his attention wander over to the Gryffindor table, where Miss Potter was absorbed in a letter whose contents seemed to be pleasing. He could guess whom it was from (Sirius fucking Black; it was enough to put one off one's breakfast). She was back to wearing glasses, but these were different, too—no longer wire-rimmed but large and squarish—and he'd been thinking that they didn't look like the sort of glasses he'd have expected a fourteen-year-old girl to have chosen for herself.

At Minerva's question, his defensive drive kicked in automatically.

"Why would I have anything of Miss Potter's?"

"The list of _potions_ she should know." Minerva tapped the table with a scroll of parchment. "I'm meeting with her after lunch. We've pulled her from that. . . _Divinations_ for her independent study, remember? I need your list for her review. I have everyone else's."

"I'll get it to you at lunch, then."

"And I'm drawing up a schedule for the personal review," Minerva went on. "When we'll each give her an informal test. I've given you the first Saturday."

Severus couldn't see any reason to object, other than he didn't bloody want to agree. "I don't recall you asking me."

"Oh Severus, what difference does it make whether it's this Saturday or the last?"

"If it doesn't make any difference, change it around."

"I've already created the schedule, Severus. Unless you've a prior engagement that will absolutely prevent it, I would appreciate it if you'd simply cooperate."

The chair on Severus' other side scraped heavily across the floor. Minerva's expression fluctuated in such a way that Severus turned to see who it was, and found himself confronted by the spectacle of Moody's eyeball rotating in his ghastly face.

Moody didn't say anything, only pulled a platter or bacon toward himself, stabbed a slice with his fork, and raised it to his rotating eye.

"No engagements," Severus said coldly to Minerva, and returned to his breakfast as if he were alone at the table. She sighed to herself but collected her scrolls without another word and departed.

"No, indeed," Moody said in a low voice, turning the bacon strip over to examine the underside. "What engagements could a former Death Eater have, now at all times?"

A vision, almost startling in its potency, shot through Severus' mind: slamming Moody's head against the table so the handle of that bacon-tipped fork went straight through his good eye and buried itself up to the tines.

He wiped his mouth with his napkin, tossed it onto his plate, and said, "You'd need a court order to find out."

As he walked away from the table, he felt those two mismatched eyes searing into his back, and forced his hands not to clench into fists.

* * *

Harriet spent the morning in Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures with some frankly revolting. . . _things. . ._ called Blast Ended Skrewts (and the Slytherins). The rain had stopped, but the horizon was the color of graphite, and the chill in the air bit through their robes. She was rather glad to return to the warmth of the Great Hall, even if it was awfully noisy.

Ron wiled away lunchtime lamenting his impending Double Divinations, which he would be enduring alone. Hermione was quite smug that she was spending her time in something a great deal more sensible (Arithmancy), and Harriet was feeling rather smug herself until Professor McGonagall handed her five scrolls of spells to review at their post-lunch meeting.

"These are the spells, potions, and plants all students should have a familiarity with by the beginning of year four," Professor McGonagall said briskly, as if she had no sense of Harriet's impending doom.

Letting one of the scrolls hang in the air at head-height, Professor McGonagall tapped it with her wand so that it unrolled itself all the way down to the floor, where it continued to unfurl until the end knocked against Harriet's shoes.

"What are the other scrolls?" she asked, eying them like she'd done the crop of Blast-Ended Skrewts.

"Herbology, Charms, Transfigurations, and Potions. _This_ is Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"That's _just_ Defense?!"

"Quite so." It must've been a trick of the light that made Professor McGonagall seem like she was trying not to smile. "Professor Lupin drew it up for you. Obviously your training in that subject has been. . . sporadic," her lips thinned, "but this represents Professor Lupin's estimate of where fourth years should be in the curriculum. Professors Sprout, Flitwick, Snape and myself have authored our own lists. We will each pick one Saturday this month to gauge your progress."

She handed Harriet a square of parchment with a simple time-table printed on it. "If need be, we will continue with the same schedule next month."

That first Saturday was Potions. Harriet's stomach flipped like she'd missed a step going down the stairs.

"Professor Moody will be covering your Defense review," Professor McGonagall continued. "As you can see, you'll need to begin reviewing these lists immediately."

 _When did I ever stop?_ Harriet wondered grumpily. "Professor Moody was an Auror, wasn't he?" she asked as she packed the scrolls into her bag.

"He was. He's not been retired for very long." Her feelings were impossible to read. "Unless you have any questions, you may be excused to start your reviewing."

"No questions, Professor." _Just kill me now._ "Thank you."

She left, feeling Professor McGonagall's beady gaze itching between her shoulders.

She wandered idly down the hall, drifting along the windows. She could just see the edge of the Quidditch pitch, the golden glint of the hoops. . . Oliver was gone; they'd be dragged from their beds at some godawful hour by a new captain this year, maybe Angelina—

Only they wouldn't, because with the Triwizard Tournament, there'd be no Quidditch Cup. Right.

She pulled out the Potions scroll and unrolled it. She had the nasty suspicion it was a lot longer than the DADA scroll. Snape's spiky handwriting seemed to go on and on. He'd probably expect her to know the whole bloody thing by that weekend, wouldn't he?

Scowling, she let it snap shut. She'd be lucky if she learned even one eighteenth of it, as rubbish as she was at Potions. . . and with thoughts of Death Eaters niggling at her. . . she might as well—

She stopped, blinking, and looked down at her bag. Studying. Books.

The library.

A moment later, she'd stuffed the Potions scroll into her bag and taken off.

The library was empty even of N.E.W.T. students, but it was only the first day of school. Madam Pince glared at Harriet but made no move to stop her; her only concern was for her precious library. If Harriet was skiving off class, it wouldn't matter to Madam Pince unless Harriet used her spare time to deface books.

A memory, new but not-new, washed over her as she walked along the rustling shelves, through patches of light and shadow. She hadn't had any reason to recall it since her time-accident, but here, surrounded by the silence and the smell of dust, she remembered  reading about Dementors last summer. And now she was here, amongst the dust and silence, to research Death Eaters.

She really knew how to have fun in the library.

She chose a table at the back of the stacks, but not too far from the card catalog, and pulled out parchment and a quill. She was no closer to being Hermione's equal in research than she was Einstein's in physics, but she'd picked up a few things over the years. Emphasis on "a few."

She wrote _Snape_ at the top of her parchment, and then under that, _Death Eaters._ In case that was too narrow, she also wrote _Voldemort_ and _The_ _War._

It was mostly curiosity that made her look up Snape in the card catalog, because she didn't really think he'd be there. To her surprise, there was actually an entry, in a book called _Notable Witches and Wizards of the Modern Era, Vol 278, 1980 – Present._

"Death Eaters" yielded quite a few books, all about the First Great Modern Wizarding War (as the catalog called it). To her extreme confusion, there was no entry for "Voldemort." On a whim she looked up "You-Know-Who" and found he had his own card all himself.

Disgusted for no reason she could really name, she shoved the drawer shut and went to find her books.

 _Notable Witches and Wizards_ was filed in a section with a lot of biographies. The volumes and indexes went on and on and on. Out of curiosity, she climbed the ladder to the top and pulled down Vol 1, which dated back to the eighteenth century. That was modern? No wonder Snape was in Vol 278.

She almost broke her back carting his book to her table, and then hit up the Modern History section for the other books. Surrounded by the smell of dust and leather, she sat down with _NW &W _ and flipped toward the back.

An entry caught her eye in the P's.

 _Potter, James and Lily._ And above it, _Potter, Harriet_.

Her parents had one entry, together. _Known for giving their lives in the fight against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on 31 October, 1981._

And directly above them, her own entry. _Known for defeating He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on 31 October, 1981, and for being the only witch or wizard to survive the Killing Curse._

The Killing Curse. The green light that coursed through her dreams like sheets of falling water. The same color as the Dark Mark hanging in the sky at the World Cup.

(Anaita had held her hand when she'd told Harriet what that green light in her dreams meant.)

Her scar tingled, faintly. Slowly she turned the page, wiping her parents' names from sight.

She paged to the S's.

_Snape, Severus. Known for being one of the youngest professors hired by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; second-youngest head of House ever appointed; youngest Head of Slytherin ever appointed; third-youngest Potions Master to achieve Silver Class since establishment of the British Society of Potioneers in 1257; current Potions Master, Gold Class._

Nothing about him being a Death Eater.

Shutting that book with a frown, she reached for the next one.

In true Hermione fashion, Harriet took notes as she read. She drew two columns: one for Snape and one for the Death Eaters. A quick charm changed the ink on her quill from black to green, and back again when she tapped it. In black she wrote everything she knew, and in green she wrote the stuff she didn't know for certain.

The Death Eater column was easy to fill out; she just copied from the books. _Muggle-killings, torture, blackmail, extortion, bribery, kidnapping, murder, mind-control. Believed Muggles were subhuman and witches or wizards with Muggle blood were "dirty." Pure-bloods supreme. Voldemort's followers. Loads of people accused and put on trial but lots got off saying, they'd had spells put on them, example: Malfoys._

Ron and Hermione had said Malfoy was hanging round in the woods so casually at the World Cup. . .

She kicked Malfoy out of her head. One suspected Death Eater at a time.

The Snape column:

_Childhood friends with mum according to Aunt P. Maybe in love? Patronus a doe like mum's. Saved my life at least once (werewolf) maybe twice? (Quirrell's curse on my broom.) Tried to save it several more times. Gets V. upset when stuff tries to kill me. Ignores me when death threats not present. Death Eater. Dumbledore trusts him, Remus trusts him, Sirius doesn't. Doesn't like (hates?) Sirius, Remus and dad. Went to QWC, to keep an eye out for DEs? To protect me? Working w. S + R?_

With the two lists facing each other like that, the data was even more confusing. The Snape column did not seem to match up with the Death Eater column at all. How could Dumbledore trust someone who'd kidnapped, tortured—she shivered—murdered? How could Snape have been friends with her Muggle-born mum if he believed Muggles were dirty and subhuman? And the Patronus. . . you weren't supposed to be able to cast one of those unless you were pure of heart. How could he be pure-hearted and still have been a Death Eater who'd done all these horrible things?

She chewed on her quill nub. The thought _Write to Remus_ drifted through her mind, but it didn't stick. Why? Remus would probably know the answer to a lot of her questions; he understood about complicated stuff to do with people and the way they acted, the things they thought. He'd surely know, too, if Snape and her mum had been friends. . . she'd wondered a hundred thousand times during the spring and summer; the question had been in her mouth over and over, but she'd never asked.

She ground her teeth on her quill nub like she was trying to bite down on the answer. Remus had a tendency to keep secrets, but that wasn't why she didn't ask, now or then. He wouldn't judge her, either, but that wasn't the reason she was hesitating. What _was_ it, then?

The nub snapped, splinters crunching between her teeth. She spat them out, tasting ink, and wiped her mouth. Green smeared across her wrist. Slytherin colors, ha.

She stared at the ink on her wrist as the answer crystallized in her thoughts.

She didn't want to ask Remus because she didn't want to find out from him. She wanted to find out from Snape. About her mum. About being a Death Eater. About himself.

She wanted to make him tell her.

She sat blinking at the books as this truth settled in her like silt at the bottom of a river.

Well. Good, then.

She had a week to figure out how to put the first part of her plan into action.

And to come up with a plan, of course.

* * *

The feeling that had begun to irritate Severus at summer's end continued to grate as the first week wore on. It was like a splinter that no matter how minutely he searched, couldn't be found burrowed into the pad of his finger, though it pricked at him each time he touched anything. When Longbottom melted his sixth bloody cauldron, Severus threw him in detention faster than you could say "miserable failure" and set him to disemboweling an entire barrel full of horned toads. Unlike with Miss Potter's identical detention two years ago, he made sure Longbottom stayed until the whole barrel was gutted. The boy left in a state of near-nervous collapse, and Severus' subconscious continued itching.

He wondered if it was Moody's surveillance; but to be inspired by that one-legged cretin, the feeling would have needed to begin when he'd arrived, glass eye whirling, or when Dumbledore had first broken the news of his appointment. Severus had been feeling on-edge before that paranoid tit had set foot in Hogwarts.

Not that Moody was helping. He reveled in a vicious, self-righteous policing of Severus' movements, making surprise inspections and even turning up to ransack Severus' own fucking office. Loving visions of poison and Dark hexes were starting to stain Severus' dreams.

A very, very tiny voice in Severus' head drew a comparison between Moody's behavior and his own behavior toward Lupin last year. He ripped it in half with as much vehemence as he longed to focus on Moody's jugular.

In his (few) level-headed moments, he recognized that Moody's provocation should not provoke this much hatred, even with him, and that this fury was surely fed by some other source. He didn't care. Anger crawled beneath his skin. Someone ought to suffer for it. Moody would have presented a fine target—but not openly. Severus knew better than to challenge a recently retired Auror _openly_. An ex-Death Eater had to pick his battles.

He'd like to pick them out of Moody's skull.

Though Severus was Moody's only suspect on staff, he was not his only critic. Flitwick even went so far as to say that methods which were arguably appropriate only for the apprehension of Dark Wizards had no place in school. Sprout had changed her seat at the table so she wouldn't be tempted to (in her own words) "say something that would make everyone uncomfortable." Minerva muttered to Severus that living peacefully secluded as a professor at a boarding school must have changed her more than she knew, for she hadn't found Moody so unsettling all those years ago. Severus did not reply that his only acquaintance with Moody had been through an interrogation that Dumbledore had swiftly curtailed, nearly thirteen years ago.

Then Moody went and turned Draco Malfoy into a fucking ferret.

It was after dinner on Friday, and Severus had been trying to shift some marking out of the way. Tomorrow was Miss Potter's review. As little as he wanted to give his Saturday over to a tutoring session—particularly with Miss Potter, who mixed the odd moment of uncomfortable clairvoyance with a stubbornly thickheaded approach to non-thinking—he had no more choice about that than any other miserable teaching duty.

When the knock came at the door, he figured it was one of his Slytherins. "Yes, what?"

The door creaked open and Moody lurched in, jabbing Draco in the shoulder to get him along. Draco's hair flopped into his face and he was limping. Severus stood slowly from his desk.

"Got something to talk about with you, Snape," Moody said. He gave Draco another shove. "You, boy, tell him."

"You turned me into a ferret!" Draco burst out, shying away from Moody—strategically, closer to Snape. "And bounced me around!"

" _What_?" Snape demanded in a voice that made Draco flinch before he realized it wasn't meant for him.

"He tried to attack Weasley when his back was turned," Moody said idly, scratching at one of the gouges in his nose.

"And I suppose you warned Mr. Malfoy before Transfiguring him," Severus hissed (Draco looked triumphant; a bruise was forming on his cheek). "Gave him a decent chance to defend himself?"

Moody smiled. The scars on his face pulled, making it look as if his face were being operated by a series of badly coordinated strings. 

"And what would a Death Eater and a traitor know about a decent chance to defend himself, eh? What use would he have for that?"

Draco looked doubtfully at Moody and shifted closer to Severus.

"Draco," he said, not taking his eyes off Moody, who stared back at him, the beady black eye and the electric blue fixed for once in the same direction. "Report to Madam Pomfrey."

"Yes, sir," Draco said quietly, and left without another word—though he did send an uncharacteristically shrewd look at Severus over his shoulder.

"I heard you attacked your own dustbins," Severus said, letting his lip curl. "Now you're after your students. Running out of Dark wizards to catch, are we?"

"Oh, there will never be a shortage of those, Snape," Moody said quietly, though the look on his face was anything but soft. " _We_ both know how many walked free, thirteen years ago."

"Draco Malfoy is not one of them," Severus said, refusing to react, though his hands curled until his fingernails were digging into his palms. "He is a fourteen-year-old boy—"

Moody barked a laugh. "This is part of your reformed act, eh? Looking out for the kiddies, are you?"

"You turn your wand on that boy again," Severus said softly, "and you'll see how much I _haven't_ reformed."

"I look forward to that day, Snape," Moody said, smiling more widely. "I really do."

* * *

Severus was shaking with fury as he mounted the staircase to Dumbledore's office to give vent to his explosive rage, only to find that Minerva had bloody well beaten him to the mark.

"Albus, this cannot be allowed to continue!" her voice rang through the wood. "Moody is putting the Unforgivable curses on school-children as a _lesson_! Just now he turned Draco Malfoy into a _ferret_ and bounced him around the Entrance Hall! When he took him away to see Severus, I was almost afraid to send the boy off with him, alone. He's clearly dangerous and unstable—"

Dumbledore made no reply that Severus could hear. Severus had thought his Understanding Silence was a tactic employed only on himself to weather blistering tirades, but apparently it was also useful for impassioned Heads of Gryffindor. It did his soul good, he realized, to hear someone else shouting at Dumbledore.

Then he heard something that sliced his enjoyment in half:

"—placing the Imperius curse on his classes in scantly justified mind-control experimentation! I heard Miss Potter crashed headlong into a desk trying to fight it off!"

The door banged open so violently that it rocked back off the wall before Severus even realized what his magic had done. Dumbledore was seated at his desk, his attention fixed gravely on Minerva, who was pacing in front of him; she turned to glared at the door, but her expression cleared remarkably quickly, considering.

"I'm certain Severus will agree with me, Dumbledore. Severus, I've just been saying—"

"I've just seen Draco," Severus said, baring his teeth. "After Madam Pomfrey's healed his bruises and his limp, he'll surely be reflecting on the _valuable_ lesson he's learned."

"I had to de-Transfigure him, Albus! When I think of the injuries Mr. Malfoy could have sustained—and Miss Potter could have broken her neck! Not to mention demonstrating the Cruciatus Curse in front of Longbottom— Albus, you must put a stop to it, all of it!"

"I have spoken with Alastor," Dumbledore said seriously. "He is not to use the Imperius Curse on any of the students ever again... though I will permit him to continue to discuss the curses and their effects."

"With the N.E.W.T. students, perhaps," Minerva said, "but surely the younger children don't need—"

"All of our students need to understand the face of evil and the weapons it employs. Their youth does not protect them from harm. Often," he said wearily, "it is to the contrary."

Minerva looked helplessly at Severus, but he said nothing, for there he agreed with Dumbledore and didn't want to say so. The most ruthless part of his brain acknowledged the benefits of Miss Potter's being taught to throw off the Imperius Curse; even mocked the part of him that caviled against her being the subject of a mind-control curse even experimentally. Such an experiment was nothing to abhor on the basis of squeamish principles like _They're too young_. He ought to leave the mother-henning to the Gryffindors, who had no concept of moral relativism.

And yet he would really, _really_ enjoy hitting Moody's clawed leg with a termite hex. . .

"Albus," Minerva said, and she sounded as if she was at the end of hoping she could get through to him. "I appreciate that it is difficult to fill the Defense position every year, and that Alastor deserves respect for his accomplishments as an Auror—I even acknowledge the impudence of asking you if he can be trusted with the children. But given what he's been doing—"

She broke off in frustration, as if she couldn't put her demand into words.

"I do understand your concerns," Dumbledore told her. He exuded gentle gravity, making it seem as if having to refuse her pleas weighed on his conscience. Severus wondered. "But in light of the events at the World Cup and what may follow, I do need him here. I'm sure that we can all find a balance."

For a moment, Minerva seemed to droop. But when that moment had passed, she straightened her shoulders and nodded. "Very well. Thank you for listening, Albus."

"Thank you, Minerva, for bringing it to my attention. You may always discuss your concerns with me. I am grateful that you have them, and to have you looking out for the children."

She left, shooting Severus a look he couldn't quite read. He stayed put.

Dumbledore waited until she'd shut the door behind her and was likely halfway down the stairs (the Head of Gryffindor surely did not eavesdrop) before he spoke. "Is he still interrogating you?"

Severus jerked his head.

"If you need me to speak with him—"

"I don't."

Dumbledore was silent for a few moments. "The Mark?"

"It continues the same. Neither Lucius nor Narcissa was able to uncover anything. Everyone is in the same state of frightened ignorance."

Dumbledore looked troubled. Most people would not have been able to tell, but Severus knew Dumbledore's expressions like he knew his study; he could tell when there was something out of place. 

"This nescience troubles me, Severus. I feel as if something is. . . off. Something I cannot divine. . ."

Severus wasn't sure whether this evidence of humanity in Dumbledore was comforting or disturbing. Three years ago, Dumbledore had had his suspicions about Quirrell when Severus had thought him nothing more than a quivering idiot. He'd kept silent about the secret entrance to Slytherin's chamber and his knowledge of the Basilisk, but he'd been fully cognizant of both those things. Severus still thought he'd been willfully blind about Lupin, but that had been a deliberate ignorance, a stubborn placement of his faith. Now, he was _admitting_ to not knowing. . .

No, it was definitely disturbing.

"How is Harriet doing?" Dumbledore asked.

Severus felt a flicker of bewilderment. "I won't review with her until tomorrow."

"I simply thought you might have noticed if something was bothering her," Dumbledore said, and there was no reading him that time.

"She's a teenage girl. Everything bothers her, I'm sure."

"I'm sure you're right. You have a better acquaintance with girls her age than I do. Well." He smiled in a way that signaled the gentle closing of the conversation. "I'm sure you have many necessaries on your schedule. I won't keep you any longer."

* * *

Harriet spent the week boning up on Potions, which was incredibly not fun. How could Snape be a Master in this stuff, Gold or Silver or Neon Pink? It was so miserably boring that her plan to manipulate information out of him kept dying of loneliness in her head. At this point, her plot wasn't so much a plot as a half-baked idea. Make that stone cold idea.

At night she would lie in bed and try to draw up some scheme to wrangle the truth out of Snape. But she couldn't think of anything. For some reason she kept remembering his logic puzzle from the obstacle course. It had sounded like gibberish to her, whilst Hermione had solved it so easily. . . and Harriet would bet more than her Firebolt that Snape guarded his tiniest secret more fiercely than he'd ever tried to guard the Philosopher's Stone. 

Maybe Hermione had been able to decipher Snape's puzzle because in her own way, she was as ruthlessly clever as he was. When Harriet had first shown her the scrolls, little stars had shone in her eyes; but they'd quickly turned diamond-hard, and before very long Harriet felt like Hermione was trying to drill the knowledge through the back of her skull.

On Friday night, when Hermione was immersed in an Arithmancy project, Harriet escaped upstairs under the pretense of "studying in private." Really, she intended to hang the huge painting Asteria had drawn of the sea at her house. She hadn't a chance to do it yet.

She glanced at the posters of wizarding singers tacked on the walls between Parvati and Lavender's beds. She'd been studying those blokes' faces a lot in the past few days, trying to figure out what made them handsome. Still no luck; she just didn't get it. (Hermione had no posters of any kind, but she always stacked so many books on her dresser they towered halfway to the ceiling anyway.)

Harriet was gently guiding the pieces of Asteria's painting into place and sticking them to the wall with magic when Parvati came in, her arms piled with bath products. Parvati always took a shower right after dinner so she'd have time to do her hair, which hung down to her hips. Sometimes Harriet envied Parvati all that sleek, straight hair.

"Oh, I always loved that painting, it's so beautiful," Parvati sighed as she dumped her bath products on her dresser.

"Thanks," Harriet said, even though it felt an odd reply to make, seeing as she wasn't the artist.

"That girl in Slytherin painted it, didn't she?" Parvati asked, her nose wrinkling just a bit.

Harriet wondered when Parvati and Lavender had both got rather annoying. "Her name's Asteria, and she's really sweet."

"Her sister's not," Parvati said bluntly. _"Empress_ Daphne. I saw her snub you the other day. You'd think she'd be grateful somebody other than a Slytherin wants to be friends with her sister. They're all so nasty, it _never_ happens, especially not someone popular."

"I'm not popular," Harriet said, jabbing her wand at the piece of parchment that had stuck itself on crooked in her irritation.

"Well, you're _famous_ at least. And you'd be popular if you'd just _try_."

"What do you mean, 'try'?"

Parvati was combing her hair into sections to start her nighttime plait. "I mean stop looking so much like a scruffy bridge-person, for one. Your eyes are so pretty—when I saw you'd got rid of your glasses I couldn't believe how pretty you looked! Then you came back with a pair that were even _worse_."

"These are comfortable," Harriet said, deeply annoyed, but Parvati didn't even hear her.

"And those hideous jumpers you wear—they're so ratty and enormous—don't you have any, you know, cuter clothes?" She threw open Harriet's open trunk and started rooting through it. "Ooh, like this! This is so cute, it's perfect!" She pulled out a lacy blouse Harriet had bought under Jean's supervision in Muggle London. "Why don't you wear _this_ on weekends?"

"I'd _freeze_. I wear those jumpers 'cause they're warm."

"A cute top like this and a hoodie," Parvati said firmly. "And your contacts. I swear, you wouldn't believe how much better you'd look, even without doing something about your hair."

"We live in a castle in Scotland," Harriet said, rather stung by this attack on every single thing about her appearance. "It's bloody fucking _cold_."

"Harriet!" Parvati said, scandalized.

"Oh, never mind," Harriet snapped. "Thanks for the makeover." And she stormed out of the room, rather like Hermione had on Monday. Parvati's expression of mingled indignation and hurt didn't make her feel any better.

"That was over quickly," Hermione said in surprise when Harriet threw herself into the armchair next to her.

"Parvati came in," Harriet muttered, slouching down until her head was level with the armrest. "Trying to make me over."

Hermione slanted a look at the door to the girls' staircase, but no outraged Parvati appeared, tossing her head and complaining loudly about _some people_.

"That's just what they're like," Hermione said, like she was deliberately keeping a neutral tone. "They don't mean anything by it."

Harriet looked at her incredulously. "That's just what they're like? You remember shouting and storming out on them on Monday, right? And taking the piss for all their Divinations crap?"

"I _really_ wish that you hadn't started talking like that, you know."

 _I'll talk however I fucking want,_ Harriet thought.

Hermione sighed, as if Harriet had telegraphed her thoughts, and set her enormous Arithmancy book aside.

"I don't care for it, that's all," she said, "but never mind. Ignore Parvati and Lavender. All that matters is that _you're_ comfortable with your appearance."

Harriet shrugged and picked at a hole in the upholstery, poking at the stuffing inside. Now that she was sitting here, she felt like she'd overreacted with Parvati. But still when she thought about it, she felt angry and. . . sort of humiliated and. . . uncomfortable. She didn't know _why_ , just that she didn't want to talk about it.

"You realize it doesn't matter, don't you?" Hermione said. When Harriet looked up at her, Hermione's face was quite serious. "What you do with your hair or your glasses. It doesn't matter. You do understand that, right?"

"Or my fleecy jumpers," Harriet muttered.

"None of it matters," Hermione repeated. "If you want to follow Parvati's advice, that's perfectly fine. If you don't want to, that's okay, too. Even if you want to follow just _some_ of it. It's entirely up to you."

"Did they ever try to make you over and I just missed it?" Harriet asked instead of answering that.

"I think they know me better than that," Hermione said dryly. "But they're quite certain nothing would help _me,_ I think. You, on the other hand, made the mistake of taking off your glasses."

"I take off my glasses every night before bed."

"It's not the same thing. I mean psychologically, of course. Even I was surprised by how different you looked when I saw you in contacts for the first time." She rolled her eyes. _"Malfoy's_ jaw practically hit the floor."

Harriet's stomach gave an uncomfortable wriggle-writhe like a dying snake. "He _what_?"

"I figured you hadn't noticed. That's why he attacked Ron this evening, you know. He was trying to get your attention."

"Trying to get my attention by attacking my bloody _friends_?" Harriet said, wanting to find Malfoy and smack him upside his no-longer-a-ferret head.

"That's what he's been trying to do for the past three years," Hermione said, still in that calm, almost patient tone. Harriet suspected she'd been practicing this conversation for a long time—in preparation for the day when the clouds of Harriet's thickness parted? "Now he's simply trying harder."

The thought of Malfoy fancying her was so disturbing that Harriet felt like she needed to scrub off the underside of her skin. "I am never, ever taking off my glasses in public. _Ever_ again."

Hermione laughed and reached for her book, and the conversation blessedly closed. Harriet had had no idea that talking about boys and your looks could be so uncomfortable. Lavender and Parvati had always seemed to have so much fun doing it.

It would figure, though, that since Harriet got herself hospitalized when she tried to work Divinations, even talking about boys and hair couldn't be easy.


	57. Missing Communications

* * *

It didn't escape Harriet's notice that the atmosphere in the dorm that night had turned thick and surly as they all went to bed, and still hovered in the air like a miasma in the morning. Lavender and Hermione weren't speaking, and now Parvati and Harriet weren't either. Since they were two pairs of best friends, even the ones who weren't directly fighting with each other wouldn't speak to the friend of the offender.

A part of Harriet knew that she ought to apologize to Parvati, who (by her own way of thinking) was just trying to help. She didn't deserve to be snapped at for a reaction even Harriet couldn't explain. But the greater part of her ignored that small, level-headed part and pulled on one of her knobbly jumpers and put on her new glasses. With an air of lofty unconcern, even. It wasn't like she'd wear a lacy top to review Potions with Snape, anyway. Even the thought made her choke.

Snape had sent her a beyond-curt note last night to come down to the Potions classroom after breakfast and not bring anything with her. She'd tried a number of revealing spells on the parchment, thinking there must be something more written there, like "Except your brain, if you can find it." But there was nothing.

No cunning plan had magically appeared in her dreams last night. Not even an un-cunning one. She supposed she'd just have to wait for an opening. Like the Greeks at Troy. Only she'd be lucky to find a chink in Snape's defenses after only ten years.

She didn't feel particularly nervous as she bid Hermione and Ron goodbye, but with each stair she took down into the dungeons, a little bit of nervousness wound its way through her. By the time she was walking down the corridor to Snape's classroom, the nervousness sat in a lump just below her heart.

She knocked on the door and listened to the sound echo off the cold stone walls.

"Come in," Snape's voice said, as stony-cold as those same walls.

The door still creaked ominously. The classroom always seemed creepier with no one in it, like it needed the noise fromall those students and the fumes of potions to make it tolerable, to blot out the eerie silence of being underground, away from the light.

Snape was standing over a cauldron of something at his desk. The greenish steam rose around him in wavering tendrils that reminded her of seaweed.

His dark eyes cut toward her, making the nervousness-ball squirm and grow. Harriet didn't know why. He wasn't scowling particularly hard, and she'd never felt like this even when he was shouting.

"Sit," he said.

Harriet edged behind a desk on which he'd placed several cauldrons and a standard Potions kit.

Snape flicked his wand at the blackboard. Like usual, a list of instructions jotted themselves across the board in a slightly-less-spiky scrawl than Snape's handwriting.

"Tell me what potion this is."

Harriet's heart sank into the knot of nervousness. The instructions shone innocently on the board, telling her nothing.

"This is a third-year potion, Miss Potter," Snape said when the silence stretched. "One you _learned_ ," he placed a teeth-gritting emphasis on that word, "only this summer."

She ransacked her brain, but all the brewing she'd done with Snape just blurred into the stream of similar memories from all the years before.

"I don't know. Sir," she added, because Snape seemed even more imposing than usual today.

He flicked his wand, sharper that time, and another set of instructions scratched themselves across the board.

"And this one?"

"I don't know," Harriet said, her heart sinking deeper. Why hadn't it occurred to her that he'd test this way? Well, it had never happened before. Snape's tests were always practical, never theoretical.

Another flick, another mystery potion. "And this?"

She shook her head, her throat tight.

His nostrils flared. He set his wand down on the desk with a _click_ that echoed in her ears.

"Miss Potter," he said dangerously, "why are we here?"

"I studied," Harriet said, trying to feel angry so she wouldn't feel hurt. "I _did_. But you just gave me the names of the Potions, so I looked up what they do, not how to make _every_ single one of them."

"Matching the name of a potion to its use is not studying, Miss Potter, because the use of it is _implied in the name_. This," he jabbed his wand at the board, "is the only proof of true mastery, and the only way to learn the discipline. If someone desperately needs a Deflating Draught, how are you going to make it, if you don't know the list of ingredients?"

"I'll look it up in the book—"

"And waste precious time? If Miss Granger has swallowed a Swelling Solution by mistake, it could kill her, expanding in her stomach and esophagus, in the time it took you to locate the recipe, let alone brew it properly."

Her face felt hot and prickly. _Why are you being such a bastard?_ she wanted to ask. It pressed on the tip of her tongue, but she bit down, literally, until her tongue stung.

"You will identify this potion," he said, pointing his wand at the instructions on the board, "and brew it—correctly. I will not give you any assistance. When you have finished, notify me."

"Can I identify it by brewing it?"

"No."

"But how am I supposed to—"

"I said I will not give you any assistance," he said in a why-are-you-making-me-repeat-myself tone.

"But this isn't _fair_ ," Harriet burst out.

"It is up to me to decide what is fair in my classroom, Miss Potter," Snape said, his eyes narrowed to slits.

"But you never test like this! It's always practical, or you make us write essays about the ingredients and what they—"

Harriet stopped. A slow flush built up, staring from her midsection and radiating to her hairline.

"Oh," she mumbled.

"Yes," Snape said, making her blush double its heat. " _Oh._ "

Harriet tried not to glare too obviously at him but was pretty sure, from the way _he_ glared, that she'd failed that, too.

She glared instead at the board. Potions instructions always looked like a pile of rubbish to her, even when she was obediently following them. Trying to figure out what they meant was almost impossible. Powdered moonstone, syrup of hellebore, valerian roots. . . she didn't recognize this potion at all.

"Valerian is good for sleep and anxiety problems," she said eventually, and sneaked a glance at Snape. His expression was stony, but the lack of any immediate sneering or sarcasm was heartening. "And hellebore. . . isn't it poisonous?"

"Would I teach a school full of volatile adolescents to brew poisons, Miss Potter?"

Harriet couldn't decide whether this remark was meant to be hurtful or funny. This in itself was strange because you could usually tell when Snape meant to be mean. By looking at a calendar and noticing it was Monday through Sunday, usually.

"Well?" Snape said.

"I don't know what the powdered moonstone does. I don't remember working with it at all."

"That's because you haven't," Snape said. "This is a potion you won't learn until next year. It's the Draught of Peace."

Harriet gaped at him. That was so. . . so _sneaky_.

"These potions, Miss Potter, frequently require ingredients that, taken in sufficient measure, are poisonous. That is one reason this discipline requires attention to detail. If you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients in the Draught of Peace, you may put the drinker into an irreversible sleep. If I add too much aconite to the Wolfsbane, I can paralyze your step-godfather—permanently."

Harriet's fingertips tingled, but her scar didn't.

"You will write an essay," Snape went on, as if he hadn't just alluded to poisoning Remus, "on the use of toxic herbs in potions and the importance of maintaining the proper doses in one's brewing. You will also list the key ingredients of _each_ of the potions on that list I gave you, and _why_ those ingredients make the potion what it is."

This sounded so equally difficult and boring that Harriet almost groaned aloud. "I studied all _week_!"

"Not to my satisfaction," Snape said, his voice like a knife. "If you applied a quarter of the diligence you exhibited in your independent study of Dementors, you'd have possibly made something that could almost be mistaken for progress."

And there, _there_ was the opening Harriet had been waiting a week to come up with. Without thinking about it—she couldn't waste the chance—she said, "Well. I wasn't only studying Potions. I was looking up the Death Eaters, too."

Stillness fell over Snape like water. Harriet realized she was holding her breath.

"After the events of the World Cup, I shouldn't be surprised." All emotion was smothered out of his tone.

Harriet felt oddly hesitant. "I read they. . . tortured and murdered. . . people."

"You're surprised? You saw some evidence of that barely a fortnight ago. And hasn't your Defense professor been teaching you the same?" Something flashed in Snape's eyes, hardened in his face. "I heard you surprised him by being so resistant to the Imperius Curse."

Harriet seriously could not tell whether he meant to compliment or insult her. "It took me four tries to throw it off. I kept crashing into the desk."

"Did you now."

Harriet eyed him doubtfully. Anger—it seemed like anger, at least—was prickling off him like porcupine's quills. She couldn't think why he'd be upset. . . unless it was part of his "Keep Miss Potter From Dying" thing. . . but she wasn't in a lot of danger from falling over a desk. She'd felt like she'd fractured her kneecaps, yeah, but she hadn't even had to see Madam Pomfrey.

"Well, he said I'd be able to fight it off now. He's an Auror, I suppose he'd know." She shrugged, though she didn't feel at all casual with Snape's gaze boring into her. "It's useful, isn't it?"

"How utilitarian of you," he said. She didn't know what that meant, but she didn't want to ask.

 _Were you a Death Eater?_ The question filled her mouth like vapor, but she didn't say it. She was. . . rather afraid to, actually.

Well, that was unacceptable. She hated being afraid. She wasn't going to let it take her over, not even for something like this.

She opened her mouth, but the question that came out was, "Why have you been ignoring me?"

Snape actually blinked. "Ign—what are you talking about?"

"All spring, you ignored me." Indignation started to simmer behind her heart at the subtle hints of confusion in his face. How could he act like he didn't know? "The summer, too."

"Miss Potter, I was endeavoring to teach you third year potions this summer. It's no wonder you can't identify anything if you can't even remember that much."

"I remember _that_ ," Harriet said angrily. "You were still _ignoring_ me. It's like I was Parvati or Lavender or something."

"Like you were one of my students?"

"I sent you my Patronus!"

Snape just stared at her. His expression had smoothed out until it was almost glassy, like water, and all it reflected back to her was her frustration.

"When everyone thought you might be a werewolf," she went on in a hard voice. "And you didn't say anything afterwards, you didn't come once to see me when I was in hospital, not even _once_. And during the summer, it was just 'Stir this' and 'Your beetle eyes aren't crushed fine enough' and—" She breathed out through her nose. Snape's expression hadn't become any more readable.

"Because nothing was trying to kill me, I suppose," she said. "That's the only time you act like I'm—not a piece of furniture."

Snape continued to stare at her as though he didn't understand a word. And then he pinched the bridge of his nose.

It was a simple gesture, and considering this was _Snape_ , who drove Neville to an anxiety attack at least once a week, it was nothing at all. But to Harriet it said _What a headache_ and _This is really ridiculous_ and _How do I even deal with this_ , and she felt humiliated. And the humiliation ignited her temper.

"Oh, who even bloody cares!" she said loudly, making Snape drop his hand. "I'll just study the fucking potions and not care about anything else!"

And she slammed out of the room. Even in her mortified rage, she recognized that Snape could have stopped her if he wanted, could have thrown her into detention until the end of time. . . but he just let her go.

* * *

Sometimes Severus thought he'd had given his right arm not to have to deal with teenagers any more. Sometimes he thought he'd have cut it off himself.

 _Well, you wondered why she was acting so very moody and cross with you_ , one of his Inner Houses pointed out, but he didn't know whether it was Hufflepuff Fairness or Slytherin Kicking-you-when-you're-down.

 _I simply thought you might have noticed if something was bothering her,_ Dumbledore had said last night. _You have a better acquaintance with girls her age than I do._ Ha!

He'd had the thought, once, that Miss Potter was acting as if he'd wounded her tender feelings. He appeared to have been entirely on point—only he'd hurt them by _ignoring_ her.

It was ludicrous on a number of levels, and so bewildering that he was relieved, really, when she pitched a mildly impressive fit and flung herself from the room. At least she wasn't sitting there glaring at him with all her potency. Miss Potter's temper was more than twice her size. Make that thrice, seeing as she was still a runt.

He did not call her back; he let her be off to stew and rage somewhere else. Before long, though, his own temper bubbled up. Miss Potter demanded his attention, did she? (He banished the cauldrons to the storage cupboard with enough force that the clang reverberated through the room.) She thought she could waltz into his classroom, whinge that she had studied, that he was unfair, that she'd rather read about Death Eaters, and attempt to manipulate his disapproval by play-acting that his _attention_ was necessary to her happiness, did she? (He erased the board so viciously that it cracked.)

A memory of her face looking bewildered, hurt and uncertain when Lupin had acted poker-stiff and distant about the Omnioculars overlaid her face from this morning. Except for the brazier-tinge of anger he'd caused, the two were identical.

His temper dipped and he dropped his hand from repairing the blackboard, feeling confused.

He was shit at empathy. He always had been, and it had got Lily and Dumbledore nagging at him for it a time or two hundred. It was a great deal of work for him even to muster sympathy. Usually he had to be prompted to do it. The number of times he'd felt genuine, spontaneous compassion were almost Basilisk-rare. His Slytherins sparked little flashes of it occasionally, as their struggles mirrored his own and he dwelt on what was to come; but in general, he was a complete fuck up in terms of interpersonal skills, practical or theoretical.

And yet, when Miss Potter was upset with him, an odd feeling stirred. When he knew he'd caused it, he wanted to. . . correct something. Was the cause sympathy? Empathy? Or was it merely inspired by an old memory, almost twenty years gone by, of green eyes turning away once, twice, forever?

Someone rapped on his classroom door. He smoothed his expression into its customary, cold distance. "Yes?"

Minerva stuck her head in the door. "Severus?"

"Who else would be in my classroom?"

"Miss Potter, I thought." Minerva pushed the door open, scanning the room as if thinking Miss Potter would be hiding beneath a desk. "Only I saw her storming across the Entrance Hall and up the stairs in high dudgeon. Her review is already finished?"

Minerva wouldn't believe he'd let Miss Potter fling her not-so-little fit in his face and simply walk—all right, storm—off. She'd like hearing even less that he'd allowed it because he felt increasingly out of his depth when it came to dealing with a pint-sized fourteen-year-old girl.

"She had not prepared adequately. Keeping her further would have been a waste of time. I sent her off with explicit instructions for next time."

"Did she not prepare adequately, or did she fail to meet your exacting standards?"

"I see no difference," Severus said, glaring.

"Severus, I am asking as her Head of House. I'm responsible for ensuring her overall progress. If Miss Potter isn't taking these reviews seriously, I will have to speak with her."

She looked at him forthrightly, waiting. He resisted the urge to scrub his hand across his face.

"She claimed to have studied and I believe her," he said. "However, she didn't study in a way I consider even remotely adequate. I told her as much. You may fill in the rest as you see fit."

"I'm sure I'll find a way," Minerva murmured. "Thank you, Severus."

She left. Rather fed up with his bloody classroom and the people who'd come to it, he decided to take a walk.

* * *

Harriet didn't return immediately to the common room. She was afraid that if Hermione asked her what was wrong, she'd vent long and hard about Snape in ways that would contain highly sensitive information. She didn't want Hermione's drill-press brain working on any of that just now.

Instead she moped about the castle. She cut across to the West Wing, where she, Hermione and Ron had found an alcove out of the way, and ducked beneath the tapestry of a mermaid and a unicorn, stepping through the fake wall to the spiraling stairwell they concealed.

The alcove wasn't empty.

Ron looked up from the slice of strawberry cake he was eating, a look of surprise on his face. It didn't escape Harriet that before he saw her, he'd been looking rather forlorn.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Thought for sure you'd be in Potions with Snape till the end of time."

"The world ended early." Harriet noted the little covered basket on the floor beside him. "Snacking in the kitchens?"

"Dead helpful, those elves. Want to sit? Or did you come up here to be alone?"

His voice was casual, but Harriet heard the current coursing under it. She just wasn't sure what that current was headed for.

"I came up, is all," she said. It was a bit of a squeeze now, both of them up there with a basket—the two of them plus Hermione had all fit comfortably first year, but they were bigger now, even Harriet, if only slightly—but she settled herself across from him. "What've you got?"

"Lunch," he said, pushing the basket toward her. "Have some, if you want."

She prised open the lid and chose a leg of chicken. For a few moments they munched in silence. It had always been surprisingly pleasant in the alcove, even though it was open to the air and quite high. Vines grew thick around the walls outside, sheltering it from the wind, but you could still see the glint of the lake through the leaves. She wondered why it had been built. Hermione had never said, so apparently it was too insignificant to feature in _Hogwarts: A History_.

"This a new thing?" she asked as Ron passed her a flask of pumpkin juice. "Eating lunch alone?"

"Not alone if you're here," Ron pointed out, but Harriet felt he was avoiding the question.

"You been okay?"

Ron shrugged and fished out a sandwich. Uh oh. He only ate his dessert first when he was feeling glum.

"What is it?"

"It's. . ." He turned the sandwich around in his hands, like he was looking for the best place to bite into it. "Nothing."

"I can't offer my sage advice if I don't know what to offer it for," she said after the silence stretched to fill the narrow corners and Ron still didn't eat his sandwich.

"I'm going to sound like a whinger," he said.

"I'm sure you won't. What's up?"

"It's—oh, bloody hell. I was going to try out for the Quidditch team," he muttered quickly, like he wanted to get it over with.

Harriet blinked. "How is that whinging?"

He sneaked a glance at her. "Well, it's dumb to mope about that, isn't it? I thought, since Oliver's gone, there'd be a position for a keeper and I might. . . try out. You know. Probably wouldn't make it, and Fred and George'd take the piss so much I'd probably regret it, but. . . or maybe they wouldn't, they spend all their time off planning their joke shop, they hardly have time for anything else. And Seamus and Dean are best mates, like you and Hermione, and Neville's a great bloke and all but I just don't get on with him the same for some reason. . ."

He stopped, blushing up to his hairline. Harriet could tell he hadn't meant to say all of that.

All throughout his speech, she had felt guilt trickling through her like fog rising out of a riverbank, and by the time he'd finished, the fog was waist-deep. _I'm lonely,_ he was saying, _and I thought being on the Quidditch team would help._

She'd been so preoccupied with Snape and Death Eaters and Hermione and school and worrying about her unsuitable girlness that she'd completely forgot about Ron. She didn't think she'd been ignoring him entirely, but he definitely featured less in her recent memories. She couldn't remember the last time she'd sat down like this and talked with him alone.

"I've been a really horrible friend lately, haven't I?" she said.

Ron's ears and face turned redder. "I wouldn't say that, mate."

"I've been worrying about a lot of stupid stuff." _And some not-so-stupid stuff._ "Well, fuck the lot of it. You're more important."

"Has Hermione started nagging you about talking like that?" Ron asked, grinning.

"I'm surprised she waited as long as she did."

"I likef it," Ron said, biting off about half his sandwich in one go. "Mind you, if I talked like that, she'd read me the bloody riot act. Where'd you learn it, anyway?"

"From Sirius," she said, realizing only as she said it that that wasn't entirely accurate. She did learn a lot of educational vocabulary from Sirius, but she'd first heard it from Snape. She didn't correct herself, but privately she wondered what Ron's reaction would be if he learned that Snape could curse the air blue, and she wasn't talking magic.

"How's Divs?" she asked instead.

"Eurgh," Ron said, face twisting. "Put me off my lunch, why don't you?"

Harriet grinned. "You'd rather be in Arithmancy, would you?"

" _Eurgh_. I can feel that cake coming back up." He licked mustard off his fingers, though, as the last of the sandwhich disappeared. "Seriously, though. Trelawney's got us writing predictions on what's coming this month. It's a nightmare, I don't even know where to begin."

"Whatever happened to the old standby?"

"What, make it up, d'you mean?"

"That's what we did last year." _Until I lost my mind and dropped out._ She still couldn't decide whether her stint in hospital had been better than enduring Divs.

"But we've got to read some rubbishy star chart and tell her where Jupiter's moons are going to be and what's Uranus getting up to."

"So? She doesn't really care, she just wants to read loads of death and misery. Unless she's undergone a radical personality transplant, I mean to say."

"Great idea," Ron said, rooting in the basket and pulling out a chicken wing. "You can help me."

"Eurgh," said Harriet, and flicked her chicken bone at him for good measure.

* * *

She didn't really mind, though. They spent the afternoon devising increasingly tragic sufferings for him, finally ending with his decapitation at the end of the month. Hermione, who was working her diligent way through an Arithmancy problem that spanned a full foot of parchment, shook her head at them.

"What are you going to do when you show up to class in October with an intact head?" she asked sardonically.

"This is _Trelawney_ , Hermione," Ron said. "She'll just be delighted I might die of something even more gruesome next month."

At dinner that night, Harriet steeled herself and walked down the table to where Parvati and Lavender were sitting in front of a trifle that stood at least a foot high.

When Parvati noticed Harriet standing next to her, she redoubled her interest in her conversation with Lavender, who sent Harriet quite a frosty look before ostentatiously ignoring her.

"Parvati?" Harriet said. Without waiting for a response, she said, "I'm sorry about last night. I oughtn't have snapped at you."

Parvati stopped talking and turned her head to slide a suspicious look toward Harriet, who tried to look as contrite as possible.

"Oh, _Harry_ ," Parvati sighed a moment later, shaking her head. "You can be such a _goose_."

Harriet thought it would be pretty bad form to get irritated now. But then Parvati stood from the table and threw her arms around her, and her irritation vanished in a bewildered puff.

"You should _really_ let me take care of you," Parvati said, plucking at Harriet's overlong bangs. "You clearly have no _idea_ how. Not that I blame you, since that horrid aunt of yours—"

"Er, I think I hear Hermione calling," Harriet said hastily. She wriggled out of Parvati's grip, blurted, "See you later," and sprinted down the table to wedge herself between Ron and Neville.

"Nice of you to drop in," Ron said.

"Oh, shut it," Harriet grumbled without any real rancor, and stuck her fork into the strawberry shortcake in front of her.

She sneaked a look over her shoulder at the staff table, where Snape was sitting next to Professor McGonagall. They appeared to be having some sort of conversation, and it didn't seem to involve sniping or gloating. For one anxious moment, she wondered if they were talking about her—surely Snape would have reported how Harriet had shouted, sworn, and stormed out of his review that morning—but no thunderous scowl passed across Professor McGonagall's face at any point. Strange as it looked, they seemed to be having a simple chat. Weird.

She separated the strawberries from her cake and ate them. They settled in her stomach along with a knobbled mass of dread and rebelliousness. Surely Snape was going to do something about her actions that morning. He'd never let that slide. Even Professor Flitwick wouldn't have done.

Dinner ended, still with no sign of wrath blazing down from on high. As she left the hall with everyone else, she kept sneaking glances at the staff table, but Snape didn't once glance her way. Nor did Professor McGonagall.

"Harriet?" Hermione called. Harriet hurried to catch up with her and Ron, and stopped short in surprise, just as they'd done.

Asteria hovered at the foot of the stairs, clutching a note. She was clearly trying to make herself look unobtrusive, but she was getting so tall that it didn't work the same as before. 

"Hi," Harriet said, confused but pleased.

Asteria smiled widely. It flickered when her eyes lingered on Ron and Hermione, so Hermione took Ron by the arm and ushered him up the stairs. He kept glancing back extremely obviously, craning his neck in a way that made him look rather like an ostrich.

"We'll see you in the common room, Harriet," Hermione said loudly and firmly, and chivvied Ron out of sight.

Harriet and Asteria were left mostly alone. Dawdling students still trickled out of the Great Hall, but the foyer was mostly empty. Harriet didn't see a single Slytherin, not even Daphne, whose pale hair probably would have stood out exactly like her sister's.

"Professor Snape wanted me to give this to you," Asteria said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Harriet's stomach tried to relocate to her knees, but she took the little envelope Asteria held out. "Thanks." She wondered why Asteria was whispering. It was almost like she was back to being afraid of talking, but she didn't seem eager to run off, and she was looking straight at Harriet, without any of those skittish glances that used to be magnetized to her shoes.

"Did you get my letter this summer?" Harriet asked.

Asteria blinked. "No?"

"No?"

"I never got a letter."

"I sent you one," Harriet said. "In July."

"In July?"

"July, yeah."

"I never got it," Asteria said, sounding mystified for a moment. Then a shadow crossed her face. "I never got it," she repeated quietly, as if she'd just understood why.

Harriet thought of Daphne pulling her away at the Welcoming Feast... and then she thought of Aunt Petunia. But Asteria had never talked about her home as if it was awful. According to everything she and Snape had said about it, Asteria loved and missed it terribly. "Do people at home always take your letters?"

"I'd never got letters before," Asteria said simply.

"Daphne doesn't like me, does she," Harriet said. "It's all right, I don't care," she added when Asteria glowed scarlet. "I just didn't realize she disliked me so much she'd take my letters." _Or doesn't want me talking to you at all_.

Asteria shook her head, but she didn't seem able to speak. She was probably too afraid of saying something rude, like how much Daphne hated Harriet's guts. Harriet honestly hadn't expected that from Daphne, whom she'd never said two words to before last year. She'd known Pansy would be happy if she fell off the Astronomy Tower and landed on a unicorn horn, but why did _Daphne_ hate her?

"Well," Harriet said. "It doesn't matter. We can see each other now we're at school."

"Maybe," Asteria said, her face falling. "Daphne. . . Daphne doesn't like it. Professor Snape gave me that note and told me to bring it to you. Otherwise I'd. . ."

She let it trail off. Harriet didn't know what to say. 'To hell with her' wouldn't be very encouraging or very nice a thing to say, but she couldn't imagine refusing to see someone because someone in your family wanted you to. . .

Then Sirius' face surfaced in her mind, grim and tense; her shoulder tingled with the memory of his hand gripping it, and his voice echoed: " _Promise me you'll be careful, Holly-berry, you won't be alone with him or go looking for him or anything like that. . ._ "

She'd forgot about that promise completely. She'd been so eaten up with the thought of Snape having been one of those people in the masks, she'd forgotten Sirius had asked her that. It wasn't as if she could just refuse to go to the reviews (never mind she'd stormed out of one), but this breach of loyalty hadn't even occurred to her until now.

What did that say, if she'd forget that promise that easily? Asteria listened to Daphne. . . should Harriet at least feel bad that she hadn't listened to Sirius?

"I should go back to the dungeons," Asteria said. "I. . . I hope we can talk again soon."

Then she scuttled off, almost before Harriet had a chance to realize she was gone.

Left alone, she picked at the wax on the envelope and pulled the open the piece of parchment that Snape had folded up into a letter. She was expecting to be told she had detention until the sun exploded and the earth rotated off its axis, but all it said was:

_Your second Potions review has been moved to 31 October, as I doubt you will prove capable of completing the assignment before that date._

That was it. She almost reached for her wand and tried revealing spells on it again, but she knew it would be pointless.

She couldn't explain why she felt like the wind had been sucked straight from her sails.


	58. The Fourth Champion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon Changes: I realize the Durmstrang students, Fleur and Madam Maxine are supposed to speak with accents, but that stuff drives me nuts. Hagrid's accent is as much as I'm willing to write. We all know how everyone's supposed to sound, at any rate. Also, there's some canon dialogue and so forth in here.
> 
> Endless Gratitude: Thank you to all those who continue to read and make my day with words of sweetness.

It wasn't until the mast of Durmstrang's ship came surging out of the lake, its waves shattering the moon's reflection on the water, that Severus realized how very much he hadn't wanted to see Karkaroff ever again in his fucking life.

When the splash of an anchor echoed up the bank, he felt like it was tied to something deep inside him, sinking sinking sinking.

A plank descended and hulking forms lurched along it to shore, following a tall, slim figure that gleamed in the light of the full, as Lupin called it. Severus imagined them all to be the lingering sins of his past, kept at bay by the intervening years, marching now towards him. That blast of green spell-fire in the sky above the camp, Moody clomping through the halls, Karkaroff on his way up the shore. . . these were the modern remnants of the past, transformed, transforming, but carrying it all the same.

 _The Dark Lord is coming_ , they whispered. _He's coming back._

That static of unease in his head, the white noise of suspicion, crackled until it filled him from soles to scalp. He'd been hearing these past two months. It brought him awake at night, a faded hum at the back of the nightmares.

Miss Potter, whispering to Granger four rows ahead, was still so very, very young; so young it pierced his heart.

Karkaroff walked into the light, sleek and shining and neat, smiling with his face but not with his eyes. He'd got older. His hair was perfectly silver now, like the furs on his shoulders. Severus felt a pulse of hatred, really felt it, in his gut.

"Dumbledore!" Karkaroff said heartily, reaching out to shake the Headmaster's hand. They were both tall, slim men who liked to collect young and talented favorites; but Dumbledore could forge chains of loyalty out of hatred and suspicion, while Karkaroff, with all the flattery in his arsenal, could barely inspire a pretense of lukewarm devotion.

"How are you, my dear fellow," he said to Dumbledore, "how are you?"

"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff."

"Dear old Hogwarts," said Karkaroff, smiling up at the castle. "I can't even count the years it's been since I've seen her. All the white hairs I've grown since then, they are certainly past the counting." He laughed; Severus loathed the sound of it, the reminder it brought of a few insane weeks when he'd thought Karkaroff was someone who was almost above contempt.

_Liar, liar; you thought him clever and funny, like Lucius, like Regulus, like all of them, the ones who pretended to think you were clever and funny in turn._

"Viktor," Karkaroff said, turning toward the clump of his students, "come along, into the warmth. . . you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold."

He was beckoning one of his students forward, clearly a new favorite. . . and then the boy stepped into the light and Severus saw why.

Excitement stirred the Hogwarts students as Viktor Krum passed into the Entrance Hall. A number of them, including his Slytherins, vocally cursed having been forced by their stupid teachers to chuck their book-bags upstairs earlier, leaving them without quills when _Viktor Krum_ was coming.

"D'you think he'd sign my shirt in lipstick?" one Ravenclaw girl asked her friend.

It figured that in addition to enduring the bloody tournament and two extra batches of walking hormone factories, they'd get a sodding Quidditch icon thrown into the mix. Severus wondered if he could get away with refusing to permit his female students to talk to the little bastard. Probably not.

He ordered his students to join the melee streaming into the castle. When he breached the brightness of the Entrance Hall after standing for so long outside, the crystal chandelier that had replaced the old, familiar, iron monstrosity whited out his eyes. The students formed a mass of grating teenage excitement, moving blobbily around him. He cut a swathe through the little pustules to join Minerva beside the doors to the Great Hall.

"Well, I suppose that could have gone a great deal worse," she said by way of a hello. "Nothing's caught on fire yet, at any rate."

"Now because you've said that, something will." He scanned the crowd for Miss Potter but did not see her.

"Oh, hush. It's fine for you, Severus. You may sit alone at dinner, as surly as you please, refusing to talk to a soul. I shall have to be diplomatic."

"I didn't realize that was one of your House strengths."

"It isn't—why do you think I'm complaining?"

She sighed as Dumbledore gave the signal for them all to file into the hall, but as she joined him, Maxine and Karkaroff, she'd at least put on a face that passed for diplomatic. With Minerva, at any rate. It was better than his own would've been.

They filed in through a side door, forming a pseudo-dignified procession along the staff table. The students were all seated, to a certain extent. The pale robes of the Beauxbatons' students and Durmstrang's blood red gave the illusion that the hall was fuller than it really was, and the candles hovering above the miscreants' empty heads seemed brighter than they ought.

Perhaps it was the rising headache that rendered him so inattentive he wound up sitting next to the sodding Cyclops. If he wasn't a worse dinner partner than Karkaroff, he certainly wasn't a better one.

Moody gave him no greeting, only folded his hands on the table and stared idly across the hall; but his face was dark with a quiet smile, the sort that came of thinking bad thoughts you enjoyed.

The children were excited—not the little snots from Beauxbatons, perhaps; but Karkaroff's were plainly enjoying themselves, and Hogwarts' were in fine fettle, which in teenagers translated to being particularly loud and obnoxious. The Durmstrang lot had settled in with his Slytherins, and Draco had immediately cozied up to Krum, who did not seem to feel any fusion of souls. In fact, he looked surly, awkward, and uncommunicative. Severus found himself almost forgetting his misery long enough to nearly think well of him. But, no, his fame would cause them more trouble than the famous little bleeder was worth.

When Dumbledore stood, a hush rippled across the Hall, silencing even the foreign guests. Miss Potter, sitting as ever among the Gryffindors in her year, looked as excited as anyone else. Severus thought her eyes flickered over himself, but it might only have been a trick of the candlelight.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and, most particularly, guests," Dumbledore greeted everyone. Even his smile seemed to gleam. Severus closed his eyes. "I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable."

 _Too much to hope for us_ , Severus thought.

"The Tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast. I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home."

As soon as Dumbledore took his seat, Karkaroff learned forward and snared him in conversation. Maxine sat on Dumbledore's other side, and Minerva sat to her right—or Severus supposed she did; all he could see around Maxine's enormous body was Minerva's hand reaching for a plate of steak-and-kidney pie.

"Old pal of yours, Karkaroff, isn't he?" Moody asked quietly, conversationally, as he piled some cabbage on his plate.

"I'd gladly throw him under a bus," Severus said, clenching his hand on the neck of his goblet. "And I like him a great deal more than I like you."

Moody's smile looked like a gash on his face. "Now, Snape. . . Death Eaters have to stick together, don't they?"

Severus didn't get enough sleep anymore to waste his bile on an insult so double-dyed. He poured himself some water instead, and avoided all of the food.

Karkaroff spent the feast doing his damndest to monopolize Dumbledore's attention, which was fine with Severus. In fact, if Karkaroff decided to ignore him for his entire stint at Hogwarts, this would be fine with Severus. He didn't need a former Death Eater stalking him as well as an ex-Auror.

_Better get used to it. That's the life of a double agent, fool._

* * *

The wax had dripped down the candles, pooling at each base but never falling onto their heads, and the blue fire in the Goblet cast a cold, bright light across Dumbledore's face as he finished his speech:

". . . Finally," he said, looking gravely across them all, seeming even graver in the odd light, "I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this Tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the Tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the Goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the Goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Goodnight to you all."

With that ominous note, the feast ended. Tense and bubbling with excitement, everyone in the hall split off into noisy groups, heading for bed, maybe, but certainly not for sleep. Harriet had no chance, hope or desire to put her name into the Goblet herself, but her mind felt staticky and bright.

She trailed along after Hermione and Ron, who kept craning his neck to see over the crowd. He was lucky he was so tall; all Harriet could see was a mass of shoulders.

"Where is he?" he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Dumbledore didn't say where the Durmstrang people were sleeping, did he?"

"I don't think he thought it would matter to us," Hermione said.

"Are you kidding?" Harriet asked. "It's all half the school is thinking about, where Viktor Krum is sleeping."

Hermione giggled, but perhaps it was better that Ron didn't hear.

"There he is!" he blurted, sounding half-strangled with awe, as the crowd parted enough for them to catch a precious glimpse of Krum sitting at the Slytherin table, pulling on his furs. He looked completely normal, tired and a bit cranky.

"Well, we knew he was sitting with the Slytherins," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Speaking of bed, I'd like to get up to mine, rather than stand here all night."

Trn between the desire for Krum's autograph and natural terror at asking for it, Ron wasn't listening. But the Durmstrang headmaster saved him from his indecision, or maybe earned his eternal resentment, by bustling up to the table.

"Back to the ship, then," he said to his students. "Viktor, how are you feeling? Did you eat enough? Should I send for some mulled wine from the kitchens?"

Krum only shook his head as he stood up, his furs hanging off his shoulders and making him look much bigger and bulkier than he really was. Harriet decided she rather liked him. He didn't look comfortable with being famous either.

"Professor, I would like some wine," said one of the other Durmstrang boys hopefully.

"I wasn't offering it to you, Poliakoff," snapped Karkaroff. "I noticed you've dribbled food all down the front of your robes again, disgusting boy—"

He turned to leave the Great Hall and almost tripped over Harriet.

"Do watch where you're going," he said irritably, barely looking at her. But then he froze. Stillness chipped over him from head to toe, and his eyes riveted to her forehead.

Now all of his students were staring, trying to figure out what had turned their headmaster into a statue. When the boy with food down his front nudged the girl next to him and pointed, Harriet wished she could transfigure herself to water and melt down into the floor.

"Yeah, that's Harriet Potter," a voice growled behind them.

Karkaroff jumped. He rounded on Moody with a look of shock that turned to loathing mingled with—fear?

"You!" he said, staring at Moody as if he was as taken aback to see him as he'd been to see Harriet, and a great deal more displeased.

"Me," said Moody. "And unless you've got anything to say to Miss Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You're blocking the exit."

It was true; half the students in the Hall were now waiting behind them, trying to see what was holding them up. But Harriet wasn't concerned with them: over the heads of the crowd, she'd spotted Snape standing at the end of the staff table, an expression of menace banked in his face. Mystified, she followed his line of sight... to Karkaroff's retreating back.

Well. . . seeing Snape looking at someone like he hated them, that was nothing new. And at least he hadn't been looking at _her_ like that.

_No, he'd never do a thing like that, because he'd have to stop ignoring you for long enough to care._

She turned her back on Snape and followed Hermione and Ron out of the Great Hall.

If the boys' chat as they headed upstairs that night was any indication of their conversation as they prepared for bed, their dorm was full of schemes to trick their way past the age line. Harriet's dorm, however, was preoccupied with something quite different.

"Viktor Krum!" Lavender said, ending on a squeal. "I can't believe it!"

Hermione rolled her eyes so hugely it was a wonder the castle didn't feel the vibrations.

"I didn't know you followed Quidditch," Harriet said to Lavender.

"Not really, of course, but you don't have to know he's the youngest seeker in just about forever. I can't believe he's competing in the Tournament!"

"You don't know that he _will_ be," Hermione said as she pulled the warming pan from beneath her covers and carried it over to the hearth to empty the coals.

"It'll be a crime if he _doesn't,"_ Lavender said, matching her lofty tone, but Hermione wasn't listening; she was frowning at the pan as she dumped it and set it aside, and she gave it a long, measured look before turning back to her bed.

"Do you think he's attractive?" Parvati asked, wrinkling her nose. "I didn't realize he'd be so. . . awkward. He walks like a duck."

"I like him," Harriet said absently as she dumped her own warming pan. The singed smell of burning coal tickled her nose.

"There's a first," Lavender said, and it didn't sound completely good-humored.

"Really?" Parvati said curiously to Harriet. "He looks so grumpy. He's not even good-looking."

"He doesn't have to be." Harriet didn't want to say the reason she was defending Krum was because he seemed indifferent to being famous, instead of being like Lockhart. . . but now that she thought about it, she supposed she also liked that kind of dark, broody look he had. Not enough to want him to sign her shirt in lipstick, but there was something oddly appealing about it. With a distinct emphasis on the odd, since it gave her a peculiar feeling like a stomach full of spiders.

She shrugged at Parvati and pulled her nightdress out of her wardrobe.

* * *

Harriet woke up early to a dark, silent dorm. She lay in the warm, lightless space of her four-poster, not fully awake but not asleep anymore. A dream tickled at her memory, blue-white light and gold. . .

Then, like a bubble popping, the peaceful feeling vanished.

She had her second review with Snape today.

Her stomach slowly filled with caterpillars. Not butterflies—butterflies were fluttery and delicate, and this feeling wasn't anything like that; it was lumpy and wriggly.

She'd really studied this time. She _had._ She was determined she'd do as well in this review as she'd done in all her others. Professor McGonagall had even smiled and _told_ her she'd done well, and Transfigurations was her worst subject after Potions. Snape would never do that, but she'd make him _think_ it.

She hoped.

Everyone was out of bed much earlier than usual on a Saturday, to see how the Goblet of Fire was getting on. Students from all Houses were already crowded into the corners of the Entrance Hall when she, Ron and Hermione arrived. Everyone was watching the Goblet of Fire, which stood on a pedestal ringed by a delicate, gleaming gold line. The fire in the cup tinted the air blue. It gave off no heat—the opposite, in fact; it made the Entrance Hall feel colder. Harriet thought of her dream, but there seemed to have been nothing else in it; just that impression of blue light and gold.

"Anyone put their name in yet?" Ron asked a third-year Gryffindor.

"All the Durmstrang lot," the girl said, "but I haven't seen anyone from Hogwarts yet."

As it turned out, up close the Goblet was not terribly interesting. Last night the sight of it had filled Harriet with gossamer excitement; but now it just sat there, glowing blue. She wondered if maybe the problem was her.

"I'm going on into breakfast," she told Hermione and Ron. "I've got that review with Snape after."

Ron's face twisted up in sympathy. "That's rough, mate. I'm going to wait out here—Fred and George said they'd be trying their aging potion first thing."

As Harriet turned to go into the Great Hall, the front doors groaned open, and a murmur rushed through the crowd. Glancing back, she saw Madam Maxine's stately face quite easily, massively tall as she was. Her students followed her in one proud, elegant line.

Ron's head swiveled toward the Beauxbaton's lot. Harriet could only see the back of his head, but she could guess at the expression on his face. It was hard to determine who had flummoxed him more last night: Viktor Krum or that Veela-lookalike girl.

Hermione was suddenly beside Harriet. "I think I'll join you," she said in a terse, wooden voice, and stalked into the Hall.

Harriet glanced warily back in time to see the Veela-lookalike dropping her name into the Goblet. The blue-white fire rippled across her hair. Ron's head had turned to follow her to the Goblet, and was now following her away.

She thought back to that conversation she'd had with Hermione, her pink face and ruthless determination to turn the talk away from herself, and was not at all surprised.

* * *

Dreams disturbed Severus from sleep long before dawn. The days were growing shorter, the nights longer. . . and tonight was Hallowe'en.

 _Fucking_ Hallowe'en.

He crushed out his fifth cigarette of the morning. Maybe lung cancer would strangle him before the Dark Lord rose again.

He didn't usually smoke this much first thing. He'd have one before coffee, and perhaps another after, if it had been a particularly bad night, or if he had to see Moody's half-arsed excuse for a face at breakfast, or if he had Miss Potter's class that day. . .

He had her for review this morning, fuck it all. He'd swapped with Flitwick weeks ago—done everything to put it off. It was harder to, yes, all right, _ignore_ her when she was the only student in his classroom, when there weren't twenty other blubber-brained cretins to dilute the force of her stare. At fourteen, the force she could funnel into a look was already giving Minerva a run for her money. Before twenty she'd surely match Dumbledore.

If she lived to twenty.

He had no more cigarette to crush, so he flung the whole ashtray into the grate. It was made of glass, and shattered well.

He breathed out, once and long, and coughed. Fucking cigarettes.

Locking his quarters behind him, he headed for his classroom. Miss Potter was already there, tapping at the door and receiving no answer. She'd brought a book bag this time. Well, he hadn't told her not to.

"You're early," he said, making her jump.

Everything about her radiated wariness as she edged out of his way so he could spell open the door. "Everyone was up early to see the Goblet," she said after a moment. Had she paused to debate making chat?

Severus did not waste the same effort. He raised the lights as he crossed the room, and with his wand pointed to the same desk at which Miss Potter had sat last time.

"Sit."

When he reached his desk, he turned and looked down at her. The set of her mouth was resolute, and her eyes were no longer wary but. . . watchful. Since the last review, she'd spent his classes so clearly trying to catch his attention: at first with vigor and stubbornness that battered at his outward indifference and inner confusion; then with increasing frustration as he refused to yield any sign that he noticed, approved, or appreciated. He recognized now Miss Potter's thirst for approval from himself, but had no more idea what to do about it today than he'd had from the first.

Something about the way she was sitting there, the way she was looking at him, reminded him of the very first class she'd ever had in this room. He'd been vicious without provocation, and she'd regarded him with a mixture of courage and defensiveness. Her hair was longer now, the glasses were different; she was older and yet not old enough, still too small and skinny, too obvious and vulnerable and everything she shouldn't be.

"The betel nut," he said coldly. "Key ingredient in which potions?"

It was a trick question. There was nothing fair about giving it to her first thing.

And she knew it too, he saw, when something in her eyes hardened. "None we study in school because it's a psychotic."

"It leads to a deterioration of psychosis," he said, infusing a note of condescension into his voice with the same delicacy as he added ingredients to the Wolfsbane. "Mistletoe."

"It's toxic to the central nervous system. It's common in love potions," she added.

"Were love potions on the list?" 

He heard her teeth grind grind. "The _berries_ are used in potions that stimulate blood flow, like Sanguinity Draught."

"Ginseng."

"Alacrity Elixir."

"Why?" 

"It causes insomnia if you take too much," she said. "Controlled, it'll only keep you awake for the life of the potion."

"The 'life of a potion' is also referred to as what?"

"The metabolic factor," she said, glaring.

 _"No._ The metabolic factor is something very different."

"But they're _part_ of the same thing. The life of a potion is how long it takes you to metabolize it—"

"They are part of the same concept but _not_ the same thing," he said, like she was an idiot, and saw the exact moment his reply hurt her. "This is a discipline requiring exactness, Miss Potter. If you are failing to comprehend the vast difference between two concepts, then what have you been doing for the past month?"

She struggled—with her hurt or with her temper? A part of him wished she wouldn't, that she would just give vent to whatever she was feeling, the way she'd always done before. He wished moody, stroppy Miss Potter would tear free of this thin, wounded skin, that this girl who seemed so desperate to gain his approval—

"Peony juice," he said, almost cruelly.

"It slows blood clotting," she said in a voice that shook on the end. (Anger; it had better be anger.) "It's used in Blood Replenishing Potion."

"And why do all of these potions require ingredients that cause the very problems they are meant to cure?"

"That's what all the other ingredients are for, to balance that out. And all the stirring and everything—"

"That is not what I asked, Miss Potter."

Her jaw pulsed with the effort of clenching it shut. "They're the key ingredient because the entire potion is built around _reversing_ what they do. That's how they _work._ That's why if you mess up the stuff that balances it out, they don't work, and if you put in too much of the bad stuff and mess up the other, you can poison someone."

"The phrasing is wildly imprecise," he said coldly, dismissively, "but that is correct in essentials."

She didn't say anything. She glared at him, but it wasn't the usual glare. It was like she wanted to drop her head but refused, or wanted to boldly stare him down but couldn't. Something in his gut twisted, as it had last night with Karkaroff but different.

"Your assignment," he said, holding out his hand.

She fished in her bag, pulled out several scrolls, and piled them in his hand. There were four of them, and they were all quite fat.

As he stared at them, something snapped off inside him.

"I will review them and return them to you with my comments," he said, now cool and distant. "You may go."

She didn't object; she just closed her bag, stood, and left without another word.

When she'd gone, he dropped into his chair and put his head in his hands.

"You fucking arsehole," he muttered.

* * *

"Fucking _arsehole._ . ." Harriet said through grit teeth.

It hadn't worked.

She'd been trying harder in Potions for the past two months. She'd tried ignoring him and she'd tried getting his attention; she'd shouted and him and she'd acted like nothing was wrong. None of it had worked. Snape continued not giving a shit.

He just didn't care.

No—it was worse than that. She'd thought last night that at least Snape hadn't looked at her like he hated her. . . but why would he have acted like this if he didn't? What had she done? She'd tried, so _hard,_ and he—

Her eyes prickled. It wasn't from anger, but she was going to pretend to the entire _fucking_ world it was. Even if the world right now was just Snape's empty dungeon corridor.

And then she'd pretend she didn't care any more than he did.

She didn't go upstairs right away. She stayed down in the shadowy chill of the dungeons until she'd got herself under control, before making the long, slow climb to Gryffindor Tower.

Ron was flattening Hermione in a game of chess when Harriet climbed in through the portrait hole.

"You've finished _already_?" said Hermione, and then scowled at the chessboard as one of Ron's pawns clobbered her bishop.

"This one lasted longer than the other one did, at least," Ron pointed out.

"What?" Hermione asked, confused.

"She was done loads earlier last time."

Harriet had forgot she'd never told Hermione what had happened last time. "I just didn't feel like coming back to the tower after. Snape's. . ." She didn't want to tell either of them this time, either. "Difficult."

Ron snorted. "There's the biggest understatement since Hogwarts was built."

Hermione didn't like Ron knowing something she hadn't, if Harriet was reading that crease between her forehead right. Harriet decided to change the subject.

"Shall we go ahead and see Hagrid, then?" she asked. "He won't mind us being early."

* * *

Hagrid was pleased to see them early, in fact, and fed them a horrible stew for lunch. His hut was warm and a fire was lit against the chilly rain outside, and it was really quite cozy. Ron pestered Hagrid about the tournament, trying to wheedle the mystery of the tasks out of him, but Hagrid was prepared for these attacks and led him on with unusual adroitness. It should have been quite entertaining, and Harriet tried to pretend it was. But she found out how successful she hadn't been at tea time, when Ron asked her:

"You all right, Harry?"

Surprised, in none too welcome a way, Harriet glanced around to see if the others were listening; but Hagrid was busy fetching some of his terrible rock cakes down from the cupboard and Hermione was preparing the tea.

Harriet had no intention of telling him what was wrong. "Just a bit tired," she said, trying to smile.

"All that studying's unhealthy," he said gravely. "I tried to warn you."

"You were right, O wise one."

Hermione brought the tea over. Either she'd satisfied his curiosity or Ron had divined that Harriet didn't want to talk about it (possibly more than that, since he'd waited till neither Hermione nor Hagrid was listening to ask her), because he changed the subject and didn't bring it up again.

Harriet slipped a few rock cakes into her pocket when Hagrid wasn't looking, so he wouldn't know none of them had ever managed to eat one in three years, and sipped at her sugary tea. Ron slouched in his chair, scratching behind Fang's ears, getting drool all over his trousers. Hagrid started darning some socks. Really, it _was_ deeply cozy, listening to the patter of the rain and the crackle at the fire. And these were her friends, who'd all be indignant on her behalf if they'd heard what Snape had said this morning, the _cruelty_ in his voice, lining his face. . . She hadn't deserved it, she'd done well, she _knew_ she had. What had she done to—

She shook her head and clenched her jaw. She wasn't going to sit here thinking about it. She'd told herself she wouldn't. She'd said she was going to pretend it didn't matter. She couldn't do that if she did nothing but think about it all afternoon.

She looked around to see if the others had noticed. Hagrid was still darning, Ron was nodding off in his chair, and Hermione was staring into the flames in silence, a thoughtful look on her face. It was a similar expression to the one she'd worn last night as she emptied her warming pan.

"Hagrid," she said suddenly, making Ron blink his eyes open. "How long have there been house-elves at Hogwarts?"

"Since the beginnin'," Hagrid said, looking surprised. "Helga Hufflepuff herself brought 'em in. Wanted ter give 'em a decent place to work, where they'd always be treated well. Tha's how the story goes, at any rate."

 _"You're_ asking about Hogwarts?" Ron said to Hermione, raising his head from where it had been resting against the back of his chair. "You? What would _Hogwarts: a History_ say if it knew you were going to someone else for information?"

"You mean _A Revised History of Hogwarts_. Or _A Very Selective History that Glosses Over Some Nastier Aspects of the School_ ," Hermione said in a voice with an edge like a piece of concealed glass.

"What are you on about?" Ron asked.

"It mentions nothing about being home to over a hundred _slaves,"_ she said, the edge glinting brighter, "for a thousand years."

Ron's expression cleared. "Is this more of that rubbish with Winky?"

Harriet could have bet a hundred galleons on the way Hermione's eyes would flash at that, and she'd have won.

"Rubbish, is it? It doesn't bother you, then, that our beds are made, our fires lit, our meals cooked, and our messes tidied up, by _slaves?"_

"It's in their nature ter look after humans, Hermione," Hagrid said gravely. "It's what they like, see?"

"But it's slave labor! They aren't paid, they aren't given holidays, they aren't even given proper clothes. Their masters have the right to _beat_ them if they want, to be as heartless and cruel as they like, and nobody does anything about it!"

Harriet blinked, and even Ron looked taken aback. Hermione glared so fiercely at him that he edged a little closer to Harriet.

"It's an evil man who uses the poor mites ill," Hagrid said, even more gravely than before. "They love lookin' after humans so much, it's all the more reason ter treat 'em gently. But it makes 'em happy ter be useful, Hermione. It's in their blood."

"They've been brainwashed!" Hermione said fiercely. "They only think they like it! If they were properly educated, if they were shown what it was like to take breaks from constant work and receive actual pay, they'd realize what a rotten, rubbishing deal they've been given!"

Ron didn't seem to dare say anything. Hagrid, instead of laughing or shrugging it off, put his socks aside and looked at Hermione directly.

"If yeh tried to give a house-elf pay or take away their work, yeh'd be showing them a great insult and dishonor, Hermione," he said, and Harriet could tell how deeply serious he was. "The work they do fer humans—bein' needed and relied on—it's a deep part of who they are. If yeh took that away from them, yeh'd be just as cruel as those folks who abuse their power over 'em. It wouldn't be right."

"Dobby wanted to be free," Hermione said, bright-eyed, though with tears or anger, Harriet couldn't actually tell. "He wanted pay, and holidays, and fair treatment—"

But even Dobby hadn't wanted too much money or too much freedom, Harriet remembered. Dumbledore had offered him more than Dobby was comfortable taking. He'd refused better pay and more time off. And he'd wanted to be free of the Malfoys as much as Harriet had ever wanted to escape the Dursleys.

"House-elves en't humans, Hermione. They've got magic and needs and hearts as different from yours as a centaur's. It's not right, thinkin' we know what's best fer 'em. We've got to let them go their own way about it."

He picked up his socks again and turned back to darning. Hermione didn't say anything else, but Harriet knew she wasn't convinced. Ron knelt on the floor and scratched Fang's ears, looking anywhere but at Hermione. The silence rose around them like water dripping into a cup too small to hold it all.

"What's Beauxbatons like, Hagrid?" Harriet asked.

"Hard ter say. Never been there meself. It's said the castle's the richest thing yeh've ever seen. Hogwarts sends its letters out to every child wi' magic in the country, but Beauxbatons is more selective, they say. Yeh've got ter prove yourself."

"Elitist, you mean," Hermione said, rather tartly, and Harriet almost sighed. It would figure that in trying to find a topic to distract her from house-elves, she'd only find one to redirect Hermione's ire.

"Could be," said Hagrid, starting to darn a balaclava.

Through Hagrid's window, Harriet watched darkness drop across the grounds and trees outside. Lamps glimmered in the windows of the Beauxbaton's carriage, wavering through the glass.

"Time for the feast, then, isn't it?" Ron said, his tone not successfully hiding his relief.

Harriet set her mug in the sink with the others' and followed them out into the cool night air, wishing she still cared about the choosing of the champions, the tournament—everything—the way she had last night.

* * *

Severus hated the Hallowe'en feast more than any other event at Hogwarts, even the first day of term.

Miss Potter was already sitting with cronies Granger and Weasley when he and the other professors swept in. It was surely only the influence of his migraine that made him think she appeared subdued. The feast and the promise of mayhem the tournament offered should have wiped any other concerns from her head.

 _Or maybe you acted like that much of a cunt,_ he thought.

The feast slogged past in a tedious haze of light and noise. Finally, finally, Dumbledore stood and called for the Goblet. Filch brought it in, its light shining cold across a thousand excited faces, melting the candle flames to silver.

"I believe the Goblet is almost ready to make its decision," Dumbledore said to the watching, waiting crowd.

On cue, everyone stared at the Goblet. Even Severus did, though he could barely make sense of the image.

Then the cold blue fire flared hot and red and a slip of paper shot into the air, burnt on the edges. Severus imagined he could smell it, that tang of scorched paper, though he was too far away and the scent too faint, really.

"The Durmstrang champion," Dumbledore called out, "is Viktor Krum!"

The Hall exploded with cheers. Karkaroff even stood up, shouting, "I knew you could do it, Viktor my boy!" as Krum hunkered to his feet. The storm of clapping followed him as he disappeared down the narrow corridor that led off the Great Hall, only fading as the Goblet flared red again.

"The champion from Beauxbatons," Dumbledore announced as he caught the second paper, "is Fleur Delacour."

A girl with silvery blonde hair stood from the Ravenclaw table, as proud and confident as Krum was not, and made her regal way up the Hall as several of her classmates put their heads in their hands and sobbed with disappointment.

The collective excitement of Hogwarts gathered its breath as the Goblet flared one final time. If the anticipation for Beauxbatons' and Durmstrang's champions had tingled through the air, it now sucked the breath right out of it.

Dumbledore caught the final scrap of paper on its descent. He always had an appreciation for theatrics. When he read the paper, he smiled, so that everyone could see, before looking up.

"The Hogwarts' champion," he said, and paused ever so slightly; Severus was surprised the candles still had oxygen to burn-"is Cedric Diggory."

There was no word for the eruption of noise this inspired. Severus was surprised plaster didn't rain down from the ceiling from the noise made by the Hufflepuffs alone; Sprout was whistling through her teeth loud enough to cut class. Diggory went up the aisle like the others before him, though he was grinning modestly.

"Our three champions have been selected," Dumbledore called across the (slowly) fading noise; it was testament to the school's respect for its headmaster that they quietened down at the sound of his voice, even the Hufflepuffs. "I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you an muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real—"

Dumbledore broke off. A second passed before Severus saw why. Dumbledore had noticed what was happening before everyone else had done: the Goblet was glowing red again.

When a fourth scrap of paper hit the air, Dumbledore caught it, out of reflex, it seemed, and because it was the only thing to do, read it. His face blanked. It was not shock, displeasure, it was not anything; a complete absence of reaction. Severus felt that blankness echoed inside himself, as if all his organs had been removed. It couldn't, couldn't be—

"Harriet Potter," Dumbledore read out.

Except it was.

* * *

Somehow Severus got from his seat in the Great Hall into the private chamber where all the champions—the four champions—the three champions plus Miss Potter—waited. Ludo Bagman, bright and merry, was obscene in his excitement. Crouch looked like a waxwork of a corpse. Krum was surly, Karkaroff hostile, Maxine and her protege indignant and offended, Diggory politely puzzled. They all registered on Severus' periphery, their presence and stupidity filed away for later; his habit, always his habit. But the first thing he looked for when he walked in was Miss Potter; as the others spoke, moved, quarreled, threatened, he watched Miss Potter.

She was pale, that was the very first thing he noticed; pale—and unharmed, though looking like she'd received a nasty shock. Her face as she'd come up the aisle out in the Hall had been bloodless beneath the silver candles; now she looked stunned and anxious, but in a distant way, as if the full magnitude of the disaster hadn't yet sunk in. When the Beauxbatons' girl said _this little girl_ , Miss Potter's face flashed with irritation. She turned toward whomever was talking—first Dumbledore, asking her if she'd put her name in the cup ("I didn't," she said once, and then "I _didn't,"_ again, angrily, when Maxine said, "But of course she is lying!") She looked at Karkaroff when he hissed through his teeth, at Moody when he growled his dire fucking pronouncements, at Minerva when she said, "Surely it's out of the question, Dumbledore, that she compete? The age restriction—"

"Was only imposed this year, as a safety measure," Dumbledore said quietly. "The restriction relied on my Age Line to enforce it. There is no rule preventing the Goblet from accepting the name of a student of any age."

"Then either you made a mistake with the line, Dumbly-dorr, or this girl, she had an older student put the name in for her!" Maxine said, and her pet student raised her arrogant little chin as if to say _Just so_.

"I didn't!" Miss Potter said for a third time, like she wanted to stamp her foot.

And she looked at Severus when he said, "All of the other champions put their names in themselves, did they not?" (The evenness of his own voice surprised him. He would have expected to sound like he had a mouth of broken glass.)

 _"Oui,"_ said Maxine, "I oversaw them myself." Karkaroff's eyelids flickered when Severus spoke, but he nodded jerkily, his fingers kneading at the lapel of his fur-lined robes.

"Perhaps Mr. Crouch can tell us, then," Severus said coldly, while his blood hot pounded in his ears, "whether the contract will extend to a champion whose name was submitted by proxy."

All heads turned toward Crouch—except Dumbledore's. He glanced at Severus, his face unreadable. Miss Potter, now watching Crouch, looked desperately hopeful, in a very different way than everyone else.

"The contract exists between the Goblet and the champion," said Crouch, his voice distant and shadowed. Only his eye and part of his cheek and forehead were visible in the slanted firelight. "Not between the Goblet and the scrap of paper submitted in the champion's name. That is merely symbolic. When Miss Potter's name was called and she stood, she accepted the Goblet's invitation. The contract has been sealed. It cannot be reneged on without significant loss."

Miss Potter sagged. Maxine's bosom swelled; Karkaroff looked livid.

"Well, Barty knows the rule book back to front!" said Bagman cheerfully, the complete fucking tit. Severus couldn't have been the only one who wanted to smash his fat shitting head against the fireplace.

"I insist upon resubmitting the names of the rest of my students," said Karkaroff. An ugly look had come over his face, a look that Severus knew well. There was another skull he wouldn't mind cracking like an egg. . . "You will set up the Goblet of Fire once more, and we will continue adding names until each school has two champions. It's only fair, Dumbledore."

"But Karkaroff," said Bagman, "the Goblet doesn't work like that—"

The row that had been kept at bay by their questions and demands surged and swirled around them, pulling Maxine, Karkaroff, and Moody in.

"After all our meetings and negotiations and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur! I have half a mind to leave now!"

"Empty threat, Karkaroff," Moody growled, "You can't leave your champion, and you can't take him with you. He's got to compete, they've all got to compete. Binding magical contract. . . convenient, eh?"

"Convenient for Hogwarts to have two bites at the apple!" Maxine said, the volume of her voice rattling the chandelier.

Severus' headache spiked. He couldn't even take proper pleasure in everyone being so fucking idiotic. Miss Potter looked like she wished everyone would just shut the fuck up and let her leave.

The Beauxbaton's girl stamped her foot during her tirade. For all Miss Potter's adolescent theatrics, she was at least more mature than to actually _do_ it.

Dumbledore allowed the quarrel to flourish for a time, until Moody pushed his tolerance a little too far. "Alastor!" he said warningly, and Moody subsided, though his face glinted with menace and he continued to stare at Karkaroff (who looked anywhere but at him) with loathing; none of the satisfaction visible in his stare that always surfaced when he looked at Severus.

"How this situation arose," Dumbledore said firmly into the resentful silence, "we do not know. It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Cedric and Harriet have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. This, therefore, they will do."

Severus closed his eyes for a second longer than a blink.

"Ah, but Dumbly-dorr—" 

"My dear Madam Maxine, if you have an alternative, I would be delighted to hear it."

Maxine had no reply to make, though plenty of frustration exude. So did Karkaroff, his face flushed. Severus recalled the accidents that had happened to champions in the centuries before. He always kept a few untraceable potions in reserve. . .

"Well, shall we crack on, then?" said Bagman happily. "Got to give our champions their instructions, haven't we? Barty, want to do the honors?"

"Yes. . ." said Crouch distantly. "Yes. . . the first task. . ."

Severus knew what the fucking first task was going to be; all of the teachers did. Minerva had ranted about it in the staff room for twenty minutes straight. " _Dragons! Bally, blessed, blasted, cooked-in-hellfire DRAGONS!"_

He couldn't poison a fucking dragon. He had no idea how to kill one. He'd never needed to know how, before. He'd have to find out.

Maxine swept her champion off as soon as the instructions were delivered, both of them jabbering in French. Karkaroff pulled his furs fussily round himself in a move he probably thought was authoritarian and dignified and hustled Krum away.

"Off to bed then, you two," said Dumbledore to Diggory and Miss Potter, whose shoulders were slumped. Her manner was still numb, yet lined with resignation. Severus thought again of that morning in his classroom, and how she managed to combine two completely disparate states of being, courage and frailty, shock and acceptance.

She left with Diggory, who was significantly taller. Severus almost went after her directly, but stayed put for a moment longer. She and Diggory would split off at the Entrance Hall; he needed to wait till the boy was gone.

"Dumbledore," Minerva was saying.

"I know, Minerva," he answered, his voice sounding as tired as it ought, at one-hundred-and-thirteen years. "I know."

"Could she forfeit?" Minerva asked Crouch.

"No," he said flatly. "A forfeit is the same as a refusal, in the terms of the contract."

"But her name was submitted against her will! There has to be some provision in place for such an event!"

"There is not. The Goblet does not care whether a champion has submitted their name of their own volition or has been coerced." He sounded like he didn't care any more than the fucking Goblet. "It is a magical artifact centuries old. However humans misuse it is of no concern or knowledge to a magical cup hewn of wood." Then, apparently decided to be done with her, with the lot of them, he turned to Dumbledore and said coldly, "It is late. Past time for me to be going."

"Of course," said Dumbledore.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Crouch said with utter indifference.

"It was Hogwarts' pleasure. Have a safe journey home. . ."

Severus slipped away. Diggory should have left Miss Potter now. . .

It would not do to let her get away.

* * *

The Great Hall was deserted and cavernous in the lantern-tinted darkness. Harriet remembered the light of the Goblet burning blue across their faces, and shivered.

"So," said Cedric; the sudden sound of his voice made her heart jump. "We're playing against each other again."

He was smiling, but Harriet didn't feel any urge to smile back. She felt like her head was a room that had been turned over, everything dumped across the floor, and someone was taking horrified, disbelieving steps across it "I s'pose," she muttered.

The Entrance Hall was just as empty and echoing. The Goblet was gone now, and the only light came from the torches.

"So. . ." Cedric said again, but in a very different way this time. "How _did_ you get your name in?"

Harriet stared up at him. He was very tall. "I didn't. I was telling the truth."

"Ah. . . okay." He clearly didn't believe her, but was too polite to say so. "Well. . . I'll see you, then."

He didn't climb the marble staircase but headed for a door to its right. Harriet stood listening to the sound of his footsteps walking into silence. The caterpillars from that morning were back, but they were bigger, more slimy. Was anyone but Ron and Hermione going to believe her. . .?

Someone grabbed her by the arm.

She almost screamed—a swear word, she bloody well hoped—and her heart turned a spastic somersault when she saw it was Snape. His face looked bloodless. The shadows cut into his face like knives, and something burned in his eyes, like fire down at the bottom of a long, long well, black as pitch. Each beat of her heart slammed against her ribs.

Snape's gaze darted around the Entrance Hall. Then, not letting go of her arm, he strode over to the wall and pulled one of the torches from its bracket. Without any explanation, he pulled her into the chilly gloom of the dungeons stairwell.

She let him.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief note about Hermione + house-elves: I know it happened approx 80 million words ago, so many people may have forgotten (I probably would have, if I weren't writing it), but Hermione discovered the house-elves last year, a long time before she met Winky.


	59. In the Dark

Harriet followed Snape down the stairs because you did what Snape wanted whether you wanted to or not, although she couldn't help feeling like she ought to protest this time.

"I'm supposed to go—" she started.

"Be silent." His voice twisted on a snarl. She clenched her jaw but obeyed, because there was never any bloody reasoning with him, was there?

Snape preceded her down the stairs, past the corridor where he taught, into a long corridor she didn't remember. . . and then turned and pulled her through a wall. She followed him down a set of cramped, slimy steps, past trails of dripping water that gleamed in the torchlight. . .

. . . and then out onto a narrow bridge that stretched over absolute nothing.

She stopped, but Snape was prepared for that; he reached behind him and dragged her along. The bridge was far too thin—if she stretched even her short arms out straight, their span was wider than the bridge—and below it there was nothing, just a well of black. There was nothing above, either, and nothing so far ahead of them that she couldn't see where it ended. When she glanced behind her, she couldn't even see the door they'd come through.

"Where are we?" Her voice seemed to vanish as soon as it hit that black, empty air, like a torch beam disappearing into space.

"The Bridge to Nowhere." Snape turned to face her. His torch carved a pocket of light around them but did not dip into the black below or rise into the black above. If it weren't for the stone beneath their feet—which was also black, just barely glistening—she would've thought they stood on nothing. "It's the most private place for a _chat_."

His teeth were almost bared, and his eyes burned; he was angry, even though it _still_ wasn't her fault. Anger flared in her heart like the firelight.

"I didn't put my name in," she snapped.

"Did I say you did?" he snarled. "We are here, Miss Potter, because I believe you did not."

Harriet's anger guttered in confusion. Snape didn't look any less enraged. "I don't understand."

The torchlight flickered, like Snape had gripped the handle very hard. "If you did not put your name in, someone has _done it for you_."

His tone was so very _a_ _re you really this stupid Miss Potter_ that she bristled all over again. "Obviously," she snapped.

"Why would someone do such a thing?"

"Maybe they're hoping I'll get trampled by a manticore," she snarled.

"Yes," said Snape, "I'd say so."

Harriet blinked. "What? Really? There's going to be manticores?"

"It doesn't matter whether there will be bloody manticores or not. As usual, you've completely missed the point—"

Harriet ground her teeth so hard her head vibrated. "Someone's hoping I'll get _killed_ , then, I reckon."

Snape didn't answer immediately. There was a savage kind of light in his eyes, so vicious it made the bridge beneath her feet seem less solid.

"Yes," he said again. "That."

Harriet had half thought it was just Moody being his usual, paranoid self upstairs, but Snape dragging her down here like this to say the same thing made it more real, as real as a ball of lead lodged at the base of her throat. Images flashed through her head—the Dark Mark, the dream with Voldemort, Remus hugging her at the World Cup, Sirius' face in the dappled light of the trees.

"You. . . you aren't serious."

"The effort involved in tricking the Goblet out of believing there are only three champions would be immense." Snape's voice kept that brutal edge, reminding her a bit of Mr. Crouch telling everyone that she had to compete, the Goblet didn't care how unfit she was. "That cup is hundreds of years old, and spells of that nature do not deteriorate over time, age only reinforces them. Someone would need a powerful incentive to even attempt overruling them. And anyone who would enter a child in this tournament—"

"I'm not a child," she said, unaccountably annoyed.

"—let alone without their knowledge or consent—do not interrupt me, Miss Potter, and yes, you most certainly are—does not have their best interests at heart."

"Do you think it has anything to do with Vol—"

"Don't say the name!"

If it hadn't been for all the emptiness around them, his voice would've echoed. He looked angrier than ever, the fury cutting into his face, making it even harsher. Harriet clenched her fists. "I think I have the right to say his name if he's trying to kill me!"

"I don't care what right you think you have, you will not say it where I can hear you!"

Harriet glared at him as hard as she fucking could, and when that had no visible effect—it was like glaring at an implacable wall—at the nothingness around them.

"What is this place, really?"

"I told you what it was called." He dipped the torch toward the empty, empty drop below. "Tracking spells will not work out here, nor any eavesdropping implements, and one cannot be followed out here. The door disappears for as long as we remain in here. And as you can _hopefully_ see, it's impossible to see who's ahead of you. It offers complete privacy."

Harriet was intrigued enough to ignore the jab, though she did roll her eyes. "Did Slytherin build it?"

"He had his other secret chamber—and there was no one in Hogwarts who was his ally, in the end." The torch's flames carved shadows across his face; Harriet tried not to shiver. "This was built by someone who needed to exchange secrets."

"So. . . we're here. . .so the person who put my name in the Goblet won't hear us?" she guessed.

"Obviously," he said with that special Snape-spite, and the curl of a snarl on the end.

She frowned. "In case they're working for Vol _—him,"_ she said, rolling her eyes again when Snape's glare sharpened, "and they realize you don't anymore?"

In the silence as thick as the void around them, Harriet really realized what she'd said. Oops. Well, that figured: she'd spent all that time wondering how to bring it up, and then she did it completely by accident.

"I'd like to know, Miss Potter, what the devil you mean by that," Snape said in a voice that was just shy of deadly.

Harriet chewed on her lip as she studied him. He looked distant, like he'd pulled back from her, though she knew he'd not actually moved. She thought that something deep inside him had retreated behind that shell of cruelty he could summon at will. And perhaps it should have scared her, but it didn't. It was the opposite: she felt quite calm and clear, out here in this space where nothing else seemed to exist but the two of them, having this conversation at last.

"You were a Death Eater," she said. "Weren't you?"

Snape stared at her, still from that faraway place, motes of torchlight glinting in the blackness of his eyes. Then contempt rippled across his face, a shadow layered over shadows.

"Black and Lupin have been carrying their little messages, I see." His voice matched the look on his face and the emotion in his eyes. "Although my money's on Black. He always did have a big mouth. Well?"

She shrugged. She suspected Sirius wasn't supposed to have told her, and she didn't want him getting in trouble. But Snape was always willing to think the worst of Sirius, like Sirius did with him.

"So this is what prompted your little research session," Snape said, his eyes glinting.

"Mainly," Harriet said, lifting her chin. "Was I right? About why we've come here."

"Spread the tale to your cronies Weasley and Granger, have you, then?"

Harriet scowled. "They aren't my cronies, they're my _friends,_ and no, I never told them. They'd just have a fit."

"Like you did."

"I didn't have a fit," Harriet retorted, not quite truthfully.

"And yet you so conscientiously brought up the fact that you'd been studying Death Eaters, in _my_ review session."

Harriet couldn't help blushing, but hoped the torchlight hid it. "Well, I wanted to ask you about it, but you're not. . ."

"Not what?" he asked in a voice that dared her to finish that thought.

"Not very truthful," she said boldly.

"Whereas you are always straightforward, forthright, and open in all your designs," he said, with a razor's edge of mockery. "Never hiding anything."

Harriet blushed brighter. "Well, are you?"

"I thought Black had already answered that."

"You won't even answer when I ask you straight," she said, frustrated.

"Perhaps, Miss Potter, because I don't see that it's any of your damn business."

"It is if Vol— _he_ —wants to kill me and you're a Death Eater and you worked for him!"

The black swallowed up her words, greedy and sudden, but they did seem to echo even after they'd gone, as if they were so terrible they couldn't disappear right away. She wanted to look away but refused. She didn't want to meet Snape's eyes so she did, straight at the dark-bright light, the distance greater than ever, as if he stood on the other end of the bridge from her.

"Is that what you believe, then?" he asked.

She swallowed. "No," she said forcefully. "You could've killed me loads of times. You could push me off the bridge right now. And you. . . you've got the Patronus."

He didn't say anything, just continued looking at her in that way that was not quite cruel, but closer to cruel than anything else.

"I just. . ." She shivered. "Who d'you think put my name in?"

He waited so long to answer, she began to wonder if he would reply at all. She darted a look at his face, and wondered if he mightn't be considering walking away and leaving her out there. Would she be able to get out?

"Likely the same person who conjured the Dark Mark this summer," he said at last.

Her relief at his finally answering vanished in a puff of alarm. "Who's _that?"_

"I don't know," he said, with an edge of icy fury. "That's rather the problem."

"But. . . they're at Hogwarts?"

"Obviously."

"So. . . it's got to be someone from the visiting schools?"

"It's entirely possible. But magic can disguise many things." He shifted the torch to his other hand. "It's late, and the Gryffindors will be wondering where you've gone." But instead of leading her away, he looked down at her and said, "This tournament is a prime opportunity to deal you a serious injury, Miss Potter, while making it look like an accident."

"But they could've just pushed a statue over on me, or something," she said, frowning. "Like Tom Riddle's diary had Ginny do."

"Yes," Snape said, almost like he was genuinely surprised she'd figure this out. She scowled. "Which suggests there is something larger at work. Aside from the likely overlap in culprits, I doubt the incident at the World Cup is unconnected to this. . . mystery."

She had a feeling he'd been about to use one of those words he and Sirius specialized in. She took a moment to translate. "You mean they're part of the same plan?"

"It would be reasonable to think so. Therefore you will tread very carefully, and will not slack off in your preparations for these tasks. You are three years behind the others in age and schooling, and you spent half of last year battling amnesia. When it comes to preparing for this tournament, you will do _exactly_ as I say."

She blinked. "But I'm not supposed to get help from teachers."

"What do you take me for? I've just said you're _three years_ behind the others; do you think for one moment, Miss Potter, that I am going to let you go forward as you see fit?"

Well. So much for thinking he was offended she'd suggest he'd help her cheat. He was offended she'd suggest he _wouldn't._ "But the rules—"

"Karkaroff and Maxime will not let their champions proceed unassisted, I assure you. They will use whatever tactics they need to get their favorites ahead, even if it involves cheating thrice over. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall may be as high-minded as they like and see where it gets you. You may desire to complete their triumvirate of honorable idiots, but you're taking my help whether you like it or not."

Harriet wasn't sure whether to be amused, relieved, touched, or offended. Probably all four, and then some. "It won't get me disqualified, will it?" she asked hopefully.

"Unfortunately not." He really did sound like this frustrated him. "Cheating is a time-honored tradition in this tournament.

"I will contact you when I am ready to begin," he said. "We'll pretend it's more review."

Harriet's annoyance from that morning resurfaced, but Snape was turning to go.

"Follow closely," he said over his shoulder. "You don't want to be left in here."

Believing that wholeheartedly, she followed him off the bridge-back into the corridor they'd come down. It would figure the bridge looped around on itself. Whoever had built it had had a mind like Snape's.

* * *

Even though he doubted Miss Potter's enemies would try to do her in on the same night they went to the extreme trouble of tricking her into the Triwizard Tournament, Severus wasn't taking any fucking chances. He saw Miss Potter upstairs to her tower, where she bade him one of those pseudo-dignified good nights that communicated she was miffed at him, and disappeared into her common room with as much an air of lofty unconcern as one could muster whilst climbing through a hole in the wall.

_You were a Death Eater, weren't you?_

He went to look for the Goblet.

Someone had tampered with it, but there were ways to figure out who they were. Magic left traces as individualized as fingerprints. Dumbledore wouldn't let him perform the identification spells, but Dumbledore needn't know. Severus only hoped the Goblet hadn't been sent away with Bagman or Crouch. It would make getting to it more difficult.

In the Entrance Hall, only one torch was still lit, flickering on the wall. And Dumbledore sat in a comfy-looking chair in the middle of the flagstone floor, his fingers laced, absently watching the fire burn.

He glanced up at Severus, his expression unreadable underneath all the beard. Severus, however, wasn't fooled, nor by his air of an old man patiently waiting. He narrowed his eyes.

Dumbledore silently gestured him down from the stairs. Severus went, doing his bloody-minded damnedest to radiate his own aura of not giving a shit for whatever Dumbledore was preparing to scold him about.

Dumbledore cast a privacy spell in the space around them, one of Severus' own. Dumbledore used no words, but Severus knew the prickle of his own spell, as familiar as a song he'd heard every day of his life.

"It was good of you to see Harriet back to Gryffindor," Dumbledore said. "She must have been rather shaken up. A little reassurance would have been vastly helpful."

Severus was certain that Dumbledore had no eye or ear onto the Bridge to Nowhere, that it was impossible anyone should. That little dart of doubt owed itself to Dumbledore's talent for making you believe, beyond all reason, that he was omniscient.

_It is if he wants to kill me and you're a Death Eater and you worked for him!_

"Do you seriously believe I could ever be reassuring?" he asked.

Dumbledore smiled. "I think you might possess your own roundabout way to go about it—should you choose." Then the smile faded back into his beard, and he looked at Severus with that solemn gaze that you thought could shoot as straight as an arrow to your soul, missing nothing. "The Goblet has been returned to the Ministry, Severus, and I must ask you not to pursue it."

Severus should have known Dumbledore would entirely guess at what he was going to do. "You may _ask_ whatever you like, Headmaster."

"I will forbid it, if need be," Dumbledore said, quite calmly. "As well as the methods you would use to obtain information from it. Though I wish that could go without saying. . ."

"I seem to remember you telling me," Severus said, narrowing his eyes so sharply it hurt, "some similar time ago, that _needs must_."

Dumbledore did not look away in shame; instead, he gazed back at Severus, calm as ever. The irony was that conversation had taken place exactly thirteen years ago, on Hallowe'en night, when Lily was newly dead and Dumbledore had sent her child into the heart of a family who would loathe it. Severus had pictured Lily's face so clearly, her anguish and fury if she'd known, and told Dumbledore, "You can't send her there."

"Needs must, Severus," Dumbledore had said. "Harriet's safety is paramount."

Now Severus said, "Is Miss Potter's safety no longer paramount?"

Dumbledore's expression didn't change; not a hair of his hoary eyebrows twitched. "You know that it is," he said. "But Dark magic will not make her safer, Severus. It will only hurt—"

"Dark magic can find the one who threatens her!" Severus snarled, abandoning his flimsy pretense of calm. "That person who's walking our halls and our grounds right now, it can be used to trap them and ensure they never do any worse than they're clearly trying to do!"

"It is not a price I am willing to pay," Dumbledore said, with a surety that ran to iron beneath the rational tone of his voice.

"It's my price to pay, not yours!"

"And this time, as all the times before, Severus, I shall refuse to let you pay it." An edge of iron pierced Dumbledore's gaze. "You broke your word to me, Severus, last year, with the spell to locate Peter Pettigrew."

"It was the only moment in his wretched life Lupin proved good for something," Severus snarled.

"When I accepted you into the heart of this school, you swore to me that you would use no Dark magic," Dumbledore said, gazing at him hard. "You broke that promise. Knowing you as I do, I doubt you gave it a moment's thought. I have never been able to sway you from believing Dark magic should be shunned, but I thought your care for me might have influenced you where reason would not."

"Apparently not," Severus said, baring his teeth, the resentment at this bare-handed emotional manipulation flaring as bright as Miss Potter's temper.

"No," Dumbledore murmured. "You did not give your allegiance to Voldemort a single thought when Lily's life was at stake."

He wanted to hex Dumbledore in the chest, hex a hole right through it.

_You could've killed me loads of times. You could push me off the bridge right now. And you. . . you've got the Patronus._

"I am humbled, truly, by the devotion you have shown Harriet," Dumbledore said. "I believe she is the stronger for it." His mustache twitched. "If perhaps not always in a way she'd prefer. . . But I cannot allow her to be exposed to Dark magic."

Severus found his voice to spit, "She wouldn't be exposed—"

"She would be, if you took up the practice again, Severus. That is a slippery slope, one I spent years helping you level out. Backsliding now would be dangerous."

"How long is this metaphor going to go on?"

"Especially," Dumbledore went on, ignoring him, "now that the Dark Lord is rising again. You will be tempted, Severus—"

"I will surely be _required."_

"—and that is all the more reason to do it no more than you must. Thirteen years ago I told you I must draw a firm line and not allow you to cross it. Dark magic that is not required to maintain your cover is crossing that line, Severus. You cannot."

Whatever he saw in Severus' face made him sigh. "I do not at all wish it, but if needs be, I will make it so that you cannot be near Harriet except for classes. It would not be a punishment—"

" _Wouldn't it_?" Severus was so angry he was surprised the words came out at all.

"—it would be for her protection." Dumbledore looked at him, solemn, almost sad. "The decision is yours, Severus. Will Harriet have the benefit of protection from you, or from the Dark Arts?"

He cancelled the silencing spell. When he went to walk past Severus, he raised his hand as if to touch his shoulder; but something in his eyes flickered, and he let his hand drop.

"Good night, Severus," he said quietly, and climbed the stairs out of sight.

* * *

Remus awoke to the smell of bacon grease. Familiar. So, too, the aches, the burn of pain in every limb; the throbbing in his skull, the sandpapery scratch of his throat.

The mattress dipped. "Moony?" said Sirius' voice, hurting his ears. A hand smoothed across Remus' forehead, not-hurting. "You in the land of the living, yet?"

Remus tried to say something. At least, he thought he did. He might've heard a grunt. After that, he heard nothing.

When he opened his eyes a second time, the smell of bacon was gone but he still hurt. A pale strip of light wavered on the ceiling. He heard the drumming of rain on the roof.

 _Padfoot?_ he thought, because he couldn't say it. When he tried moving his head, his neck shot molten pain straight into his brain. He closed his eyes again.

He opened them a third time to lamplight. Padfoot was reading in the chair in the corner, an incongruous sight. He glanced up, then put the book aside and moved over to the bed.

"Water," he said, poured a glass from the pitcher on the bedside table, and helped Remus sit up to drink it. Remus would almost rather have endured the pain in his throat than the weakness of being unable to prop himself up. Almost. The loathing was acute, but the pain was worse.

"I. . . slept. . . day?" Remus croaked, despite how much it really fucking hurt to talk.

"Yeah," Sirius said. "I had to eat all the breakfast." He put his hand on Remus' forehead again, as if checking for a temperature, and then withdrew it. "D'you want me to make something now?"

"No." Because he wasn't sure he could eat anything right now. His throat hurt too much. ". . . time?"

"Past two in the morning. Sunday, now."

Remus was too exhausted to nod. He shouldn't have been this incapacitated on the Wolfsbane, not even on Hallowe'en. Either the potion was losing its effectiveness, or. . .

He was surprised Sirius wasn't giving vent to a tirade about Snape, after saving it up all day. Instead, he looked eerily thoughtful in the shabby yellow light from the lamp.

"I've been reading this bodice ripper of Holly-berry's," he said. "I've got to admit, I'm not sure how I feel about her reading this sexy stuff."

"You'n James. . . magazines. You. . . were her age," Remus said, weary. He'd have been amused except for this uncharacteristic calm.

"I swear these books are worse. I'm hoping she doesn't know what half of it really means." He was silent for a moment. "You want to sleep some more?"

Remus absolutely did not, but his body did. When he closed his eyes, he sank down into a river of black laced with images of a silver circle burning bright above a colorless landscape, and running running running, a small black dog at his side.

* * *

As soon as Harriet awoke on Sunday, she wanted to pull her pillow over her head and sleep through the whole tournament. But Parvati and Lavender were banging about, putting on their makeup, so there was no hope of getting back to sleep. After three years of sharing a dorm with them, she knew better than to lie there hoping they'd be done soon, especially on a Sunday when they didn't have to rush their regime to get to class.

She pulled open her hangings, looking toward Hermione's bed, but it was empty. Her heart sank. Hermione had been asleep when she'd got back last night, too—asleep with her head on a book, but still asleep. She hadn't seen Ron at all.

"Morning, Harriet," Parvati said brightly, looking at her through the mirror. She was drawing around her eye with liquid eyeliner, which Harriet knew to be a delicate process.

"How did the Champion sleep?" Lavender asked. She didn't look around either, but she could have; she was just brushing out her hair. And there was an edge in her voice, like she'd drawn a line along that question, as stark as Parvati's eyeliner.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harriet asked, rather sharply herself.

Lavender shrugged, fake-casual. "Just wondering if you'd rested up after all the excitement last night."

Parvati glanced at her, a faint crease between her eyebrows, but didn't say anything.

"Fine," Harriet said shortly. "Thanks for the concern." She got dressed as quickly as possible and left. Parvati smiled nervously at her, but Lavender gave no sign that she noticed Harriet even existed.

 _What the hell was that about?_ Harriet stomped down the stairs. Damn, she'd meant to ask them if they knew where Hermione had gone.

The people in the common room whistled and clapped when she walked in. The room still smelled like spilt butterbeer and smoke from the fireworks Fred and George had let off last night in celebration. She scanned the sleepy faces as she speed-walked toward the portrait hole, but she didn't see Ron or Hermione. Where were they?

She swung the portrait open and almost hit Hermione in the chin with the frame.

"Hi," Hermione said, smiling once she'd recovered from the surprise of a near-braining. "Want some breakfast?" She held up a stack of buttery toast on a napkin. "I thought you might not want to go to the Great Hall, what with. . . everything."

"Yeah," Harriet said, her heart lifting with relief and gratitude. "I mean, no. I—thanks."

As they made their way outside onto the grounds, Harriet told Hermione about Lavender's odd behavior that morning.

"Ignore her," Hermione said flatly. "I haven't a clue what her problem is, and honestly, it's not worth figuring out."

"Why? Did she say something?" Harriet asked, bewildered. She'd never actually quarreled with Lavender, only Parvati, and Parvati had been perfectly friendly since Harriet had apologized weeks ago.

"She's probably stewing with jealousy that you'll have a prime opportunity to get Cedric and Krum's autographs. Just ignore her, it's not worth wasting your time."

But this didn't really make Harriet feel better. She didn't know why, though. She didn't like Lavender very much on a good day; why should she care if Lavender resented her?

She nibbled at the corner of a piece of toast as they walked down toward the lake. It had rained in the night, and the ground was damp. Quicksilver light gleamed on the horizon across the lake, and dark clouds hung down in trailing wisps. The Durmstrang ship was moored out on the water, its sails tied up, its deck empty. Harriet wondered if Krum was celebrating. She had a hard time imagining it. He hadn't even seemed to care he'd caught the Snitch at the World Cup. It was only marginally more difficult to imagine Snape smiling—not one of those cruel smiles, but a pleased, happy smile. Snape's face probably didn't even know how to move that way.

"I'm sorry I feel asleep last night before you got back," Hermione said. "I was waiting up for you, but you were gone for so long, I dropped off without realizing. When I woke up, you were already in bed."

"It's fine," Harriet said, trying not to show her relief. A movement down the slope caught her eye. "Is that Ron?" she asked, squinting at the lone person standing on the lake shore next to the water, sloppily skipping stones. His fox-colored hair was the only mote of color in the whole dreary landscape.

"Listen," Hermione said, and then stopped. Harriet strained her ears, looking round, but Hermione sighed. "Sorry, I mean, to what I'm about to say. Ron. . . has a slightly silly idea that maybe you put your name in. He doesn't _really_ believe it," she said hurriedly when Harriet gaped at her. "He's just a bit jealous, and he fixated on the fact that your mood was rather off yesterday, that's all—"

 _"You_ don't think I put my name in, do you?" Harriet asked, swallowing. It had never occurred to her that Ron would think she was lying.

"Of course not—if for nothing else, the look on your face when Dumbledore said your name!" Hermione shook her head. "I told Ron your mood had to do with Snape. I think he'd have listened to me if you hadn't been gone for so long—"

"That wasn't my fault," Harriet said heatedly.

"I know it wasn't," Hermione said simply, and Harriet's indignation guttered. "We can talk to him now, at any rate."

They'd reached the shore. Ron saw them coming, but glanced away as if he hadn't, and chucked another rock out into the lake. It arced out, failed to skip even once, and disappeared beneath the surface with a dispirited _gloop._

"Morning," Hermione said, forcing a note of brightness into her voice.

Ron grunted and picked up another rock. He tossed it in the air once or twice, as if testing it, and then slung it out over the water. It hit the surface with an undignified _slorpf_ and vanished.

Hermione looked at Harriet in a clear plea to say something, but if Ron didn't believe her, she wasn't going to be the one to talk first. She looked pointedly away, out at Durmstrang's ship, as if it were as riveting as a Krum-sighting.

"Lucky this isn't the First Task," Ron said abruptly. His fist clenched round the next rock. "I'd get flattened. I s'pose it's a good thing I didn't get my name in after all."

When he hurled the rock out, its sloppy splash echoed across the water. Hermione winced.

Harriet threw down the remains of her toast, strode over to Ron and tore the next rock out of his hand. When she chucked it at the lake, it hit with a _gloop_ like all of his, not even skipping once.

"It's too fucking bad mine did, then," she snarled. "Look at that! I'll be last place!"

"Harriet," said Hermione.

"If you've got something to say to me," Harriet said, shaking with anger, with something else maybe, not looking at Ron but glaring out across the gentle surface of the water, where the ripples of their rocks had already faded, "why don't you just come out and fucking say it?"

"What's to say?" Ron asked in a low voice, shaking a bit like Harriet was.

"Not a bloody fucking thing, I guess." Harriet turned to storm off.

"Harriet, you stay right there," Hermione said sharply. "Ron, you stop this right _now—both_ of you, stop it! Harriet, Ron knows perfectly well you didn't put your name in. Do you both hear me?"

"How'd it get in, then?" Ron asked, his words a bit muffled, probably from clenching his jaw.

 _Snape and Moody think it's because someone wants me dead_ , Harriet thought. But it felt melodramatic to say it, melodramatic and something else. Moody was paranoid, and it was a wonder Snape let her use chopping knives in Potions, as mental as he got about her safety. Snape and Moody thinking someone was trying to kill her was quite normal for them. But saying it out here, to Ron and Hermione. . .

 _Spread the tale to your cronies Weasley and Granger, have you, then?_ Snape had asked.

 _I never told_ them, she'd said. _They'd just have a fit._

"I don't know," Harriet said. "I don't know how they did it or. . . or who they are who'd want me in it."

She looked at Ron. He was still staring across the water, his jaw jutting out. He didn't say anything for a long time, so long she thought he wasn't going to. Her heart was sinking like the rocks they'd thrown into the lake. She didn't dare look at Hermione, to see her reaction, the disappointment in her face—

Then he said roughly, "Well, it can't be for anything good."

Harriet's heart stopped its descent and started floating back upward, like it had turned to pumice. Ron kicked at his pile of rocks, hands shoved into his pockets.

"I'm going to make a complete arse of myself," she said.

"You never once talked about being in it," Ron said, squishing a rock into the muddy bank with the heel of his shoe. "Reckon that was sensible of you."

"Well," Harriet said. "That's debatable. Look where it got me."

* * *

Remus woke up late on Sunday, to his frustration. He refused to lie in bed any longer, and sat on the couch despite the screaming dissent of every bone and muscle in his body.

"Moony," said Sirius, eventually. "You're sweating with the effort of staying upright."

"It's the blanket," Remus lied. "It's too heavy."

"You can give me that load of bollocks as long as you stop bloody torturing yourself and lie down."

Remus' back sent a fresh flare of pain, as fierce as brushfire, from tip to tip along his spine. "I'm fine."

Sirius sighed raggedly, but he let it drop. He slopped boiling water from the kettle into a cup, then dumped in the tea leaves, cranked the timer, and shoved the bakery-bought scones onto a plate, all without saying anything more. He floated the sugar and cream pots over when he brought the tea, because everyone knew Sirius couldn't even consistently make tea the way _he_ liked it.

Then he set everything on the coffee table and said casually, "There you go. Tuck in, mate."

Remus was tolerably sure he controlled his expression. Sirius slouched in the ugly purple armchair, sipping at his own tea, his expression as studiedly casual as his voice. Remus refused to give him so much as a dirty look. Glaring at Sirius would be as much a form of defeat as asking him to pass anything over.

Instead, he said, "Thank you," and steeled himself for the agony as he reached for the teacup.

His throbbing, searing, sobbing arm got about halfway there before Sirius said, "You stubborn bloody-minded bastard," and grabbed the tea cup off the table, pushing at him.

"I don't need to be waited on," Remus said mildly, as his back, shoulders, and sides shrieked and twisted. Instead of taking the cup from Sirius, he changed direction and reached for the cream pot.

His back decided it had had enough, then. It seized up and the sudden clench of pain made him fall off the couch. At least he would be able to pretend it was only the banging at the window, startling him into losing his balance.

"I'm fine," he said hoarsely, his neck aching with the effort of clenching back some noise of pain. "See to the mail? That bird's giving me the headache."

Crouched over the table, Sirius glared at him, but he got up and strode out of Remus' view. Remus shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, and hauled himself back onto the couch, whilst Sirius clattered at the window.

"It's from Holly-berry," Sirius said shortly over his shoulder. Now Remus could see Hedwig, preening on Sirius' shoulder.

Remus wanted to say it must be about the tournament—that would make a nice, normal reply—but he couldn't expend the energy. He slumped against the back of the sofa, breathing out.

"Listen to this!" Sirius burst out in a voice that rattled the windows and made Hedwig hoot indignantly. Remus' eyes flew open and his neck clenched painfully when he looked wildly toward the kitchen. Sirius' face had hardened into fury as he looked down at the letter. The only thing Remus could imagine sweet _Harriet_ writing to achieve that reaction was something pertaining to Snape.

"'Dear Moony and Padfoot,'" Sirius read out, his teeth clenched, "'I hope you're both doing okay, especially Remus. The Triwizard Tournament's officially started, the other schools arrived on Friday night, and on Saturday night the champions were picked, including me.'"

"What?" Remus sat up so fast he knocked his pillow to the floor and wrenched twelve different muscles in his back.

"'I got picked as fourth champion,'" Sirius read in a voice thrumming with fury. "'I don't know who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn't. The other professors have gone over it and apparently I have to compete in the tournament now, the contract with the Goblet is binding. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff. Please don't come barging into the school to wring people's necks, it would only get you arrested, love Harriet.'" He thrust the letter at Remus, his eyes burning. "Fourth champion, Moony. Fourth _fucking_ champion!"

Remus took the letter and scanned it, though it told him nothing Sirius hadn't just read out. "Good God."

Meanwhile, Sirius was ranting and storming, even waving his arms above his head. "—not fucking competing, if I have to barge the fuck down there and Imperio everybody I see, there's no fucking way—"

"'I don't know who put my name in the Goblet, because I didn't,'" Remus read aloud. "Dear God." He knew he was sounding like a broken record, but. . . "That means—Sirius, this means the person who conjured that Mark is either at Hogwarts, or their accomplice is. No one could have a reason to enter Harriet into this competition who didn't want—"

"I know." Sirius threw himself into a chair, jiggled his leg, raked a hand through his hair. "I'm—"

"You're not going anywhere," Remus said sharply.

"She could go through the Willow," he said, standing, "she could meet—"

"Sirius, there is someone at Hogwarts who is Harriet's enemy, and we don't even know who it is—"

"All the more reason to see her!"

"No, because they're sure to be watching her. Getting yourself captured is not going to help her."

Sirius glared, his leg still jiggling, even though he was standing. He turned his back on Remus and started stalking up and down the tiny parlor, muttering to himself.

"We need to write her back," Remus said, "reassuring her."

"Holly-berry doesn't like being lied to," Sirius fired over his shoulder.

"Not lying to her, but not alarming her, either. Look at this letter." Remus scanned it again without taking in a single word; every jot was already burnt into his memory. "There's not a hint of how anxious she's got to be. Harriet needs to pretend that things don't bother her, but they do. She's still a child, Sirius, however much she wouldn't care to have it pointed out to her."

"I don't see the point of treating her like a kid when she has to deal with all of this shit that other kids don't," Sirius snarled.

"I'm not saying we should patronize her, I'm saying we need to be aware of the ways in which she's still inherently a child. Right now, she needs to be reassured."

Sirius muttered some more. His eyes were narrowed, stormy, hard, roiling.

"If you're bloody well sure," he said at last, eyes still narrowed.

"I am."

Sirius turned to look out the window. "I'm never able to be there, Remus," he said, his back still to Remus, who felt suddenly, vastly sad.

"You were there last year."

"When she really needs me, I mean. Whenever she's really needed me, I've always been somewhere fucking else." When he turned back around, the resolve in his face was built like granite beneath his skin. "Not this time."

"Sirius—"

"I'm not going to barge in and start wringing necks. I'll write the damn letter. But I'm telling you, I'm not sitting back and twiddling my thumbs, letting everyone do fuck-all except me. I'm finding a way to get her out of it, Moony. You can count on that."


	60. Cheat, Lie, Sneak and Snipe

On Sunday night, by the light of a waning moon, a snowy white owl flew away from a small croft, damp from a lengthy rain that had drummed all afternoon.

Shortly after that, all the lights in the house went out. Except for edges where the moonlight glowed on stone or glass, the house was as dark as the landscape around it.

Some time later, the door opened, and a tiny Scops owl fluttered out, winging off excitedly in the same direction the first owl had gone.

* * *

The gibbous moon was still full enough to light Severus' path to the lake. The water sloshed in the darkness, and the decrepit dingy tied to the rickety pier clunked against a pillar. He'd never have admitted he found the sound pleasant.

Getting into the damned dinghy, however, was not remotely pleasant. He managed it without dumping himself into the lake, but it was a bloody good thing it was so dark out; at least no one could see him.

He tapped his wand against the hull and tried not to capsize as the dinghy glided away from the shore, toward the Durmstrang ship.

Dumbledore had always censured Severus' full talents. He thought _lines should be drawn_. He didn't understand that Severus had drawn a line thirteen years ago, a line that had been crossed the night Dumbledore and all of his faith in goodness had failed to keep Lily safe. How could Severus endure that again?

The question _—_ how to best protect Miss Potter when Dumbledore refused him the right to do what he did best _—_ how he would really know if Severus broke his word _—_ had kept him awake last night. But when the cold light of morning had crept up the battlements, a certainty had dawned within him that if need be, he would break his word to Dumbledore a thousand times and still find a way to get Miss Potter what she required to be safe.

If need be.

At present, he would be Slytherin about it. Sometimes, that meant pretending you were cowed.

At other times, it meant something quite different.

With its sails tied up, Karkaroff's ship looked skeletal, bare masts bracketing the sallow light of the moon. Its portholes gleamed hollow in the darkness, reflecting dully on the water. Sounds of laughter drifted across the water, even a murmur of music.

The dinghy wobbled up to the ship and thunked gently against the hull. He nudged it down to the ladder and climbed up with great care. He'd never been the most coordinated person, and the rungs were slippery with algae.

Considering they were a bunch of vapid teenagers, the Durmstrang lot noticed him quickly enough, though they did nothing but gape unproductively. Severus took in the bottles, the old gramophone playing a song in a language he didn't recognize, the pairs that had been (and in some cases still were) snogging, and walked straight past the lot of them. They said nothing. The warbling on the gramophone was the only sound as he approached the door that he hoped led to the captain's cabin.

He let himself in without knocking.

It was indeed the captain's cabin: sumptuous, ornate, overblown. Karkaroff hadn't sold out as many of his comrades as he could name to live a life barren of luxury. He was lounging on a divan when Severus walked in, a long, thin pipe dangling from his fingers, his head tipped back and a cloud of smoke hovering above his face. No wonder the room was so fucking stuffy and cloying.

Karkaroff glanced up at the sound of the door opening, his face creasing with annoyance, which vanished with an almost comical abruptness when he saw who it was.

"What the devil are you doing here?" he asked, and Severus was pleased to note that he sounded unnerved. Karkaroff tried to bury it under haughty disdain, but the unease played in Severus' ears as sweetly as the sound of the water and the hollow wood.

Severus shut the door behind himself. He could still hear the music playing, tinny through the wood. He leaned out the open window to pull the casement shut, and the music snuffed out.

Karkaroff stumbled to his feet, gripping the pipe in one hand, the other groping in his robe, which was open over a knee-length undershirt trimmed in gold thread, for his wand.

"Wh-whatever you are thinking of doing _—_ " Karkaroff said, looking absurd as he brandished his pipe.

"Shut up," said Severus.

The divan jerked forward, colliding with the back of Karkaroff's knees and knocking him off his feet. He landed, flopping, on his back, the wand, not the pipe, falling from his hand, and gripped the frame as the divan juddered across the floor.

The divan slid to a stop at Severus' feet. Karkaroff tried to scramble up, but Severus flicked a spell to hold him down.

"Stay," Severus said.

Karkaroff's eyes were wide and white, and Severus hadn't even done anything yet. Had Karkaroff always been this much of a coward? Or was this preemptive fear evidence of his guilt?

Severus was out of practice. And yet he remembered doing this sort of thing before, remembered it so well. . .  
People were always banging on about the power of scent to evoke memory, but for Severus it was this white ring of wide eyes, the sharp, quick breaths. They summoned the spells, tingling, through his blood to his tongue and fingertips. He felt a gentle brush of power, so long-forgotten, so beloved, the pleasure of it tinged with nausea, a feeling akin to smoking half a pack of cigarettes when he'd gone too long without food.

 _Will Harriet have the benefit of protection from you, or from the Dark arts?_ whispered a voice that trickled through his mind like smoke, and it did not sound like Dumbledore's, though those had been his words, nor like any voice he recognized.

Severus did not need the Dark Arts to do his dirty work, the way an artist did not need paint but could draw with a piece of charcoal taken from a pit in the ground. And yet the result would never be the same; never so perfect.

Yet he could do it, if need be.

He didn't need the Dark Arts to be cruel.

"Hello, Igor," he said.

"S-Severus." Karkaroff breathed through his mouth, and risked a twitch of his lips. Severus hadn't seen him in thirteen years, but he didn't need Leglimency or an x-ray to watch the gears turning in his head: _First names? First names are good, yes. I'll play along._ "If you wanted to have a chat, my dear boy, you could have just said so."

 _My dear boy_. Dumbledore called him that.

"A chat," Severus repeated, in such a way calculated to make the smile flicker on Karkaroff's face; it worked. "Yes, Igor. A chat is what I want. Just as in the old days."

He had the satisfaction of watching the flickering smile drain away and die completely.

* * *

Hedwig returned Sunday night, so late Harriet was getting ready for bed. It had been raining all afternoon at Hogwarts, and since Remus' and Sirius' croft was somewhere in the highlands, too, Harriet had assumed they hadn't wanted to send Hedwig out till the rain had stopped.

Harriet heard the tapping at the window when her head was still submerged in her nightdress, and she tugged it down fast, the elastic on the neckline scraping her nose, so she could let Hedwig in. Her wings were beaded with moisture, and the letter tied to her leg was damp, but she looked pleased with herself.

"Fan mail _already_ ," Harriet heard Lavender fake-whisper to Parvati. Harriet grit her teeth, but at least they weren't asking her who it was from.

She climbed into bed and jerked the hangings shut on the side between her bed and Parvati's, and read the letter in the mingled light from the lamp and the moon:

_Dearest Harriet,_

_Fourth Champion? My poor girl, nothing is ever simple for you, is it?_

_Sirius is still fuming, but he'll be writing to you later. He tends to forget he's literate when in states of high emotion. At least, his letters would contain only vocabulary that would see you in deep trouble with any teacher who heard you applying it, especially Professor McGonagall._

_I know you don't like being lied to, so I won't: your name in the Goblet is a troubling circumstance. It doesn't mean anything good. But whatever foe is behind it, you have many more people watching out for you. Sirius is vowing—but now he's ready, so I'll let him tell you._

_Holly-berry—_

(The following sentence had a line drawn through it, but was not erased _._ )

_Don't you worry, I'm going to find whatever sorry fucking cocksucker did this and put his balls in a vice_

_I'm going to find who did this and make them sorry I was ever born._

(Remus' handwriting picked up again.)

_It must have been deeply upsetting to find yourself taking part in the Tournament like that, without any warning. Sirius is convinced he can think of something to get you out of it; but if Dumbledore thinks you must compete, I'm inclined to think you must. Sirius wishes for me to remind you that he managed to become an Animagus at 15—no small feat considering it required him to study._

_As it is, I know that Dumbledore would not have consented to the Tournament's revival if he was not able to assure the health and safety of the champions. The Age Restriction isn't the only new regulation in place. This Tournament will be safer than any one previous. Even if we suppose the person who entered you into the Tournament does not wish you well, this turn they've served you has put Dumbledore on the alert. He's not an easy man to fool twice —or even once, when he's prepared._

_Know that we love you. We're watching out for you. R &S_

_P.S. We'll see you first Hogsmeade weekend in three weeks' time._

Harriet lowered the letter feeling a mixture of warmth and disappointment. She didn't know what she'd been hoping for, but this somehow wasn't it. She felt cared for, she knew they were concerned (enraged, in Sirius' case), and yet. . .

She supposed it just wasn't in anyone's power to make her feel better.

She clicked off her bedside lamp and lay facing the window, the bright face of the moon. One by one the other lamps went off, though Parvati and Lavender's whispers trickled through the dark for a long time, until they finally stopped giggling together and fell asleep.

Harriet still lay wide awake, watching without seeing as the moon gradually shifted out of sight. When she shut her eyes, she could still see it, glowing like the Goblet as Cedric Diggory dropped his name in and smiled as everyone cheered.

* * *

_"I know nothing, nothing! It was Dumbledore—it was someone at your school who—"_

_"Why? Why someone at Hogwarts?"_

_"It was not me! Viktor—I want Viktor to win! I—"_

_"You'd never have submitted the girl? Not even for the Dark Lord?"_

_"I—I—S-severus—"_

Some noise. . . something was twittering nearby. . .

A bird. . . ?

Severus opened his eyes. The memory of Karkaroff's sweat-streaked face receded, replaced by the shadows of his bedroom and the truly teeth-gritting chirping of a post owl.

There was only one bird he knew of that made such a piss-annoying racket.

"What the devil does the werewolf want?" he grunted, as he Summoned the owl straight to his hand.

 _"Severus,"_ read the letter, _"I hate to trouble you on this matter, but it's about the Wolfsbane. You're busy, so I'll get straight to the point."_

Well, that was positively terse, for Lupin. Severus was almost interested to know what could have punctured Lupin's beyond-tedious respect for niceties.

_"This moon it seems to have gone off, or taken effect rather oddly, I can't say. I usually remember things quite well when I've taken it, but this time it's like trying to remember a dream, and I'm in rather a lot of pain."_

Severus read that line again. Lupin, admitting he was in pain? He must be in such agony that it was blotting out the sting of his pride.

_"I slept all of yesterday and much of today, and I'm still extremely tired and don't have as much appetite as usual."_

The handwriting on the next sentence was a bit different _,_ almost as if Lupin had been hesitating as he wrote it. _"Sirius hasn't said if I was acting any differently, but he's being rather cagey."_ Then it straightened out again. _"Do you know if this is a side-effect of long-term use? Again, I'm sorry to bother you, but if it's losing its effectiveness. RL."_

Severus translated the abrupt ending as Lupin's refusal to contemplate the alternative. Or perhaps he felt Severus didn't need it spelled out for him.

Well, it was like Lupin to avoid blaming Severus for botching the potion, which Severus knew he hadn't done, because he always checked it thoroughly in each stage. If the potion ever failed to take effect, that would surely be the night Miss Potter decided to go wandering the Scottish countryside, alone.

He got out of bed and went to the parlor to find his cigarettes.

 _"The problem is lack of data,"_ he wrote to Lupin, brushing ash off the page. _"You are probably one of the only werewolves, if not the only one, to have taken the Wolfsbane so continuously. Although Belby's program showed success in its early stages, Regulation and Control decided it was too cost-prohibitive and shut it down."_ But Lupin surely knew that already, so Severus erased that last sentence. _"Unfortunately, I shall have to consult with you on this. I should have time one evening this week. Make sure you are at home."_

He sent the owl off and lit another cigarette as he thought. Not about Lupin; that could wait till later.

About Karkaroff.

The pathetic old bastard hadn't put Miss Potter's name in the Goblet, nor had he known anything about it. Severus hadn't held out much hope that he would, but. . .

Useless, gibbering _—_

Severus tried to remember if he'd enjoyed it, as a young man, when they'd broken so easily. He couldn't recall.

He remembered their faces, instead. He remembered the spells, the ones he'd created, for each purpose the Dark Lord required and others he hadn't asked for. He remembered the Dark Lord smiling at him, in a way that had seemed so real, praising him. . .

He crushed the cigarette into the ashtray so hard his knuckles ached.

He smoked three pre-breakfast cigarettes in total and drank his coffee in his chambers, since the house-elves never brewed it strong enough, before trudging upstairs for some tea and a crust of dry toast. His customary seat was far from Dumbledore and Sprout, who both committed the gross indecency of being morning people; perhaps that was why it took him so long to notice what, precisely, was going on.

Sprout and Minerva were at odds.

Sprout was a morning person and Minerva decidedly not. She'd spent every breakfast for the past thirteen years looking pained by Sprout's indecently early chirping, but that day Sprout did not smile once at Minerva, whose voice was cool enough to frost the tea. Severus had never seen that happen before. Something unpleasant must have been aired in the staff room while he was preparing to meet Karkaroff.

Did Sprout believe Miss Potter had insinuated herself into the Tournament? How much of that fucking special-brew tea had she drunk?

Well, if he was going to resent Sprout for being an idiot, he wanted to know the full story. He couldn't insult her properly otherwise.

He and Sprout had never really got on. Like Minerva, she'd taught him, of course, but he suspected that she simply didn't like him one bit, then as now. Being a Hufflepuff, she was always disgustingly fair in spite of it, but that made him avoid her all the more.

So he accosted Minerva instead. "Don't tell me you and Sprout are having a tiff over Miss Potter."

Minerva's nostrils flared and her spectacles flashed. He'd wondered before how she always managed to get her lenses to do that.

"Pomona has said nothing _directly_ ," Minerva said, her tone communicating what she thought of that. "Nothing at all _directly_. She's been almost completely silent on the matter, in fact."

"Hufflepuffs are passive-aggressive twits."

Minerva gave him an odd look. "Are you saying you believe Miss Potter had nothing to do with this… debacle?"  
There was a stress on the "you" that Severus found extremely annoying.

"Unlike Sprout, I am not a complete moron," he said in his most scathing tone, reserved for special occasions, and he left her _—_ staring after him, if that itch on his back was any indication.

But Sprout's attitude did not bode well. If the House of nauseatingly nice fatwits thought Miss Potter had insinuated herself in the Tournament, then Miss Potter's reception from the rest of the school would most likely prove to be even worse.

He was right.

He knew his own House would act as foul as possible, and with rampant glee; Miss Potter was unpopular there, having beaten Slytherin far too many times at Quidditch and helped wrangle the House Cup away from them two years ago. Draco was too spoilt to deal with his little crush in any mature way, and Parkinson loathed Miss Potter to the ends of the earth. It was inevitable that they'd do everything possible to make Miss Potter miserable.

So too could he have predicted the scathing denunciation of the Ravenclaws, if he'd bothered to think about a group so fundamentally boring: it was statistically much more likely that Miss Potter should finagle her way into the Tournament than someone should be setting up an elaborate scheme to kill her in the hopes of raising the Dark Lord once again. And it stood to reason the Hufflepuffs would bridle with resentment. He suspected it was because they got (and deserved) so little glory; they blamed Miss Potter for encroaching on it _—_ unfairly, an offense of greatest magnitude to the House of Do-good Duffers.

Even the Gryffindors' relative obliviousness to Miss Potter's sudden nose-dive in popularity was predictable. They were clearly pleased that the Fourth Champion was one of theirs, and did not seem to see beyond the end of their noises. It was all of a piece with Hogwarts, to Severus.

To Miss Potter, however, it was far less clear. She seemed unhappily resigned to the Hufflepuffs' attitudes, unsurprised by Slytherin's, and hurt and bewildered by the Ravenclaws. It would be painful to have the whole school suddenly turn against you, while not being able to tell them (or hope of being believed, if you did) the reason behind it.

Severus knew all of this instinctively; the knowledge appeared fully formed in his mind. Miss Potter's face, as he saw it over the course of the week during meal times, was so perfectly communicative _—_ of injury and increasing alienation _—_ it was like looking into a river of clear, flowing water and seeing straight to the bottom. Even Leglimency was not so lucid, for people's minds were as tangled as a bed of seaweed, murky and obfuscated. This flash of understanding _—_ it felt like that thing again.

It was... unnerving.

His natural impulse and favored tactic of late _—_ ignoring her _—_ was no option with a dragon looming in her future. He had sworn to give her assistance; he couldn't just pretend she didn't exist. Unfortunately.

Meanwhile, every time she turned up looking pale, unhappy, frustrated, he felt more restless and irritable than usual. Granger and Weasley were sticking to her like limpets. Weasley had appeared to be growing away from the girls, or perhaps it was the other way round; but whatever rift had begun to crack had closed itself on Hallowe'en, and they were inseparable again. It was rather nauseating, really.

Well, they were teenagers. It wouldn't last.

* * *

Sirius was up to something.

Remus hadn't known him for all those years to risk misinterpreting the signs. Sirius could be a right enigma, but only about things that he'd repressed, internalized, or ignored about himself. He was a deeply complex, often infuriating man, but he was not the world's most introspective person. In fact, he probably matched Lucius Malfoy in the Least Amount of Introspection Ever Indulged In.

Or perhaps he'd lost that title to Malfoy in prison.

At any rate, whenever Sirius got to scheming about something, he telegraphed it in myriad ways. First, he'd get restless. As a boy, he had been full of energy; as a young man, increasingly prone to bouts of haughty lounging interspersed with vigorous pranking; he'd always had a habit of kicking the furniture and stealing your books and quills as you were trying to study or write an essay _—_ but when he was in the early stages of plotting, when he had to deliberate his way through an idea, he'd tap. He'd beat his spoon against his leg. He'd rap his fingernail against his glass. He'd roll up a paper and knock a rhythm against the arm of his chair.

Remus had never failed to notice because it drove him absolutely spare.

When the plan's foundations had been laid, Sirius would start to whistle. There was no one tune; just scraps of songs he'd heard. Sirius was not a musical person, so the songs would crackle together and make your ears bleed. He'd perhaps start with the theme song to the Andy Griffith show (Remus had no idea where he'd ever heard that), blend into the William Tell Overture, and when he ran out of that, finish with a few bars of a Led Zepplin song. Back in the 70s, there had been far too much Led Zepplin, which was almost impossible to whistle anyway, especially by such a lousy whistler as Sirius.

The closer the plan got to fruition, the more Sirius would smirk privately to himself. He might chuckle every now and then, almost silently. And the day you found him lounging in a chair, long legs stretched out, hands folded behind his head, smiling at the ceiling like the world was his oyster, you knew it was time to find a place to hide until it was all over. Preferably with a helmet on.

Sometimes Remus had ached with jealousy that James was Sirius' best friend, not himself. Even when he and Sirius had fallen into bed together, even when James had married Lily, Remus had never been sure whether James had ceded his title to him. Mostly, he had been quite sure the title would forever belong to James. But whenever Sirius smiled at the ceiling like that, Remus was always, for a moment, grateful James was the Best Friend First and Always, because at least that way Remus had a hope of hiding away while Sirius brought the school down round their ears.

Now, though, there was no more James, and Remus just felt a sorrow so complex that he couldn't even bear to name all its facets.

The tapping started on Monday morning. Remus figured it had to do with Harriet and the Tournament, especially when it had not morphed into whistling by the following morning. All Monday and Tuesday, Sirius tapped. The patterns became increasingly erratic, until Remus was torn between wanting to scream, and wanting to reach over and stop Sirius' hands and tell him whatever it was, they'd let nothing happen to Harriet.

Then, mid-morning on Wednesday, the tapping stopped. Remus breathed a sigh of relief and braced for the whistling.

The whistling didn't come. Instead, Sirius hummed. Quietly, half of the notes so low that the tune faded in and out of Remus' ears. Sirius started going for walks, long ones that stretched for hours. On Wednesday he disappeared after lunch and was not back till the last warm remnants of the sunset were fading from sight. And then the next morning, before the sun had risen high enough to glisten on the dew, he was off again.

Remus worked in the garden and worried. He'd pushed himself outside on Monday, to get away from the tapping and to prove to himself that he wasn't as feeble as he felt; though he was still so sore and stiff and aching that Sirius found him asleep on the damp grass some hours later. Sirius called him a daft old man who dropped off no matter where he was, and Remus felt a flash of deep affection for him, for knowing exactly what to say _..._ how to make it a joke, how to rob it of all its seriousness.

Remus' worry proved to be as complex as his sorrow, and that was part of it: Sirius still knew Remus, while Remus sometimes felt he didn't know this new Sirius at all. Sometimes he thought this was an entirely different person with some of Sirius' traits, who occasionally looked like him but was not really him. It was a feeling similar to looking at Harriet and seeing pieces of James and Lily put together in unexpected ways, or sometimes _—_ often _—_ missing altogether.

One similar thing was that Sirius wouldn't let go of hating Snape. He'd foisted Snape's Death Eater past on Harriet _—_ going behind Albus' and Remus' backs in the process _—_ seized every chance to rile Snape, and thought and said the worst of him. Sirius would have been overjoyed if he found a way to take the odd, delicate scaffolding Harriet seemed to have built around the man and shatter it beyond repair. In short, he treated and regarded Snape exactly the way Snape regarded and treated him.

And yet, since Sunday he'd not once breathed a word of suspicion that Snape had been the one to put Harriet's name in the Goblet of Fire. He'd not blamed him for botching the Wolfsbane. He'd not said his name even once since receiving Harriet's letter.

It was not like him at all.

So Remus worried about that, too. He worried that because he sided with Dumbledore about Snape, Sirius would stop confiding in him. He remembered the bitter rows, the deep-seated resentment he'd caused all those years ago, when he'd accepted James' money and house over Sirius', precisely because James wasn't his lover, and how because Sirius hadn't understood _—_ of course he hadn't _—_ he'd started trusting Remus less, until he hadn't trusted him at all. He worried that Sirius was not keeping him at arms' length because of Azkaban and what it had done to him, but because Remus was failing to understand something about him, something fundamental, about the way he'd changed, about the person he'd become. And he worried that Sirius had given up his whistling and switched to humming and roaming the countryside for hours because Remus didn't know him anymore.

It was stupid and self-centered and Remus knew that. Sirius had changed because _Sirius_ had changed. Azkaban was about Sirius, not Remus.

At least, it should be. There were times in the last thirteen years when Remus had thought _You left me when you went there_ , and he couldn't be sure whether the extreme selfishness of that thought burned more for the unfairness toward Sirius and what he had suffered, or toward Lily and James. He'd thought _You left me_ to a man who'd been sent to prison for betraying their friends to their deaths. And though he knew you couldn't control thoughts and suspected that Hallowe'en had damaged something deep inside him, broken it forever, yet still he wondered if a good person wouldn't even have thought such a thing, if it would never even have occurred to them.

On Thursday night, Snape still hadn't visited, and Sirius returned well after dark. He threw himself in the horridly purple chair that Remus had decided could only be called Dumbledorian-violet, his shoulder-length hair wind-tousled. Like that, he looked more than ever like Harriet's uncle.

"Looked in on you a few times today," he said, slouching in the chair, but not kicking up his feet or lacing his hands behind his head or smiling. "You were poking at the plants, deep in thought, so I just kept going."

 _Before, me being deep in thought was a signal for you to come disturb me_ , Remus thought; but he was afraid he wouldn't be able to turn it into the joke Sirius could make of his falling asleep like an old man in the garden. "Sticking plants in the ground is a delicate business," he said instead. "Or so Pomona has informed me many times. Wincing heavily, for some reason."

"Well, you surely can't kill the whole garden," Sirius said. "Despite what your N.E.W.T. scores might've said."

"Let's not hold our breath." Remus closed the book he'd been reading _—_ a history of the Triwizard Tournament, which Albus had sent him on request _—_ and pushed it onto the coffee table.

"That looks damn bloody boring," said Sirius.

"It's about the Tournament. So it's rather frightening, really." He was glad in more ways than one that Sirius had come back when he had. He'd just been reading about the last Tournament in 1792, when a rampaging cockatrice had torn off one of the judge's arms and turned a champion to stone. He was going to have nightmares tonight, all of them featuring Harriet facing off against a thousand different monsters. She'd probably be wearing a nightdress and coat, like the last time he'd seen her, to maximize her vulnerability and minimize his ability to get any decent sleep.

Sirius' face darkened. "That," he growled.

Remus nodded, but the fact that Sirius still looked angry suggested he'd not yet formed a plan. Remus didn't know whether to be disappointed or breathe more freely in relief.

"Now you're back," he said, "I'm going to get ready for bed. I've got those stretches from Poppy."

"Better you than me, mate."

As Remus left the sitting room, he heard Sirius hum a few tuneless notes of a Phil Collins song that had been playing on the radio in the grocery in town, the last time they'd gone.

Remus brushed his teeth, had his shower, and performed the half hour of stretches Poppy had suggested he do to soothe his muscles, especially his back.

When he glanced into the lounge to say good-night to Sirius, he found him with his legs kicked up on the coffee table, his hands laced behind his head, grinning at the ceiling.

* * *

When Harriet saw the tower of books sitting on the desk, her stomach started sinking as fast as if it was expecting to be tied to the books and chucked into the lake.

"I thought cheating was about not doing work," she said hopefully, though it was a half-dead hope at best. If Snape had dragged all these books out for her to read, he was by Merlin intending for her to read them.

"The type of cheating required reflects the nature of the task you are intending to cheat," Snape said, quite as if he was serious. This was Snape, so it was laced with a sneer, but still. "The Triwizard Tournament cannot, unfortunately, be won by having someone complete your work for you… at least not on the public level. You're in luck, however. I have done a great deal of your reading for you."

He said it as if he didn't expect her to thank him for it, which was a good thing. Harriet eyed the pile of books. It just looked like a great deal of reading, period.

"Well, go on," he said.

Resigned, Harriet pulled the first book off the top. It was ancient, the leather grey and flaking and the pages stained and warped. It gave off no pleasant smell as she opened it; something like vinegar that had gone off about a hundred years ago.

The pages were peppered with little colored tags, the sort that Hermione used to study. Snape had gone through the whole book and marked off whole passages and spells, and he'd done the same thing with the other _—_ she counted _—_ fifteen books.

She couldn't imagine how long it must've taken. Or how long it would take her to go through them all.

"Wow," was all she could find to say.

"Thank me by not ending up in the infirmary for the remainder of the school year," Snape said flatly.

Harriet paged through the book, trying to figure out what it was about. The title had flaked off the side, but judging by the spells collected in it, this book could've been called _Magical Beasts and How to Kill Them_.

"Erm," she said, "when you mentioned manticores. . ."

Snape's lip curled. "The use of dangerous magical beasts is a tradition in the Triwizard Tournament. They provide a spectacle as well as a _challenge."_

Harriet tried to imagine Fleur Delacour defeating a manticore, but for some reason kept getting swept into a vision of the manticore setting Fleur's perfect hair on fire. Seeing as she'd been forced to appear next to Fleur in a set of photographs for the _Daily Prophet_ , Harriet did not feel nearly so bad as she ought for thinking it.

The worst part of that photograph session had been really, truly regretting that she'd snubbed Parvati's beauty secrets all those weeks ago. Not that it probably would've made much difference. Fleur was at least a head taller, with eyes the same color as the Twilight's Sorrow Neville had given her the other day, a sheet of silver-white hair that rippled to her waist, and the figure of a Greek nymph. The only thing not undersized about Harriet was her glasses, and she kept cutting her hair off at her shoulders because of the way it snarled and because at least that way it only tried to stick out in eighty-seven different directions. (Sirius'd told her that they used to joke her dad had a Devil's Snare for an ancestor.)

She'd rather fight a manticore than appear next to Fleur Delacour in any photograph, ever again.

She paged through the next few books, which broadened their topics to include spells of offense, defense, and aggressive shielding; and a couple on antidotes and antivenin. She really hoped that Snape had simply pulled out all the stops and this wasn't an indication of everything the First Task would be throwing at her.

"The teachers know what the tasks are going to be, don't they?" she asked.

"Do they?" Snape said, without looking up from yet another sodding book he was marking. Had it been written in blood? That was gross... but sort of cool.

"Hagrid seemed to," Harriet said, innocently.

"And if he didn't let it slip, I would doubt the sense of supposing he knew anything about it."

Harriet felt a retort tumbling on her tongue, some mash-up of _At least Hagrid is honest_ and _Yeah, unlike some people, Hagrid has trouble lying_ , but she knew better than to say it. It would be ungrateful, anyway.

She stacked her fists together and rested her chin on top, idly scanning the first line on the page. She wasn't really reading it; her mind kept drifting toward Snape.

She still wasn't sure what to feel about his sudden about-face: going from ignoring her outside of her review sessions, to belittling her in them, to informing her that someone was trying to kill her, to vowing to help her cheat her way through the tournament _—_ and then immediately reverting to ignoring her again, until yesterday, when she'd hexed boils all over Malfoy's face.

Those bloody badges had been the last fucking straw. She remembered the way they glowed a toxic green, flickering around her as the Slytherins all flashed them in the dim corridor, the sound of Pansy Parkinson's laugh, the smirk on Malfoy's face. . .

Snape had given her detention for doing magic in the corridors, and then, some time between the end of that class and Saturday morning at breakfast, the badges had mysteriously disappeared. Harriet hadn't been present for the whole of that class; Asteria had come to fetch her for the photographs, and Harriet had gone from burning with rage and humiliation at Malfoy's idea of wit to simply burning with humiliation, as she was made to stand in Fleur Delacour's shadow while that awful reporter fawned over Cedric and did everything except make sure Harriet was standing _behind_ Madam Maxime so that no one could see her. But she'd witnessed Snape telling the Slytherins at the beginning of class to take off the badges in the classroom because they were too distracting. He'd said it so coldly, so indifferently, she'd been quite sure that was all it was _—_ until the Slytherins turned up on Saturday morning at breakfast without a badge in sight.

It wasn't like Malfoy or Pansy to give up on a joke like that. They were much more likely to beat a thing to death. In fact, they'd both given her matching looks of hatred and loathing from the Slytherin table _—_ for Malfoy's face full of boils, she'd assumed. She was so busy wondering if Snape was responsible for this Mysterious Disappearance of the Stupid Bloody Badges that it hadn't occurred to her till later that it would've been nice to smirk and wave at them.

And now her "detention" with Snape was proving to be nothing but a cheating session.

And so far, the cheating session was proving to be really boring. She would've thought Slytherins were more exciting cheaters. All week when she'd dwelt on it, she'd formed vague ideas about Snape teaching her how to sneak around and poison the other champions, and perhaps some nasty spells. She hadn't decided what she'd do if he expected her to poison someone, but she would rather have faced that scenario than all this bloody reading.

"If we're cheating," she said, "shouldn't you tell me what the First Task is going to be?"

Snape looked up from his book, his eyes narrowed. Harriet felt a weird, shivery feeling slip down into her stomach.

"Perhaps you should tell me," he said.

Harriet blinked. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"You tell me," Snape said.

Harriet narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. Was he smiling? No, Snape didn't smile. There was something odd about his expression, though.

Well, two could play at that.

"How am I supposed to do that?" she repeated.

"This game is decreasing in its cuteness," Snape said, smoothing his hand down his book. "I am here to facilitate your pragmatic dishonesty, Miss Potter, not to do all of your thinking for you. If you don't want to make a fool of yourself in front of the entire school, you will have to pull some of your own weight."

He went back to his reading. Harriet didn't know whether to roll her eyes, fume, or feel smug that she'd sort of won, so she lay face-down on her open book and smushed her nose into the spine. Too bad it was the stinky vinegar book.

Some odd sound was coming from the door. . .

Harriet raised her head. "Is that an owl?"

Looking irritated, Snape pointed his wand at his classroom door. It unlatched and swung open just far enough for a tiny owl to tumble in and make an excited bee-line for Harriet.

"Nitwit?" Harriet said, confused, reaching up to stop him before he plowed headfirst into the wall.

"Is that supposed to be his name?" Snape asked.

"That's what Remus calls him."

"Fascinating," Snape said, as if it was anything but. "And I'm awaiting an explanation as to why you are receiving mail during my detention."

Harriet refrained from saying, _Cheating session, you mean_. "Hey, the letter's for you." She blinked at the scrap of paper. "Why does Sirius want you to meet him?"

Snape stared blankly at her _—_ just for a second, but in that second Harriet was quite sure he didn't know any more about it than she did. He Summoned the note to his hand (jealousy prickled at her; she'd done so badly on Summoning Charms that week that Flitwick had actually set her extra homework) and stared at it. There wasn't much to it: just Sirius' terrible handwriting, saying _Need to talk to you, Snape, in person_ , a set of numbers she didn't understand, and a time.

Snape set the note on fire.

Harriet stared as he scribbled a brief reply on a scrap of parchment, Summoned Nitwit from her shoulder, tied the note to the owl's leg, and chucked it back out into the corridor. She heard Nitwit hooting (excitedly, the poor stupid thing) before Snape shut the door.

Snape went back to his desk, sat down, picked up his quill, and leaned over his book again. Harriet watched him, hoping he would give some sign of what all that had been about.

"Don't you have reading to do, Miss Potter?" he asked without looking up.

She sighed and dragged the next book off the pile.

Honestly, predicting the future was easier than figuring out what was going through Snape's head. She'd accurately done the first thing, in fact, but she wasn't sure she'd ever manage the second.

* * *

Severus was trying, he really was _._

He was trying to maintain with Miss Potter the illusion that he had any intention of letting her anywhere near a dragon.

He knew better than to say any such thing. Take any Gryffindor (except perhaps Longbottom), tell them there was a fire-breathing monster with their name on it and they weren't getting anywhere near it, and they'd bridle, rant and storm about courage and honor and what do you mean you aren't _letting_ me, it's none of your bloody decision anyhow.

Miss Potter, moreover, had already wound up on the wrong side of the Dark Lord (twice, going on three times, and one of these days he really _was_ going to lose his mind), a Basilisk, and a werewolf. Of course, those monsters had been tackled in the pursuit of Truth and Goodness, or whatever Gryffindors fought for, and the dragon was simply for points in a school competition, so perhaps she would think it was beneath her. . .

Either way, he had no desire to find out. Any way he could devise to get rid of the dragon before the Tournament, or somehow keep her from competing without violating the terms of the contract _—_ he would try it. He'd already started researching the previous Tournaments for precedents of disqualification.

His first hope was to get her chucked out of the Tournament entirely, but as a second goal, he'd do his best to negate the giant, champion-roasting lizard.

He'd given her books to distract her, though he wasn't sure how effective they would be. She wasn't Granger (thank God).

In addition to this new labor in his indentured servitude of keeping Miss Potter out of trouble, he needed to figure out what the hell was wrong with Lupin and the Wolfsbane, so Lupin would not at some point try to eat her again. The probability of Miss Potter's being eaten by a dragon, however, was much higher than her being eaten by Lupin, so Lupin's problem had been pushed to a back burner (and references to burning were not amusing under present circumstances).

And on top of that, for some peculiar reason Black was branching out in his attempts to resemble a splinter under Severus' fingernail. He must be going through withdrawals. Perhaps isolation with only Lupin for company was too much for him to bear. Perhaps that was why they hadn't been successful as lovers, all those years ago, falling prey to suspicion and betrayal: Black so dearly needed Severus around, for venting or insulting or feeling better about himself.

Severus couldn't see why Black would be bothering him otherwise.

Lupin's featherbrained owl returned late Saturday night, after Miss Potter had gone, staggering under the weight of book he'd foisted on her. He'd nearly felt the urge to laugh when she'd said the bird's name was Nitwit. Something about the expression on her face _—_

Tied to Nitwit's leg was another note covered in Black's eye-watering scrawl. Apparently Azkaban cost you your handwriting as well as your sanity.

Under Miss Potter's open curiosity, he'd replied to Black, " _I'll be there_ " _—_ hoping the mongrel would go to the appointed spot and wait for a time before realizing no one was coming. He might not have got angry enough to storm the castle and get himself arrested, but one was allowed one's dreams.

Instead, Black wrote: _"C'mon Snape you weren't even trying. I know you sent that so I'd be standing around like a complete tit, waiting for you. This is about Hollyberry, so just follow to the bloody coordinates would you all right."_

Severus despised that cloying nick-name, Holly-berry. He gagged every time he saw it.

He replied: _"If you can read me so well, Black, then you should know my only sincere reply would be: Piss off."_

The next morning, the owl returned, keeling over on Severus' desk in exhaustion from making its rounds three times in twenty-four hours.

_"What part of THIS IS ABOUT HOLLYBERRY do you fail to fucking understand. Just meet me you prick."_

_"What part of PISS OFF do you fail to understand? Get fucked."_

Severus sent the reply with one of the school owl's, since Lupin's was currently unconscious. The school owl came back that evening, bestowed on Severus a look of deep resentment, and took off without waiting for a reply. Black must have vented his little frustration on it. Severus wouldn't have thought owls knew what any of Black's choicest phrases meant, but he supposed even a dumb animal couldn't mistake the tone of blistering rage.

_"If I'm going to yell at you through the post Snape, I need a bigger fucking owl, as it is I've only got this one so you can stop being the worlds most stubborn cunt and just fucking hear me out. Something's up with Remus. If something happens to him, it'll upset Hollyberry, which for some reason might be something I think you might give a shit about, mad as it sounds to think you'd give a shit about anyone on the planet. So are you going to meet me or are you just going to sit with your hands under your arse?"_

Severus was now more baffled than ever. This attempt at emotional blackmail implied that Black thought Severus had positive emotions to manipulate. More than that: it implied that Severus had more positive emotions toward Miss Potter than negative emotions toward Lupin. Aside from such a thought being astronomically unlikely to appear in Black's head, the fact that he regarded Miss Potter as the source and was not breaking down the doors of Hogwarts to slit Severus' throat was unbelievable.

And then there was Lupin's letter. _Sirius hasn't said if I was acting any differently, but he's being rather cagey_ , Lupin had said. Now Black was sending Severus a similar letter _—_ without any reference to Lupin already contacting him.

It suggested that they were each trying to keep the information from each other. As much as he appreciated evidence that Black and Lupin were as shit at communicating with each other as ever, why the hell should they be involving him? Especially Black.

Severus threw the parchment onto his desk in annoyance. He was curious now, in spite of all his general wish that Black stay out of his life until the very last moments of his, which Severus would be happy to witness as long as they were extremely painful.

That Black wanted what he said he wanted, Severus considered about as likely as Longbottom becoming Triwizard Champion. Black was acting out of character. He would only do that if he was playing some deeper game. . .

Yes _._ He'd done that before.

Severus scraped his nails lightly against the surface of his desk as he thought. They'd been here before, Black wanting to get him somewhere, to get rid of him. He'd used Severus' desires ( _show Lily what they're really like_ ) against him. . . had used Lupin. Black had played him, when Severus had never suspected Black of being bright enough ( _brighter than you, you mean_ ) to pull it off.

He pulled the letter back towards himself and re-read it.

_...it'll upset Hollyberry, which for some reason might be something I think you might give a shit about, mad as it sounds..._

He ran his finger round his lips as he thought. Black had told Miss Potter that Severus was a Death Eater. He'd said more than enough, that night in Dumbledore's office, to broadcast his feelings on the matter. And now here he was, openly inviting Severus to concern himself with her.

Black wasn't that magnanimous. He had never been remotely magnanimous to his enemies.

He was up to something.

Severus tore a piece of the letter, wrote a reply, and sent it off.


	61. Many Times Been Bitten

Time seemed to be slipping past Harriet in great dollops.

Snape was piling her with reading, Remus and Sirius with letters, Hermione with squeaky, panicked encouragement, and Ron with commiserating grimaces. Harriet had no idea if any of it was helpful, but she suspected this was what the edge of a nervous breakdown felt like.

The worst part of it was Snape refusing to tell her what the First Task was going to be. Harriet couldn't shake the suspicion that he'd clammed up because he reckoned that if he told her, she would lose her head completely. This was not a comforting thought. Especially since all she could gather from the books he'd assigned was that the First Task involved a magical beast which would likely tear her limb from limb.

She was also doing atrociously in classes. She still hadn't mastered Summoning Charms, despite the rest of the class having moved on over a week ago. Professor Flitwick was being extremely nice about it, too, which somehow made Harriet feel worse, as if he was being kind so that he wouldn't hate himself when she died horribly on 24 November. "That sweet Miss Potter, and the last words I ever said to her were about her Summoning Charm—!"

Professor McGonagall was allowing Harriet her free period to prepare for the First Task. No one was outwardly helping her (except for Snape), and she was given free run of the library and the castle, if she needed it; but she did go down to the dungeons rather a lot. Sometimes Harriet wondered if the other teachers guessed what was going on, or if they assumed Snape was so demanding that he'd insist she review when the rest of them had let it lapse.

Like Harriet, Viktor Krum had also turned into one of the library's regular features. This irritated Hermione, since his fan club came with him and would lurk in the stacks, spying on him, whispering and giggling. Harriet wondered if this behavior was the reason he always looked so surly, or if he came by the surliness naturally and he had the ability to ignore his fangirls at will. He'd surely had a lot of practice. For her part, Harriet found the fangirls' antics and Krum's determined, dour reading sessions to be more interesting than the books Hermione was trying to get her to read.

In the dungeons, there was no Krum or fangirls, only Snape, who let Harriet talk when she was tired of reading. It was rather unlike him, but as long as she didn't have to read all the time, Harriet was prepared not to look in that horse's mouth.

"I'm thinking the First Task is going to be about some horrible monster," she said one day—a day like any other, really, since the gloom in Snape's classroom stayed the same no matter if it was warm and sunny outside or as grey and cold as every day that November.

"Good for you," said Snape, not looking up from the parchment he was puncturing with his quill, in some semblance of writing.

"'Good for you' as in 'Yeah, that's it exactly'?"

"It's good to see students thinking about anything at all, it happens so rarely." Snape glared at his parchment and murdered something on it with a savage motion of his wrist.

"I'm thinking it would be nice not to die," Harriet said. "Especially not horribly."

That made Snape look up, as she thought it would. His narrowed eyes reminded her of black glass.

"You aren't going to die," he said flatly.

She shrugged, though her heart felt like a sponge that had soaked up water; only instead of water, it was her panic, and there was too much of it. "There's still the person who entered me into the Tournament in the first place, isn't there?"

"We've been over that. If they wanted you injured, they've had plenty of opportunity. Something else is going on. I would suppose that in fact, they need you bodily intact."

"How nice of them," Harriet muttered.

"Truly considerate."

Snape went back to tearing up his parchment with his quill. Whatever he was working on, it really wasn't going well. The angry lines on his face just kept growing tighter and harsher. Finally, he slammed down his quill, crushed the parchment into a ball, and flung it into the rubbish bin, where it vaporized in a puff of smoke.

"I wish I wasn't in the Tournament," Harriet said, before he could start destroying something else. "I can't enjoy it properly. Everyone _else_ seems excited..." Even the other champions—well, except for Krum, who never looked pleased about anything. Cedric was always surrounded by a ring of admirers, looking nervous but excited, and Fleur swished about looking as haughty and disgustingly beautiful as ever.

"Well, you've the ball at Christmastime," Snape said, looking sour. "You ought to enjoy that."

Harriet blinked. "What ball?"

"The Yule Ball. Dancing." Snape said it the way one of his students might have said _A_ _nd then that slimy git made me sort through rotten rat guts without gloves_.

"Dancing? Like, in front of people?"

"No, Miss Potter, in a cupboard. Well, what do you think?"

Harriet hadn't thought she could feel more distressed, but she'd been wrong. "I don't dance," she said quickly. "I don't know how."

"Then I suppose you won't enjoy it."

She eyed him. "You're having me on."

"I never 'have people on.' It's a Tournament tradition."

"Like the dangerous magical creatures?"

"Look it up, if you doubt me." He gestured toward a moldy old book sitting on his desk.

Still eying him, she stood and went up to the book. Snape watched her sardonically. She peeled the cover back ( _A Compreehensive Historie of the Trywyzard Tournament_ ) and flipped to the index.

Yule Ball, the, p. 394.

With a sinking sensation, she found the correct page and skimmed it.

"'Champions and their partners lead the dance'?" she read in alarm, as the sinking sensation hit rock bottom.

"Perhaps you should start looking for a date," Snape said. Unhelpful git.

Groaning, she let the book's cover fall back into place with a little puff of dust.

"Can you _please_ tell me what the First Task is?" She was begging but she didn't care. "It can't be worse than this."

"I should think that's a matter of perspective."

Bloody-minded… "It doesn't really feel like we've cheated properly if I don't know exactly what I'm cheating," she offered.

"Not bad," Snape said, his expression unchanging. "But you might say it less like a question, if you want to be convincing."

* * *

The calculations were stubbornly resisting perfection. In fact, they were being bloody uncooperative shits. He knew, in theory, which poisons were likely to take effect on a dragon _—likely,_ in fucking _theory—_ but the dosage would have to be excessive to have any effect at all. The problem was not knowing what would be excessive for a dragon and what would only induce an allergic reaction.

He wasn't even worrying about the line between "incapacitating" and "fatal." It would do no good to put the dragon to sleep for twelve hours, only to have it wake up, disorientated, in time for Miss Potter's challenge.

If he was caught, well… Dragons were an endangered species. He could cause an international incident.

He'd just have to not get caught.

The other problem was that the dragons weren't going to arrive until a mere two days before the task. Keeping animals that enormous a secret would be impossible for long, even in the wilds of the Forbidden Forest. Severus knew that Dumbledore had negotiated strenuously with the centaurs to be allowed even a few dragon-filled days. As a backup plan, Severus was prepared to approach the centaurs, but that could go as badly as it could go nowhere. He'd prefer to take care of things himself and not be thrown into prison. Even Dumbledore would have some difficulty getting him off a charge of attempting to kill four dragons.

It would have to be all four. Otherwise, there would still be a chance of Miss Potter competing.

His alarm struck, a sound like the gong of an old clock. He glanced at it reflexively, then twisted his mouth.

It was time to see what Black wanted.

Severus had Apparated to Black's given coordinates before, in broad daylight, several times, to check there was nothing untoward awaiting him. Each time, he'd found himself standing on an empty hill slope, the land green and brown, the sky blue and grey. Black and Lupin's croft was nowhere within squinting distance, nor the village many miles away. Black had chosen a spot in the middle of nowhere.

Curiosity had always been one of Severus' besetting sins. So, too, the desire to prove himself. He couldn't stop wondering what Black was up to, and wanting to find out, to turn it back against him…

A symmetrical incident twenty years ago probably should have taught him something, or at least made him wary now. But in truth, he only felt more determined not to let Black get the better of him this time.

He Apparated to a spot about two hundred yards northeast of Black's coordinates, just at the top of the hill...

Where Black was already standing. Though facing down the hill when Severus appeared, he turned toward the crack of Apparition, a flash of surprise just visible on his face in the wand light. The moon was the barest sliver overhead, and swathes of clouds obscured all but patches of stars, reducing the night to a tapestry of shadow and blackness.

"Coordinates a little off, Black?" Severus asked softly. _Trying to get the drop on me?_

"Guess so," Black said, shrugging. He didn't have his wand lit, though he'd tucked it between his fingers, which were hooked into his belt loops.

"Standing on a hill, alone, in the dark?"

"Well, I am a wanted criminal." Black's expression shifted, but in the dark Severus couldn't tell whether it was a smirk or something else.

Severus hadn't seen him at all in three months, and the last time they'd met, Black had mostly stayed a dog. Perhaps that was why the sight of him now was surprising, all leather jacket and jean trousers and looking like some sort of aging guitarist. Remembering Black from fourteen, fifteen years ago, it was almost as if Azkaban hadn't happened, even if it was only the poor light smoothing away the evidence of rot and waste. Severus felt a pulse of hatred, as strong as anything he'd felt for Karkaroff, whether sleek and smiling or pathetic and cowering. But dealing with Karkaroff was somehow easier; Severus had never been able to escape the suspicion that Black would somehow always manage to win.

"What do you want, dog?"

"Told you," Black said, and Severus didn't like the fact that he sounded like he was in complete control of himself. "Wanted to talk about Holly-berry."

Severus grit his teeth. "And there's a reason you couldn't do this by letter?"

Black still hadn't lit his wand. It remained stuck between his fingers, which hadn't moved from their resting-place on his belt.

"It's about Moony, too. Can't send off long letters—he notices too much."

Severus refused to react, though his fucking curiosity prickled at him. "And he won't notice you've stepped out in the middle of the night?"

"He thinks I'm worried about Holly-berry being in the Tournament. Which I am." Something shifted again in his face, igniting a suspicion in Severus' mind.

"Is this an interrogation to find out if I'm the one behind it?" He rotated his wand in his fingers, remembering the sting of Karkaroff's pipe smoke in his eyes and the creak of the ship moving on the water. He'd enjoy a fight with Black… Karkaroff was beneath him, a worm to be crushed. Black had never been all that sane to begin with, but he wasn't pathetic, he was strong, and Severus was very, very frustrated…

"I wouldn't lay a trap for that, Snape," Black said casually. "I'd come to Hogwarts, meet you face to fuck-ugly face."

"Then you'd be arrested, you fucking tit."

Black shrugged. "Traps are for snakes and cowards."

Severus fired a hex from his hip. Black snapped up a shield just in time. The spell crackled against his charm like a lightning storm, illuminating the night in a brief flash and showing his face cleanly for two heartbeats, surprised yet pleased.

Before the spell-light had faded, Black shot off his own hex, which Severus parried with rather bored ease. Black had plainly been practicing, but he had a lot to make up.

"Twelve years of being buggered by Dementors hasn't done wonders for your spell-work," Severus said, and had the satisfaction of seeing Black's self-control crack with hatred in the light from the next spell-flare.

"Sucking Death Eater cock's done fine for yours," he snarled back.

"You're confusing me with your werewolf," Severus retorted, feeling gleeful when Black's next hex sent something rather spectacularly nasty his way. That was something he'd always appreciated about the strongest members of the Black family: the angrier they got, the more dangerous they became.

"You shut the fuck up about Remus, _Snivellus."_ Black bared his teeth, purple-red light crackling from the tip of his wand as unformed spells mingled in his mind.

Severus wouldn't give half a fuck if Black and Lupin announced their engagement tomorrow in the Great Hall, but it was too easy to rile Black in this way. "Surely you've heard worse over the years. Or perhaps you hadn't? So busy hiding him away, a shameful little secret—"

Black swore at him as he shot off his next curse. He'd always been accomplished at non-verbal spells, yet easily pinpointed in battle for his habit of swearing foully as he cast spell after spell. Bellatrix used to drop whoever she was fighting to head straight for him…

"You know, I always suspected Bellatrix knew," Severus said. "Though the shame was too much even for her. She could have killed you a thousand times over, but instead—" Black's next hex prickled across the back of Severus' hands as it shattered on his shield. "—she always tried to capture… Perhaps she thought she could be the one to persuade you out of liking werewolf cock—"

Black dived at him, bodily. Severus hadn't been expecting that, and Black was too close for him to hex; so he slammed his elbow up into Black's chin instead. Black grunted, but he managed to grab Severus by the shoulders and plow him into the ground…

Misjudging how close they were to the edge of the hill.

The world tilted and pitched as they hit the slope and kept rolling, tumbling, pounding, battering down the hill. Black had a hold of Severus' robes, and he was bigger, and on every roll he seemed to slam Severus as hard against the earth as he could; and Severus punched at whatever part of Black he could hit, ribs, nose, ear, getting him in the teeth once and scraping his knuckles.

A bone-jarring thud knocked Black flying and slammed Severus' head against something grassy. He lay for a few moments, head spinning and lungs trying to regain the ability to suck in air, dimly hearing Black's dazed swearing drifting through the night. He'd lost his fucking wand. He tried Summoning it wandlessly, something he'd taught himself to do years ago, but his head was ringing too much.

Black loomed over him, staggering, and Severus kicked out at him, catching him in the knee. Black toppled over.

"You shitting fucking arsehole, Snape—"

"Fuck right off, you useless fucking cock," Severus said, though it took rather a lot of effort. He forced himself to sit up, though he'd rather have lain on the ground for a while with his eyes shut. He'd split his lip and it stung, especially when he moved his mouth.

"Where's my fucking wand?" Black muttered, though surprisingly not in a tone of _so I can curse your balls off with it_.

"Up your arse, maybe," Severus said, trying to Summon his again.

"Piss on you," Black said. "Is this—no, that's a twig."

Severus' wand smacked into his own shoulder and fell to the grass. He groped after it, hearing Black swear in surprise, and then the pale glow of Lumos tinted the air.

 _There._ Severus fumbled his wand into hand, but Black's rage seemed to have died in the tumble down the hill. His nose was bleeding, but he didn't seem too bothered.

"Did we ever get in a fist-fight before?" Black asked. He sucked at his teeth.

"That was never yours and Potter's style."

"Or yours," Black shot back. "You fucking hexed James' nose off his face, seventh year."

Severus had found out that Lily was going on a date with the fucking prick. There had been a lot of blood. "One of my fondest memories."

"You're a fucking creep, Snape, you know that?"

"I might have heard it somewhere." Severus wiped at his bloody lip, making it burn, and stood. "If this is all you came to tell me—"

"I came to talk to you about Remus, you twat-faced cunt, and Holly-berry, and you—"

"You're the one who knocked us down the hill."

"You fucking hexed first!"

"I suppose I did." Severus turned to go. "It's been fun, Black, if not remotely enlightening—"

"Holly-berry loves Remus."

Severus stopped. A pulse of something went through his heart, like soured electricity.

"Remus loves Holly-berry," Black went on, in a voice so firm it weighed on Severus like granite. "She's had few enough people who gave half a shit about her since… James and Lily died."

"And I'm supposed to care because?" Severus asked coldly, as memories flickered through his head: Miss Potter at the very first Welcoming Feast, in his class for the first time; covered in ink and slime and hugging Granger tightly; covered in mud, saying _I heard a woman screaming_ ; glaring at him when he ordered her out of the wood last winter, to no avail; the brilliant glow of that stag, at least three times as big as herself...

But Black didn't answer that. Instead, he said, "The Wolfsbane isn't working because Remus is outgrowing it."

Severus almost turned back around then, but restrained himself to glancing over his shoulder. "What do you mean, outgrowing it?"

"I mean he's literally growing, for fuck's sake. The wolf. He's bigger than he was… a lot bigger."

The wind blew Black's hair across his face. He reached up and shoved it out of the way with his free hand, the Lumos-light showing that he looked frustrated.

"At first I thought I just didn't remember. Him and me, we used to be pretty well the same size—when he was a wolf and I'm a dog, I mean. But he's bigger than me now."

Severus couldn't repress the frisson of unease that uncoiled in his gut. "How much bigger?"

"Almost twice my size."

Severus did turn around then. "And you're just mentioning this _now_?"

"Dumbledore knows," Black said, and Severus couldn't tell if he was lying. "But you're the one who makes the potion that reeks like fuck. It's not working like it should."

"And how do you have any idea how it should work?" Severus asked, as Lupin's letter played through his head: _I usually remember things quite well when I've taken it, but this time it's like trying to remember a dream, and I'm in rather a lot of pain…_

"Come off it," Black said. "I've been watching him take it for the past nine sodding months, I've been watching him transform since we were kids, I know the fucking difference between doped up Moony and regular Moony, and he's… not either, right now. Took him ages to recover this time, longer than it used to—"

"He's older, Black. The human body wears down."

Something flashed in Black's face, something so stark and atavistic, Severus actually felt an answering pang. It was briefer than a flash of light but he didn't like it at all. He made his voice softly mocking, to compensate.

"Did you not know?" he asked.

Black's face locked down. For a moment, he was silent, a quiet so profound it was almost condemning.

"Get the fuck gone, Snape," he growled. "You're right, this was a fucking waste of time."

And he Apparated away without another word, hex or curse.

* * *

Remus listened to the door opening through the walls of the tiny croft. He lay in the dark, his hands laced across his sternum, as Sirius clattered around in the kitchen below. Eventually Sirius stumbled up the narrow staircase and groped his way into the bathroom, all in darkness. Why he didn't use Lumos, Remus didn't know, since there was no hope of sleeping through his racket. Sirius had never mastered coming in quietly.

The light in the bathroom clicked on, a thin strip glowing round the closed bathroom door, followed by the sound of running water. Sighing, Remus pushed back the covers.

Sirius was leaning over the sink, scrubbing blood and dirt off his face, wincing when he hit a forming bruise. There was a grass stain as long as Remus' forearm down the side of his jeans.

"The first stage of the plan didn't go so well, I take it?" Remus asked.

Sirius glanced at him in the mirror. For the space of a heartbeat, there was something in his face that made Remus ache; and then it was gone, closing up in a grin that was almost easy.

"C'mon, Moony, did you forget? It's not a success unless someone winds up covered in blood."

Remus missed that grin, those plans, those days, the way you missed something you'd thought you'd lost forever, even as he wanted to rub a weary hand across his eyes. "How could I fail to remember?"

Sirius wiped at a streak of blood above his eyebrow. He seemed to be intent on doing this, but his voice was quiet and not-quite-casual when he asked, "How'd you know?"

"That you were plotting something? You're not exactly subtle, love."

Sirius peered at his own reflection as if making sure he'd got everything; but since his face was still marred with bruises (and his mouth with a loose tooth), he must have been looking for something else. Or away from something. Remus hadn't meant to call him that.

Then Sirius smiled, in a way both content yet sorrowful. "Subtle's never been the Marauder way."

* * *

Severus returned to Hogwarts with this odd encounter flickering in his mind.

It was late and the halls were deserted, with fewer torches burning; a good thing, seeing as his lip was still crusted with blood. He hadn't seen what he looked like, but, he'd presume, like he'd just been in a fist fight. Dumbledore wouldn't approve of that either.

Severus limped down into the dungeons, thinking. Black's uncharacteristic letters and insistence on his help, his strange control when Severus had first appeared... it all suggested that Black had, in fact, been setting a trap of sorts. Lupin was a sore point... but for that reason his reactions implied that Lupin _was_ the real reason Black had called Severus out there. It made sense that he wouldn't want to come out straight with that. What fucks did Severus give about the werewolf? Report him to the Beast Division and be done with it.

 _Holly-berry loves Remus… Remus loves Holly-berry… she's had few enough people who gave half a shit about her since_ …

That was still the oddest part of all: Black framing his argument around Miss Potter, as if he assumed it would be effective, and not trying to eviscerate Severus for daring to think kindly of his precious, darling goddaughter…

He paused just before turning onto the corridor that led to his quarters as the spells he'd placed on his rooms prickled across his skin, alerting him: someone down there, hovering in front of his door…

He cast an identification spell—and in the next second stormed round the corner, incredulous, the symmetry of a night last winter and this one not escaping him. Wretched little brat, too bold and foolhardy for her own fucking good—

"Miss Potter," he snarled, "you had better have a _very good explanation_ for this."

The air rippled as she turned, lifting the hood of her Invisibility Cloak off her face. She did not look remotely abashed, only curious. Then she pushed the hood off entirely, so she was nothing more than a floating head.

"What happened to your face?" she asked, her mouth hanging open.

He resisted a ridiculous urge to cover his mouth with his hand. "Just what do you think you're doing here?"

"I left a book in your classroom. Well, you weren't there, so I came here." She shrugged. "How was I supposed to know you'd be out? It's past midnight."

"Get the book in the morning," he snapped, groping at the empty air for her shoulder. He found it, though it was odd to hold onto thin air, and pushed her around. "When you'll present less of an appealing target to faceless madmen. Right now, you're getting back to your Tower. If we meet Filch, I'm not bearing you out—"

"Have you been fighting with Sirius?" she asked suspiciously, craning her neck to keep him in sight as he tried to chivvy her in front.

He was surprised, but gave her another push. "Get _moving,_ Miss Potter."

"The Task's less than two weeks away."

He stopped pushing her, but did not say anything. He suddenly felt exhausted. She waited a moment or two, then glanced up at him.

"I still don't have any idea what I'm supposed to do," she said quietly.

There were circles under her eyes. The Cloak had fallen open, showing rumbled school robes, and her hair looked like each individual strand was trying to twist itself in a different direction.

He thought of Dumbledore's prudish fussing a year ago, of his strictures against corrupting her with Dark magic, and wondered what Dumbledore was really afraid of. Then he pictured the Headmaster's face if he found out Severus had been entertaining Miss Potter in his quarters, alone, past midnight.

He spelled open his door. "Well, get in, then."

Miss Potter's face registered surprise that he'd capitulated so easily, but she didn't wait for him to change his mind.

"It's still messy in here," she said, looking round the front room as she pulled off her Cloak, the rest of her shimmering into view.

"It's like that especially for your sake." He moved past her into the adjacent parlor, trying not to limp too obviously.

"I like mess," Miss Potter said, trailing after him.

 _I suppose you would_ , he thought, picturing Petunia's achingly tidy house. "Stay there," he told her, and shut his bedroom door to keep her out.

In the bathroom, he finally got a look at his face. His lip was cracked wide open and there was a cut over his eye, twigs in his hair, dirt and broken blades of grass all over his robes, spectacular bruises darkening on his eye and jaw. How much had been Black's handiwork and how much the hill?

He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd been in a physical fight. That was the Muggle way. Even when cost their wands, pure-bloods from the old families lashed out with wild magic; like the Blacks, who cursed the handles on all the doors in their house to scald the flesh if touched. You opened doors with magic, not with your hands, not like a filthy Muggle.

Perhaps Black had embraced physical violence in retaliation. Severus had learned it because the boys in his neighborhood fought that way, because it was good to know all those different ways to hurt people, because sometimes he was so fucking angry that his rage blocked out his magic.

His mother had refused to heal him whenever he came home with a cut lip or black eye. _If you're going to fight like one of them, Severus, you can heal like one of them._

He cleaned up his cuts, healed his bruises, and spelled the dirt and grass to nothingness.

* * *

Harriet looked up from the book (a very thick novel about some Russians) at the sound of Snape's door clicking open. His face, as he emerged from the other room, was unreadable, though he'd cleaned off the blood. There was still a pinkish stripe across his lip, but she'd had enough cuts healed by Madam Pomfrey to know they looked like that at first. It would still hurt to touch it, too; tender, like a bruise.

 _"Were_ you fighting with Sirius?" she asked, setting the Russian novel back where she'd found it.

Snape's eyes followed the book, though he didn't say anything about her reading it without permission.

"As you seem so attached to the idea," he said, "I'd hate to deprive you of it."

"Well, it's either that or you walked into the Whomping Willow."

"You do seem to know all about it."

Usually she just gave up, but this time she didn't want to; she wanted to make him answer her. "He sent you that note last week. The time was at night, too. And you two do fight every time you meet."

"Like I said." Snape took a seat in the chair in front of the fire—moving a bit stiffly—and tapped his wand against the round table next to it. "You seem to know all about it."

A tea service appeared, with only one cup. There was something a bit sad about that, as if the house-elves were always prepared for Snape to never have any guests. Although Snape might not want company. He did seem to sort of hate everyone.

He Summoned another cup from a cupboard against the wall with one motion of his wand, and gestured the teapot to pour with another.

"I wish I could Summon things," she said.

"You learn that charm fourth year. You should already have learned it, in fact."

"We've just done with it, but I was never able to do it. Hermione says I've blocked myself somehow."

Snape looked bored, as ever, at any mention of Hermione, and passed a full cup to her. She tried to imagine him scrapping with Sirius. It actually wasn't all that difficult; she'd seen them at each other's throats before… even if Snape did look entirely too calm to have been hit repeatedly in the face…

A horrible suspicion dropped into her stomach like an upended bucket of ice. "You didn't _kill_ Sirius, did you?"

"No," he said, as if he didn't wish to be reminded of this fact.

"So you did meet him," she said, trying not to show how clever it made her feel to have got this answer out of him.

"Not necessarily. You asked if I killed your beloved godfather. The answer is no. Whether I was in a position to kill him tonight is a fact you've yet to successfully determine."

 _Damn._ "Well, he'll tell me if you won't."

Snape looked both unconcerned and uninterested, bugger him.

She'd sipped several mouthfuls of tea before it occurred to her. "There's classes tomorrow."

"I did tell you to get to bed when you first showed up."

"I only meant, I'm having tea at midnight." She sighed. "Not like I'll sleep anyway."

Snape glanced at her then, though she couldn't read a single thought on his face. He lifted one finger away from his teacup, but then it drifted back down again. She couldn't tell whether it was a reflex, or what it would've meant if it wasn't.

She set her teacup in her lap and concentrated on making her voice as firm and steady as she knew how. "I want to know what the First Task is."

Snape said nothing, nor did he look at her. He stared ahead as if she hadn't spoken at all, holding his teacup in one hand.

Then he said, "The First Task is dragons."

Later, Harriet was proud of herself for not dropping her teacup or slopping tea all over herself. The words rushed into her ears and hung suspended in her mind, like ice crystals on the trees in winter. She hardly felt herself breathe, as if she didn't want to disturb them. When she did exhale, it was only because such a great pressure had built on her lungs. Slowly, delicately, she let it out...

Then she yelled, "DRAGONS?!"

Snape didn't jump, only blinked at her, once, his gaze hooded. "That's what I said."

"BLOODY FUCKING BLEEDING SODDING ARSE-SHITTING _DRAGONS?"_

Snape watched her over the rim of his teacup, almost as if she was interesting.

"FU-UCK!" she yelled once more, at the top of her lungs, and then she flopped down onto his couch, groaning. The cushions mashed her glasses into her face.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" she said weakly.

"I assumed, at worst, that it might lead you to a nervous breakdown," he said coolly. "A swearing fit seems propitious, all things considered."

"But—but if I'd known…"

"Miss Potter, I _gave_ you the books to help you prepare for this. I pointed you to the exact spells."

"Yeah, all eight hundred of them," she muttered.

"If you thought the point was to pick and choose amongst them, you are still failing to understand how you ought to be studying," Snape said, his tone edging towards 'dangerous.' "You're supposed to have been mastering them all."

"I don't remember anything in there about fighting dragons." She knew she was whining but she didn't care.

"You're hardly expected to be a dragon tamer. The point of the task is simply to elude them and retrieve a prize," he said impatiently, "not to take them down."

"The dragon can keep the prize, for all I bloody care," she told the sofa cushions.

"Well, you can always fake a fainting fit when confronted with it." His teacup clinked as he set it down. "Refer to the books, Miss Potter. All you need to do is distract it long enough to get past it." When she glanced up at him, she saw something that might have passed for a smile, or at least the razor's edge of one. "It's a useful talent in life."

She sat up, sagging against the back of the sofa, and pushed her glasses up to rub at her eyes.

"Well. I… I'm glad I know." She supposed she was, really. If she'd just walked out to _see_ a dragon, she might have passed out cold in front of the whole school. "Thanks for telling me."

Snape looked at her for a moment. She reckoned he was probably waiting for her to leave, and prepared to thank him for the tea and go.

But he said, "The tasks themselves are nowhere near as dangerous as the forays you've undertaken willingly in each of your previous years at Hogwarts."

She blinked. Snape, mentioning her going after Basilisks and dragons without busting a blood vessel? And he almost sounded... supportive. Not in tone, obviously—that was flat, indifferent even...

"I s'pse not, but…" She blushed when he gave her a borderline incredulous look. "I mean—when I went into that stuff, I didn't know how dangerous it was going to be. I knew I had to stop something, but most of what happened just… happened. I didn't know beforehand." She grimaced. "The waiting's horrible."

"There are many variations of courage," Snape said. "Waiting for the inevitable… is one of them."

Curiosity, sudden and deep, made her look closely at him, and for just a moment, she saw—she was sure she saw—something more than what one usually detected in Snape; something that wasn't unreadable as glass, or implacable as stone, or nasty as a cut. But then it folded over again, like his split lip would have knitted itself from a spell, only smoother, no pink strip of tender skin left. It was just gone, so that she might have imagined it.

"I'm taking you back upstairs," he said in a Don't Argue With Me If You Know What's Good for You Miss Potter voice.

"I can find my way all right." She'd brought the Map to avoid Filch, even though it didn't work down here in the dungeons. Filch stayed out of the dungeons anyway; this was Snape's territory.

"There's a relief," Snape said. "I can't think why I might have been incensed to find you loitering, alone, outside my door in the middle of the night."

Instead of admitting he had a point—well, not admitting it out loud, anyway—she waited till her Cloak was pulled over her face before she smiled.


	62. Two Paths You Can Go By

The first thing Harriet did with her new-found dragon knowledge was to wonder what she ought to do with it.

Not about the Task, so much, as Snape had given her more books than she could read... but about whom she should tell, if anyone. Ron and Hermione might freak out. Remus would probably take it well, but what if Sirius had been pushed to his limits of not breaking down Hogwarts' front doors when she'd been entered in the Tournament?

Or did they both already know? Remus had known the Tournament was coming, and Snape's knowledge of dragons proved the teachers knew what the tasks were going to be…

Then there was the fact that it seemed unfair that she should know when Cedric, Krum, and Too Bloody Gorgeous Fleur didn't. But if she told even one of them, they'd want to know how she knew. She didn't want to get Snape in trouble. Even if she refused to share her source, mightn't one of the other teachers suss out that Harriet was still visiting Snape for "potions review," which, in light of this new information, maybe wasn't anything of the kind?

Cheating her way through the Tournament seemed much more serious then. More of a moral what's-the-word. Getting extra help from Snape wasn't fair. All those books he'd given her, with the spells so meticulously researched and marked... it just wasn't fair to the others, her having that kind of help.

For the first time, she felt her conscience squirm, like a tadpole in a bowl. She was glad, then, that she hadn't told Hermione about Snape helping her. Just picturing her shocked disapproval made Harriet wince.

For the space of about twelve hours, Harriet piously, seriously considered giving up Snape's help and trying to tackle that dragon through her wits alone. She'd been thrown into this Tournament, yes, without wanting to, it was true, without being prepared, even by Ministry standards—but that was no reason to accept this unfair advantage as if it was her due, was it?

 _Yes, you fool_ , said a voice in her head that sounded so much like Snape, she might as well have been talking to him on the telephone.

And then her thoughts would curl back around to wondering whether she should tell the other champions about the dragons, and she'd have gone nowhere.

Now the First Task was only a week away, casting a shadow across everything she did and thought, and she still hadn't decided. She thought about it as she lay in bed, trying (and still failing) to sleep; as she brushed her teeth; when she should have been paying attention in lessons; whilst she was having a shower; in bed again in the dark. Snape must have noticed, because only six days before the task, he gave her detention for inattentiveness (her potion _did_ boil over, and only Hermione pulling her out of the way had saved her from being scalded). When she shuffled into his office that evening and he glared at her, through strands of greasy hair that hung over his eyes, it occurred to her that he looked easily as tired as she felt. Only, being Snape, he looked a lot angrier about it.

"My initial estimate was right, then," he said coldly. "I shouldn't have told you."

"What?" Oh. Yes, she'd been correct that he'd kept mum about the dragons to avoid stressing her out. She pushed up her glasses to rub at her eyes, which felt gritty and too large for their sockets. "It's not that, it's…"

With Snape glaring at her like that, she couldn't say, _It's the cheating_ , not to him. His head might explode from the sheer number of mocking comments that would erupt.

So she said instead, "Are you helping Cedric Diggory, too?"

Snape stared at her. "You're losing sleep because you're worrying that I'm giving assistance to Cedric Diggory."

"No, I'm wondering… are you only helping me cheat? Isn't that a bit…" She twisted a strand of her hair around her finger (a strand she could swear was actually growing _upward)._ "Isn't it a bit unfair?"

"Miss Potter, what do you suppose the point of cheating _is_? Of course I'm not helping Diggory. Have you seen him emerging from my office or classroom weighted down with books, or hounding me in my private quarters at all hours?"

Harriet rather hated herself for the burst of relief and pleasure that followed. She really shouldn't feel pleased that Snape wasn't giving any of the others an edge.

She did, though.

"Why not? He's also Hogwarts champion…"

"I don't give a damn if Hogwarts wins the Tournament or has to be dragged, unconscious, into last place," Snape said. "You have no business being in this Tournament. Diggory is older, more capable, more knowledgeable than you, he was chosen as the best candidate above all the other students who entered. You are in no such position of grace."

The warmth that had kindled before snuffed out. "Thanks for that."

"Miss Potter," Snape said, in a tone that veered into scathing, "why do you think there was an _age restriction_ this year? Because seventeen-year-olds are more magically adept than fourteen-year-olds." And then, as if he couldn't help himself, he added, "And Diggory is at least hardworking."

"I work hard," Harriet said, stung for the second time.

Snape looked unimpressed. "You are capable of working hard, but you aren't hardworking."

"What's the difference?" she muttered.

"Hardworking is a personality trait, which you are lacking in."

Her cheeks scalded. "I'm not _lazy!"_ _Lazy, ungrateful girl, after everything we've done for you_ —

Snape started to reply but then stopped, his eyes moving over her face. Something shifted in his expression, but she couldn't tell what it was. She looked away, feeling stupid and angry and hurt, but stupid most of all. She tried to shove the memory of Aunt Petunia's voice, Aunt Petunia's hated face, Aunt Petunia's raised palm, into the back of her mind; only it was like trying to cram too many socks into a drawer that wouldn't shut.

Snape wasn't Aunt Petunia. It shouldn't matter.

"Your aunt thinks anyone who uses magic is lazy. It's what she tells herself to assuage the bitter disappointment of being as unmagical as a sack of bolts."

Harriet tried not to let her jaw drop open. Snape glanced away from her, shuffling some parchments around on his desk, as if the topic was unimportant.

"Aunt Petunia hates magic," Harriet said, feeling dazed and suddenly, fiercely eager. She had to stop herself from leaning forward, sliding to the edge of her seat, as if that would help her learn more. Snape, telling her things—she'd wanted it so much, for ages, more than any secrets on how to tame dragons.

"We often hate what we cannot have," Snape said, as if it didn't matter… only she could tell that it did. It was like hearing a whisper in a crowded room, but she could tell.

And for the first time, Harriet asked herself: if Snape had loved her mum, what had he felt when her mum married her dad?

She pushed that thought away, though much more gently than the Aunt Petunia-thoughts; like it was a balloon hovering over a bed of nails. It was too—just—not now.

"She always called me lazy." It wasn't what she'd intended to say, only maybe she hadn't intended anything beyond keeping him talking. "And ungrateful."

"Of course you weren't grateful," Snape said. "She never gave you anything to be grateful for."

That stung, but in an entirely different way than before. It stung for being true, for recalling all of those years when the cupboard door slammed and the locks clicked into place, when she lay alone, without toys or company, listening to the telly laughing, or Aunt Petunia speaking in that soppy, devoted, loving voice to her son, or Uncle Vernon chuckling at something Dudley had done or said. No one had ever told Harriet she didn't owe them anything. Until Hagrid, no one had even disliked them for the way they treated her.

Until Snape, no one had ever made them pay for it.

She shivered. If she shouldn't feel happy that he wasn't helping Cedric, she really shouldn't feel good about that…

She shouldn't.

But she did.

* * *

Every time Remus opened his mouth to tell Sirius about Snape's intended visit, he wound up saying something else entirely. "What shall we have for dinner tonight, then?" "Well, I've managed not to kill the _entire_ garden…" "You know we can buy a tape player and some cassettes, if you'd rather."

It was just such a nice change of pace, not having to deal with the Snape suspicions or the Snape rants. And yet the question continued to prickle, _Why am I not having to deal with them_ , and he wasn't sure whether he really wanted to know...

 _Backsliding again_ , murmured Conscience. Remus ignored it, as well as the part of himself that wished Sirius could be gone for one of his long walks the day Snape finally turned up. It was a fractional chance at best, since both Sirius and Snape seemed to have been born under the most unaccommodating stars, but hope was a tough little thing: as tenacious as those weeds he couldn't eradicate from the garden.

(Though he didn't try very hard with the weeds. He felt a sort of kinship with them, unwanted as they were. And then he'd sigh at himself, thinking he couldn't even take a firm stance on _weeds.)_

When Sirius came home with a loose tooth and a bloody nose, Remus assumed the fistfight had been with Snape. Sirius _could_ have got in a scrap at the pub in the village—he was reckless enough to draw attention to himself like that—but the suspicion of Snape's involvement wouldn't die, especially Sirius implied the bloody nose was part of a plan he'd concocted... which begged another question: what part of the plan involved Snape, and why was Sirius still not saying anything?

When Snape finally did show up, it was entirely without warning, and Sirius _was_ out, on one of his secret rambles. Remus could hardly believe it.

"Severus," he said, blinking at the figure on his doorstep. With his long black hair and his hands tucked into his cloak, Snape was almost invisible, little more than a gaunt face shaded out of the darkness. It reminded Remus of James lifting the hood of the Invisibility Cloak to grin out at them, keeping the rest of him hidden.

Except Snape didn't grin, of course. He looked dour and tired, and the sight of Remus always infused his expression with extra bitterness.

"The Wolfsbane really has gone off if you need to play these identification games. Yes, Lupin, it's me. Have you forgot how to move out of the way so I can get inside?"

Remus shuffled to the side, and Snape stepped in. He did not remove his cloak, but Remus didn't know whether he was trying to be rude or pragmatic: easier to storm out if you didn't have to stop and pull on your outerwear.

Snape folded his arms. If he had fought with Sirius, there was no evidence of it; but magic healed all of that. "Well?"

"I wrote you everything I knew," Remus said patiently. "I was hoping you could tell me."

Snape's glare should have chafed, but he was far less hostile these days than he'd been last year. "Any _new_ developments?"

"If you're referring to the folklore that werewolves can sense the changes in the moon, I'm afraid that's all rubbish. I feel the transformation as it gets closer—and after, obviously—but in the middle of the cycle like this, I'm fine."

"Did you feel any differently before the transformation, then?"

"A little." Remus frowned, trying to remember. "But that's typical for transformations that happen around or on Hallowe'en."

"Hallowe'en." Snape stared at him. "The transformation is different on Hallowe'en. Lupin, are you seriously telling me that you didn't bother to consider your past history before you dragged me down here?"

 _I didn't drag you down here, you were the one who said we should meet._ "I did consider it, but Severus, tell me—if this month I had come to you and said, 'I think I'm having trouble with the Wolfsbane, I thought so last month, only I reckoned it might be the Hallowe'en moon so I didn't say anything,' wouldn't you have called me careless?"

Snape's glare heated up, which told Remus he was right. But all Snape said was, "Why _did_ you bother me? And don't repeat all the excuses you've used so far. What was the exact reason, Lupin?"

And this, really, was why Remus was glad Sirius wasn't here. "Because Sirius hasn't brought it up once."

Snape looked almost blank. "If you're expecting me to fathom the innerworkings of your canine relationship, Lupin—"

Well, that was positively considerate, for Snape.

"I've a rule," Remus said, and wonder of wonders, Snape actually stopped condescending and appeared to listen. "Treat everything as if it's normal. Let me do what I need. Often that means ignoring completely… what's just happened." It was easier, somehow, saying this to Snape, who wouldn't feel the slightest stirring of pity. Snape would probably think he deserved every bit of agony, and dealing with that that was so much simpler. Lily had been worst of all, tears in her eyes, compassion in her touch. "Sirius has always been very good at following the rule, better than anyone else, in fact. But I can tell when he's ignoring it because he's good at that and when he's hiding something, and… he's hiding something. Something about me, last moon."

"Eat someone, do you think?"

Remus wanted to hit him. He forced himself to maintain calm.

"No. I'd have tasted the blood."

Snape only stared at him, not saying anything.

"Sirius also hasn't once implied you were responsible," Remus went on mildly. "I expected tirades about you botching the potion, trying to poison me. But there's been nothing said."

"Ah." Snape's lip curled, predictably. "Very unlike him, is it?"

Remus shrugged.

"Is Black here?"

"No."

"Out so late?" Snape asked, and Remus knew he was really asking something else entirely.

"He goes out walking. You wanted to speak with him?"

"I was merely wondering if he'd noticed anything." Snape kept watching him. "Something he'd neglected to share with you."

"Yes." Remus met Snape's eye with a feeling like looking across a lake on a moonless night. "That's something you'd need to ask him."

* * *

Life with Miss Potter, Lupin and Black around didn't fail to pique Severus' curiosity, at least.

Black was hiding the change in Lupin's condition from him, choosing to approach Severus instead. Lupin was aware that Black was acting oddly but, instead of broaching the subject with him, had also elected to involve Severus behind his lover's back. They were well-suited after all.

It made Severus wonder what they were each keeping from himself.

Then there was Miss Potter. Aside from being the perpetual target of shadowy plots to kill her...

First, there'd been the strange and unsettling business with her attempts to impress him with shoddy Potions' knowledge. Then had come the stroppy fits thrown over being ignored. She appeared to have abandoned all of that rubbish when it became obvious that someone else was out to get her, and for the first fortnight of pseudo-cheating sessions she had acted relatively normal: still prone to bouts of moodiness and temper, but relatively settled with him, not blowing up in his office or classroom.

Only now, she was behaving oddly again.

He suspected it wasn't to do with the dragons, but he didn't know what else it could be. For someone who combined an expressive face with a complete lack of subtlety, she possessed a secretive nature that could hide the truth as adeptly as that fucking Cloak erased her form. His only clue was that brief interlude where she'd asked if he was helping Diggory cheat, when she'd looked, for a moment, pleased that he wasn't, and then guilty. Perhaps it was the Gryffindor conscience at work.

It was sometimes on the tip of his tongue to tell her she wouldn't have to face the dragon, armed with illegal knowledge or no. He had three backup plans, after all.

His calculations were complete. Late Saturday, he would find out if they worked…

They would. They had to.

There were only four days left.

* * *

Two days before the first task, Hogsmeade weekend arrived in a flurry of icy wind. Wet, broken leaves mapped a strange sort of stained glass across the windows, veined in shades of amber and dying red. Icy rain overflowed from the gutters, gushing down the back of your neck if you were unlucky enough to be walking past a spout when a new wave rushed through. The halls and courtyards turned slippery with muddy footprints, and the owls brought sodden mail that fell apart when you tried to open it.

 _Your Hogsmeade weekend is due at last_ , Remus wrote to her on Wednesday, in a letter she pieced together from soggy strips. Sirius always added to the letters, but Remus always started them. _We've spoken with Dumbledore, and if you'd like, we've arranged for a day visit._

She would like very much. She would love, in fact. After so long, she would finally, _finally_ get to see Remus and Sirius.

On Saturday morning, bundled up against the bitter chill, she followed Ron and Hermione out of school. Though well-hidden under the Cloak, she saw how they were careful not to walk too close to each other. Ginny had started rolling her eyes and making kissy faces at Harriet whenever she saw them together, but Hermione was still pretending nothing was going on. Harriet never brought it up. Sometimes she wondered if she let it alone because she felt guilty about her own things-she-didn't-say.

 _Leave the main street before you get into Hogsmeade proper_ , Remus had written, _and walk around the village, heading southeast. You'll climb the hill, keeping the village at your back, until it's small enough that it looks like it could fit in the hollow of your hand._

"Have fun," Hermione whispered to her on the outskirts of the village, where Harriet stepped off the road.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Hermione and Ron continuing up the street together, their hands not-quite-brushing.

_Then you'll see an old fence falling apart..._

All the rain had soaked the ground; it was as soggy as bread dipped in stew. She walked until the mud had seeped up the hems of her trousers and the village shrank until she could have held it cupped in both hands, since hers were a lot smaller than Remus'.

_You'll have to be looking for it, since it's faded into the landscape over time, until it looks like a fallen tree, but that's where I'll be._

She found the decaying fence, the only sign of civilization, coated with moss and rotting to pieces, and trailed its rickety progress up the hill...

And, just like their letter had promised, there was Remus, wearing a battered old pea coat, leaning against the remains of the fence. When she pulled off the Cloak, he smiled, the expression trickled across the lines in his face and mapping across his eyes.

"I could hear your shoes squelching," he said. "Hello, dear."

"Hi." Harriet hugged him, and after a moment his arm settled across her back, slowly at first, and then tighter, more assured. A warm sensation swooped into her stomach, tingling out to the places where she and Remus aligned.

He kissed the top of her head. She looked up, surprised but pleased.

"Shall we get going?" he said. "Before Padfoot goes absolutely spare?"

He Apparated them to the front of a little stone house with a bright green door and a scraggly vegetable patch. Behind the house, the highlands seemed to roll on forever in shades of green and blue and brown, mingling with the dark clouds that hung low on the far horizon.

"You live here?" she asked, delighted, but wondering who was responsible for the lacy curtains.

"For now. It belongs to Dumble—"

The door banged open, expelling Sirius, who grabbed Harriet in a hug so tight that he lifted her right up off the ground. When she wriggled her arms, which he'd clamped to her sides, his grip loosened as if he was going to set her down; but with enough room to wrench her arms free, she threw them round his neck, squeezing him in a hug as tight as she could. The strength of his grip returned, and in that moment, Harriet never wanted to leave that little house.

"Come on," he said, kissing her roughly on the ear. "In with you."

He set her down and steered her into a well-scrubbed little kitchen, where he plunked her down at a table and immediately started shoving food at her.

"Here you go," he said, flourishing a tiered cake stand that was patterned with yellow roses, and layered with over-jammed scones, pancakes, and iced pink biscuits. The lot struck her as being as odd as the curtains. "Dig in."

"I thought that was supposed to be for after lunch?" Remus asked, voice dry as he hung her Cloak and coat on a peg by the door.

"It'll get cold," Sirius said.

"I had a big breakfast," Harriet said, reaching for a scone. "As long as Remus pours the tea, I'll be fine."

Remus did pour the tea, since Sirius was as wretched in the kitchen as Neville was at Potions. "You'll be thankful to know, Harriet, that I only let him put the jam and butter on the scones. And I tasted the first efforts. Luckily I've a cast iron stomach."

"They're delicious," Harriet said. "I'd never have guessed Sirius had anything to do with them."

"Creative genius isn't something you can control," Sirius said, waving his hand.

"Then it needs to stay out of the kitchen," said Remus.

* * *

Severus had everything ready before the students had packed away their late, lazy breakfast and shambled off to the village. The day was sunless and bleak, but he wasn't the only one who'd need to operate under cover of darkness: the dragon-handlers weren't scheduled to arrive until late that night.

He had a lot of waiting to do.

He'd just lit a cigarette, as part of his morning ritual of attempting to burn his lungs out through his nostrils, when Dumbledore tapped on his door.

"What?" Severus asked, both surprised and displeased to see him. The squirm of guilt caught him off-guard: what did it matter if Dumbledore didn't approve of his helping Miss Potter cheat? If Dumbledore would rather she faced dragons and merpeople with her unprepared Gryffindor head held high, then perhaps his heart was less all-encompassing than he liked to think.

"I thought you might like to take a walk," Dumbledore said.

"On an ugly, nasty day like today?" Severus sucked on his cigarette. "Suits the state of my depraved soul, does it?"

Dumbledore's mustache twitched. "Your mood, rather. You do resent its being too sunny."

"Sunlight is cheerful and obnoxious."

"Well, we could always stay down here, in the gloom."

Severus considered his choices: remaining in his quarters, where it would be more difficult to throw Dumbledore out when he preached and annoyed, or enduring exercise for the express purpose of being able to storm off when it suited him.

"Fine," he said. "I'll walk."

The next ten minutes reminded Severus that whatever tactics a person used to circumvent Dumbledore's schemes were ultimately futile. If Severus had stayed in his quarters, Dumbledore would have been impossible to drive away until he was good and ready; but until he was good and ready, it was equally impossible to get him to the point. On their walk up from the dungeons, he twittered idly about classes; as they slogged across the sodden grounds, he commented on the landscape in relation to a fucking T.S. Eliot poem; and, dawdling along the edge of the forest, he segued into an eloquent prediction about the coming winter that may have been a metaphor for something else entirely. Severus knew from past experience that no amount of grunting or loud sighing would puncture Dumbledore's enthusiasm, so he didn't bother to reply at all.

Dumbledore paused to peel a leaf off his sleeve with enough delicacy not to break it. "A remarkable specimen, don't you think?"

Severus said nothing, though he wished heartily that a brief hailstorm would target Dumbledore's head.

Dumbledore nodded as if he'd received a most insightful reply and tucked the leaf into his sleeve, patting it into place.

"I trust you've prepared Harriet adequately for what she must face in the First Task?" he said.

Severus didn't permit himself to react. He did wish he still had his cigarette, though. "I don't suppose there's any hope of it disqualifying her."

"I'm afraid not. Cedric would be left competing entirely against himself, were that the case. But surely you examined the rules for disqualification before anything else?"

"Short of murdering one of the other Champions, there didn't seem to _be_ any." And he wasn't being facetious. He supposed it made a twisted sort of sense that a Tournament which prided itself on pitting children against Level 5 Dangerous Beasts should set a low threshold for unprincipled behavior.

"Don't despair, Severus. I think Harriet will have benefited enormously from your assistance."

"You aren't going to scold me," Severus said, flatly disbelieving.

"You have Harriet's best interests in mind. I do want her to succeed, Severus, every bit as much as you, Sirius and Remus do."

 _Then why leave it to me to help her?_ _Surely the compassionate, helping hand_ _ought to be your own._ But he didn't want to say it. He didn't want Dumbledore to suddenly change his mind and take Miss Potter back, to decide his enigmatic, Gryffindorian assistance would be of more value, better suited, to her good nature. Severus believed the opposite: Miss Potter needed to learn to be _less_ Gryffindor and far more Slytherin.

The ground sloped off sharply then, a steep drop into the forest. Dumbledore stopped at the edge, his gaze drifting across the dark treetops, toward the shades of the mountains in the distance.

"It's of vital importance that Harriet try her own strength," he said. "That she is guided with every interest in her well-being and taught to stand on her own against adversity. We must not do too much for her, nor too little."

Severus did not reply, and Dumbledore, apparently having said all that he wished, did not go on. He continued to watch the unchanging landscape as if it held the secrets to Miss Potter's success.

If only.

Did he know what Severus had planned for tonight? No; he couldn't _know..._ but he might have guessed well enough; and Dumbledore's guesses tended to be sounder than other people's certainty.

Whether Dumbledore had guessed or not, Severus would go ahead as planned. Miss Potter was not ready to s _tand on her_ own, as he so considerately put it.

 _Or you aren't,_ whispered a voice in his heart, a voice that he banished into the cold wind.

* * *

The daylight was fading into spreading shadows when Remus said the words Harriet didn't want to hear: "It's time for you to go back."

He smiled at her, kindly, as if he read all her disappointment. "I'll take you. If you'll get your Cloak?"

Harriet noticed something extremely odd as she went to put it on. "Hey, it's not dirty," she said, pulling the hem between her fingers. Remus had had to spell the mud off her shoes and trousers, but the Cloak was as clean as if freshly laundered.

"It never gets dirty," Remus said. "Or threadbare. We never could figure out why. It's a good thing, though, or Sirius and James would've destroyed it five hundred times over."

"Creative genius can't be worrying about the laundry," said Sirius.

"It might worry about the priceless magical heirloom."

Remus and Harriet stepped out into the cold twilight, where a few, diamond-bright stars glinted in the recesses of the sky. She shivered, wrapping the Cloak around her and wishing it was a bit warmer; but whoever had made the Cloak had apparently been more concerned about keeping dirt off it than keeping heat in. She wished she could stay as warm as Remus, who gave off heat like a small furnace.

Sirius followed after them, hands jammed into his pockets, still in his shirt-sleeves. Smiling up at him, Harriet raised her hand to say good-bye—

And walked straight into an invisible wall.

It didn't stay invisible for long: as soon as she brushed against it, the invisible wall crackled into blinding, rippling light, swelling out and pushing her back. Her vision flushed with green spots, her head turning somersaults, Harriet stumbled and would have fallen if Sirius hadn't caught her.

"What happened?" she heard Remus asking as she shook her head, trying to blink away the light spots and stop the ringing in her ears.

 _"Sirius."_ Remus' voice, sharpened to a knife point almost as dangerous as Snape's, made the hairs all over her body stand up. "What have you done?"

"She's not hurt." Sirius held her up, his arm curling her against him. "It's a shield, is all."

"A shield for what?"

"It's a protection shield," Sirius said, his voice completely calm. "It'll keep you safe here, Holly-berry, with us."

Harriet didn't know what was going on or why the shield was a bad thing, but when Remus' pale face came back into focus, it was angry, as if he felt the anger deep, deep down and was only showing a part of it. Sirius' face was the opposite, as if no guilt had ever touched him.

Unease settled in her gut like a dusting of snow.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "Can I—can I not leave?"

"I told you I'd find a way to get you out of the Tournament," Sirius said, finally looking away from Remus, to Harriet instead. "The shield will keep you in here, where no one can get at you."

Harriet remembered Sirius had written that in his letters, but she'd honestly thought it was just his way of trying to make her feel better. But… if it was only protection, why did Remus look so furious with him? It was obvious he hadn't known about the shield and didn't like it…

"Sirius," Remus said then, his voice not quite steady, "you know this can't work."

"I don't know any such damn fucking thing," Sirius said, his calm cracking for the first time, showing a hint of something deep and dark.

"She has to compete. It's in the terms of the—"

"Rules can be broken."

"We aren't talking about some bloody school rules!" Remus shouted, making Harriet jump; she'd never heard him raise his voice. "This is a binding magical contract!"

 _"She_ can't forfeit." An edge gleamed in Sirius' voice. "But I can forfeit for her."

"And what if that has consequences?" Remus demanded. "Do you think people adhere to binding magical contracts just because _it's the right thing to do_?"

Sirius turned away from him, like he was done listening. Harriet looked from him to Remus, feeling twisted up inside.

"Come back into the house, Holly-berry." His hand settled on her shoulder. "We'll have some dinner."

Harriet let Sirius steer her back into the house, sit her at the table, and cobble together a sandwich with strips of fried chicken, cheddar slices and ketchup because she didn't know what else to do.

Saying nothing to either of them—not even looking at them as he walked past the kitchen—Remus disappeared upstairs. For a long time, his footsteps groaned against the ceiling overhead, moving back and forth like a pendulum, like he was pacing.

Then they stopped. For an even longer time, Harriet couldn't hear him moving at all.

"He's not angry with you," Sirius said to her in a low voice. "Only me. You know that, right?"

Harriet nodded, though she felt so uneasy she wasn't sure it mattered. She wished she was back at Hogwarts, but she didn't have the heart to tell Sirius. She didn't want it to seem like she was taking Remus' side against his… but was it taking Sirius' side against Remus to stay here, as part of Sirius' scheme?

She wished she knew what to _do_.

A crackling noise made her jump and drop her horrible sandwich, but it was only Sirius fiddling with the wireless. She picked her sandwich up off the floor, thinking that a stint on the ground couldn't make it taste any worse, at least.

The kitchen suddenly shimmered with blue-white light, the shadows rippling and streaking. She dropped her sandwich a second time, heart jumping into her throat. Had Remus called—?

But it wasn't the silver doe. It was a phoenix, so bright it was almost painful. She shielded her eyes so she wouldn't be blinded again.

" _Sirius._ " She dropped her hand from her eyes at the sound of Dumbledore's voice echoing like he was speaking through water. " _Will you come outside to meet me?"_

The words were polite, but Harriet could tell it wasn't a request. When Sirius nodded, the phoenix dissipated into a cascade of tiny stars, and the light in the kitchen faded back to normal.

Sirius strode out of the house; Harriet scrambled after him. So, Remus had called Dumbledore. That made a lot more sense than calling Snape, really… She supposed she'd thought it was Snape's Patronus because his was the only one she'd seen, apart from her own.

Sirius strode up the hill to where Dumbledore stood shining against the dark. His robes were patterned with lunar diagrams, the crescents gleaming in the light of the real moon rising behind him. It had almost reached its full again. A few more days… just after the First Task. Was that why Remus was so angry? But the moon had never seemed to affect him that way before...

"…evening," Dumbledore was saying as Harriet caught up to him and Sirius, who stood facing each other about ten feet apart. "And good evening to you, too, Harriet, Remus." (She looked back over her shoulder to see Remus climbing the hill behind her.) "I trust you had a good day out together?"

"She's not competing in that damn bloody Tournament." Sirius' calm from earlier had been replaced by something hard as stone. "Since you wouldn't do anything to get her out of it, I've done it myself."

Harriet thought Dumbledore's expression as he gazed at Sirius was… sad. "Had there been any way to remove Harriet from the Tournament, Sirius, I would have pursued it. You know this, you simply don't want to admit—"

"I DON'T KNOW IT!" Sirius shouted, making Harriet jump and her heart slam against her throat, because Sirius' yelling had a more frightening sound than Remus'. Dumbledore didn't even blink; in fact, he looked at Sirius with as much gentle compassion as if they were speaking quietly, not disagreeing at all. "You didn't even try—"

"It is a well-known fact of the Triwizard Tournament that there is no turning back once your name has been submitted," Dumbledore said. "I warned all of the students of this, the night the delegations arrived—"

Harriet remembered that speech. _Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the Tournament through to the end… There can be no change of heart once you have become champion…_

"SHE DIDN'T CHOOSE IT!" Sirius roared.

"No," Dumbledore said, the compassion in his eyes increasing, and the weight of his gaze settled on Harriet, both comforting and yet not. "She didn't. But to the Goblet—"

"To hell with that bloody FUCKING Cup—"

"Harriet needs to go back with Dumbledore, Sirius," Remus said, his voice as hard as Sirius' had been.

 _"Fuck_ that, she's not going anywhere."

"You believe that imprisoning Harriet against her will, so that she cannot meet the Tournament's challenges, will trick the contract into believing its terms have been fulfilled?" Dumbledore asked, like he was trying to understand Sirius' reasoning instead of objecting to it.

Sirius bared his teeth. "We'll find out, won't we?"

"You're putting Harriet at risk!" Remus snarled at him. Sirius rounded on him.

"And what are you doing, Remus?" he asked in a voice Harriet had never heard him use when speaking to Remus. "What have you done, this whole time? Not a damn bloody fucking thing—"

The expression on Remus' face went through Harriet's heart like an arrow.

"Stop it!" she shouted. "Just—stop it right now!"

Sirius and Remus shut up, though they kept staring at each other, in a hard, unyielding way that twisted her up inside.

Dumbledore started to say something, but then stopped. An almost comical expression of dismay flitted across his face. He reached into his shining robes and pulled out a little silver compact, which he clicked open, and, with one, resigned glance, closed again.

"So it begins," he murmured, as if to himself. "Gentlemen, Harriet—something has just come up, requiring my immediate attention and presence. I will return once it has been dealt with."

He Apparated away with a crack, leaving Harriet alone with Remus and Sirius.

"She's. Staying. Here," Sirius said, his eyes still on Remus and his face no softer than his voice.

Remus held his gaze a moment longer. Then he turned and walked back into the cottage without another word.

Sirius glared at the cottage a few moments longer, his jaw set; then his shoulders sagged. He raked both of his hands across his face and through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. Fatigue seemed to drape itself over him, harshening the lines Azkaban had carved into his face.

He looked down at Harriet and smiled, tired. "Come on," he said, looping an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go back inside, huh? Bloody fucking cold out here, it is."

Harriet nodded. She hoped Dumbledore came back soon, and stopped them fighting. She hated that more than she hated any prospect of fighting dragons.

She felt cold, all the way to someplace deep inside.


	63. Best Laid Plans

About an hour before midnight, Severus had embarked on what he'd taken to calling his First Task. It wasn't really the first by a long shot, not even in the context of the Triwizard Tournament, but he'd taken to calling it that anyway. Everything he'd done so far to distract Miss Potter and dupe Dumbledore had only been preparation.

Now… he would see if he could succeed.

The opening maneuvers weren't difficult. He often went prowling through the Forbidden Forest after dark. Some potions called for ingredients to be gathered at the full or new moon, when Venus was ascendant, after midnight on the spring equinox. At other times when he simply couldn't sleep, it calmed him to venture where he might be attacked by vicious magical beasts at any given moment—with the hope that he would be. A nighttime walk that didn't end with him blasting something was a waste of exercise.

So it was no trouble for him to slip unseen into the trees and follow the scant paths that his feet recognized, lit by the light of the nearly full moon threading the close-growing branches. He hadn't worn robes, as they were too likely to slow him down; trousers and a coat worked better for this sort of clandestine operation.

He knew that a number of silencing spells would have been cast throughout the forest, close to the dragons' makeshift enclosure. Dragons were impossible to silence completely; their roars could only be dampened; and even if he hadn't known, he would have felt the combined weight of the silencing charms pressing on his ears before he saw the first fiery flickers through the trees.

. . . fire?

The volume and movement of the light suggested a great deal of fire being produced in quick succession, flaring up and snuffing out. . .

Shit.

They weren't supposed to be awake. He'd known the time the handlers were set to arrive, and the dragons should still have been in stasis.

Paranoia whispered that perhaps Dumbledore had convinced the handlers to wake up their dragons a bit early, to make this part of Severus' task harder to complete. Common Sense pointed out that the suggestion of any headmaster probably couldn't sway a group whose priority would be the safety and well-being of their charges, even if that headmaster was Dumbledore; and Cynicism muttered that there was reason to worry because the headmaster was Dumbledore. If the Dark Lord was scared of him, there was no hope a few dragon-handlers could hold out against his will.

Severus made sure his Disillusionment charms were firmly in place before he went any further. If for some reason he couldn't complete his First Task, he wasn't going to be found anywhere near here.

From one step to the other, he broke through the barrier and into a shattering wave of sound. The blasts of fire lit the camp well enough to see that the dragon handlers, judging by the way they were running around and shouting, hadn't been prepared for the beasts to awaken. Well, it was a small consolation to know that Dumbledore's influence wasn't quite as profound as all that, but angry and frightened dragons were hardly a better exchange.

There were at least thirty handlers present, about seven or eight to each dragon. In the orange light that flared and died like a camera's shutter opening and closing, he could see them hauling on chains attached to the dragons' necks and legs, an action which the dragons appreciated even less than waking up in a strange place. Severus had known there would be four, but not the breeds; he could see a Welsh Green shaking the ground, a Chinese Fireball belching clouds of fire, a Swedish Short Snout snapping its razor teeth, and—

The largest dragon, black with slitted pupils and a tail twice the size of the largest handler that lashed across the clearing, reared up on its hind legs and screamed. The sound pierced Severus' ears like a nail-tipped arrow. Fire built in its throat, lighting its mouth from the inside, so vivid it shone through the scaled flesh of its jaws—

"It's no good!" yelled one of the handlers. "Stunning Spells, on the count of three!"

"STUPEFY!" they shouted as the black dragon expelled a stream of fire that shot straight at Severus' tree.

He dived out of the way, landing with a crash in what felt like a bramble-filled bush; but with the noise of four dragons thundering to the ground, shaking the earth and trees, he was fairly certain nobody heard him. Mouth filling with the acrid burn of smoke, he lifted his head.

His tree looked like a twelve-foot tall stick of charcoal.

That dragon had been at least thirty feet from him.

For a moment he closed his eyes and willed himself not to do anything. . . stupid.

He hauled himself out of the bush and crouched next to it, watching the handlers crawling like ants next to the dragon-shaped mounds. The black dragon's unconscious, slitted eye glowed as bright as fire across the clearing.

A fucking Hungarian Horntail. All of his dragon knowledge (that didn't involve poisoning them) had been acquired in childhood, as a boy excited, like most boys, by the thought of deadly animals with claws and fangs and fire; but he remembered his facts well enough. Even without that demonstration, he would've known the black dragon for the most dangerous of the lot.

He brushed his hand over his jacket, where the packets of poison rested. He couldn't feel them through the Undetectable Extension Charm he'd placed there, but he knew.

It was time to watch and . . .

Wait.

What the fuck was Hagrid doing there? And—with Madam Maxime?

She was moving off toward the dragons, but Hagrid hung back, talking with a red-haired . . . Sweet Merlin, was that Charles Weasley? Christ, it was . . . Severus' desire not to get caught tonight quadrupled.

So, with the help of the Weasley, Hagrid had apparently arranged a romantic date with the head of a rival school. Had Maxime even needed to fish for it, or had Hagrid dropped the opportunity right at her overlarge feet? No, she'd probably worked for it, though found she needn't have tried too hard.

And Dumbledore scolded Severus for being too sneaky. He ought to use some of that grand perspective and see how dangerous Hagrid's guileless over-sharing could be.

Out of habit, Severus cast a spell toward Weasley and Hagrid to magnify their voices, and heard something that made him bristle:

". . . Harriet doing? Mum's been having kittens about her, although the paper's full of nothing but Cedric Diggory . . ."

"Fine," Hagrid said, as if he wasn't even really listening. Severus wouldn't have imagined even a great, blundering fool like that could be so thick as to suppose a child with the meanest intelligence would be all right under these circumstances, especially after seeing Miss Potter during the last few weeks. The girl was in his bloody classes, he had her at close range, he ought to be able to tell—

"I just hope she's fine after facing this lot," Weasley said grimly. "That Horntail in particular is a vicious thing, back end's as dangerous as the front. I didn't dare tell Mum what they'll be doing for the first task . . ."

At least Weasley Secundus wasn't a complete fucking tit. Keeping the spell going in case they said anything of value, Severus scanned the rest of the clearing. The other handlers were tending to their fallen charges, making sure they were secure, scanning them for injuries beyond the norm, after taking thirty fucking Stunning Spells.

He was really hoping he hadn't underestimated the resilience of dragons.

Now the handlers were unveiling a series of crates. Was that where they kept the dragons' food? Dragons needed to feed every few hours, although they didn't drink; all of the moisture they needed came from their food. It was one of the things making this part of his task harder: dragons had a highly developed sense of smell and wouldn't eat anything unfamiliar, and they were fed almost exclusively on large slabs of meat. He'd need to coat the meat in the poison, but he'd had to adapt his materials so they would be tasteless and scentless. He needed to know where the food was, and he needed the handlers distracted . . .

He had a plan. He had several, of similar degrees of efficiency, down to various distractions he could cause that wouldn't give away his position.

But he hadn't counted on being struck from behind with a Full Body Bind.

He fell with a crash, far too loud now that the dragons had been stunned. He heard a series of shouts out in the clearing, felt something being stuffed clumsily into his jacket, and saw the face leaning over him with its unpleasant, flickering smile.

Karkaroff.

Then the old man was gone, in a nervous dash like a rabbit, disappearing into the dark forest as the dragon handlers blundered through the undergrowth, headed straight for Severus.

Rage gripped him: he wasn't sure whom he was more angry with, Karkaroff for doing this to him or himself for playing so much the fucking fool that he'd made himself such easy prey.

He really was out of practice.

Karkaroff had better hope they locked Severus away for life, he thought as the first dragon handler's face appeared above him. (Of course it would be Charles Weasley.) Because if not, Severus would make him pay, and pay, and pay. . .

"Finite incantatem," Weasley said, not sounding impressed. "Want to tell me what you're doing here, Professor?"

At least five other dragon handlers had tagged along, all looking equally stoic and suspicious. Severus supposed they were used to dealing with poachers.

And there was Hagrid's big face, peering wide-eyed through the trees, and Madam Maxime with him. Magnificent.

When Severus sat up, the thing Karkaroff had stuffed so sloppily into his jacket fell to the ground. Weasley, damn the clever little bastard, clearly hadn't put much force into his Finite, because Severus' movements were still sluggish, and Weasley beat him to Karkaroff's parting gift: a little leather pouch. Full of lethal poisons? But that would imply premeditation, and how could Karkaroff have known what Severus was planning? Karkaroff was an opportunist, devious but not especially bright. Severus could believe that Karkaroff had come sneaking around, possibly following Hagrid and Maxime or working off a tip, that he'd seen Severus and acted accordingly, in revenge for Severus' impromptu interrogation session . . .

Perhaps he shouldn't have left Karkaroff remembering that. He'd thought it would be a good prelude to his opening act when he had to face the Dark Lord—if he could offer memories of torturing Karkaroff . . .

"Professor," Weasley said flatly, sounding almost exasperated; Severus realized he'd tuned out his surroundings. "You want to explain this?"

He held the pouch down where Severus could see it. The inside was full of a bunch of very long needles, about the right length to plunge into a dragon's ear-hole. So, Karkaroff had transfigured them . . . Fitting.

The dragon handlers, with their stony faces and ready wands, couldn't intimidate Severus if they lived to be a hundred. He didn't even give a damn about the legal trouble that would be coming. 

The air smelled of charcoal, from the burnt tree he was leaning against. _You aren't going to die,_ he'd told Miss Potter, who had looked even more horrified at the prospect of a dance.

"Not in the slightest," he told Weasley. Severus was surprised how easily it came back to him, the ability to pretend like he didn't care. He slipped into it like an old, familiar cloak. "But I would like to contact Albus Dumbledore."

* * *

Harriet pulled the quilt around her, trying to get warm. Even though she was sitting next to the fire, she couldn't stop shivering. Cold crept beneath her clothes, sunk into her skin, made its way down to her bones . . .

Sirius piled more wood on the fire. The logs settled and popped, shedding sparks and throwing shadows across his face. She wanted to ask how late it was, why Dumbledore hadn't come back yet, but her lips burned when she tried to move them. They felt like they were going to split open.

Remus was sitting at the table in the kitchen. She couldn't tell if he and Sirius were still fighting or not. They hadn't spoken to each other at all since coming inside, which had been . . . how long ago now? Where was the clock?

Sirius sat down on the couch next to her. He said something, but she couldn't make it out, the words were too distorted. She tried to tell him, but her voice wouldn't come.

He was reaching toward her.

When he put his hand on her forehead, pain seared through her from his hand to her fingertips and toes, fast as a gunshot. Her voice came back to her in a scream, so sudden it scared her, and he jerked away like she'd flung fire in his face. Her muscles bunched, tightened; she shook so hard her whole body hurt. Like she was sinking into icy black water, she watched the shadows swim up the walls, closing over her head, her heart squeezing in her chest. . .

_Like the Dementors_ , she thought. _S_ _omeone make a Patronus_ . . .

Someone was wrapping the blanket around her, lifting her off the couch. She couldn't see who, Remus or Sirius. . . were they taking her back to. . . ? Somewhere. . .

_where?_

The icy blackness seeped into her mind, flowing over everything, burying it . . . She wanted to block it, tried . . . couldn't . . .

. . . it was so cold . . .

* * *

Following Sirius, Remus carried Harriet out of the house. Even as warm as his body always was and with layers of blankets wrapped around her, he could still feel how cold she was. It was an unnatural cold, unpleasant and dark. A magical cold.

A curse.

Sirius crouched on the earth, which was probably less frozen than Harriet would be if they didn't hurry, and muttered a string of words that disappeared into the wind. The barrier around the croft shimmered into sight, outlining a dome at least a hundred feet high. It would have been almost beautiful, the way it shot heavenwards in a brilliant shower of silver, if Harriet hadn't been radiating a chill that crept to his heart in more ways than one.

"Keep her safe," Sirius said curtly, his face turned away, hair falling into his eyes.

"You don't need to tell me," Remus said, and Apparated away.

He pushed his destination to the edge of Hogwarts' wards, knowing it wouldn't be close enough, with Harriet a dead weight in his arms.

"Stay with me," he whispered as he started up the track, moving as fast as he could without running. When Sirius had touched her, she'd reacted as if it had hurt her badly, and it had seemed to push her into this half-unconscious state. They hadn't got a response out of her after that. Whether she was beyond her senses or only the bared touch of skin could make her react, Remus didn't know; but he'd nonetheless ensured she was wrapped in blankets before picking her up.

When Harriet had screamed, Sirius had caved. His face, for a moment, had crumpled; he'd flinched away, shrunken in on himself . . . and then he'd returned, harder, harsher, said, "Come on, then," and they'd wrapped her up with the unspoken understanding that whatever he'd tried, it was over.

They could only hope they wouldn't be too late.

Remus saw the gates of Hogwarts gleaming in the falling moonlight. He lengthened his strides, gripped his wand.

He was threading the opening gestures of the unlocking spell in the air before he was within arm's reach of the gate, muttering the incantation on the November wind. Dumbledore had updated the spells since Remus was a professor, but he'd kept Remus abreast of the changes.

The locks slithered open, the wards parted like a curtain, and Remus shoved at the gate with his elbow and his knee. In his arms, Harriet lay still as death, colder than a corpse. Through the blankets he couldn't feel her pulse but he was afraid to touch her skin; though his own breath misted heavily in the night air, he couldn't see hers.

He gritted his teeth as he gained the front steps, preparing the unlocking spells . . . but stopped in astonishment as they opened of their own accord.

Or not. Madam Pomfrey appeared, still wearing her matron's robes, though it was long past midnight.

"The Headmaster warned me," she said grimly, stepping back to let Remus in.

"Don't!" Remus blurted as Madam Pomfrey's hand moved toward Harriet; but then he saw her wand.

"I'm sorry; she reacted badly when—I touched her," Remus said.

"I know better than to touch a cursed patient." The muscles in Madam Pomfrey's face tightened as her diagnostic spells flickered between them, relaying information too complex for any but a trained Healer to interpret with any certainty.

"Let's get her to the infirmary," Madam Pomfrey said, starting toward the stairs. Tightening his arms so that he pulled Harriet even closer, Remus followed.

* * *

The Headmaster's tower was a luxurious prison, as prisons went. Severus knew that Dumbledore would be a compassionate jailer.

Just as he knew there'd be no more chance of escaping than if he'd been incarcerated at the earth's core.

He stood at the window, opaque against the night. With the firelight at his back, he could only make out the moon, a pale, distorted shape floating in the black.

He stepped back, raised his wand, and fired the most powerful blasting curse he knew at the glass. The spell lit the room in an actinic flash . . . and sank into the window without even rattling the frame. Like a sigh into the wind, it vanished, absorbed by whatever magic Dumbledore had put on the windows—and the fireplace, Severus found.

The Headmaster would regret he hadn't cast any similar spells on the rest of his belongings.

* * *

Remus was hovering uselessly, watching as Madam Pomfrey cast spell after spell at Harriet, when Dumbledore joined them. Remus' heart, which had twisted itself into knots and sunk into his boots, lifted in hope. Albus was there; he would fix it, he could fix anything…

_No, he can't_ , whispered his mind before he could stop it. _No one can._

"I'll beg your pardon for my tardiness when we've time to spare," Albus said, stopping by Harriet's bed. When he looked down at her, something in his face made Remus feel as cold as if he were holding Harriet against him without five layers of blankets.

But then Dumbledore was setting down a box that looked like the great-grandfather of a major antique and unlocking the hasps by hand. He lifted out a cup that was older than old. . .

Remus stared. That couldn't be. . .

"Dumbledore," said Madam Pomfrey, staring at the cup—no, at the Goblet of Fire, only without the fire, "this child needs St. Mungo's, immediately—"

"I'm afraid she cannot be taken away from Hogwarts," said Albus, beginning to roll back his sleeves.

"Headmaster, this is beyond my skills to mend!"

"It would be beyond the skills of anyone in London. This is the penalty invoked by an ancient geas."

Madam Pomfrey opened her mouth and then shut it. Her eyes flashed. "Do you mean to say this is the work of that wretched Tournament?" She gripped her wand, as if she was considering blasting the Goblet into splinters. "Headmaster—"

"I will be delighted to hear your highly justified strictures once Harriet is safe, but we must work quickly now."

When he produced the little silver knife—the perfect size for cutting fruit, Remus thought dimly—Madam Pomfrey fell silent.

"Headmaster," she said in a very different tone than before.

"Luckily for us," Albus said, taking no heed, "ancient magic, though powerful, operates with beautiful simplicity."

And he cut open his wrist. Madam Pomfrey dragged a bandage out of her apron pocket, but she didn't make a move towards him. Albus held his open wrist over the Goblet, letting his blood stain the old wood.

"I am Albus, Headmaster of Hogwarts." His voice was calm, but it sank into the silent infirmary with a weight that clogged Remus' throat. "I speak for this child, Harriet, who lives under my protection. I reaffirm her commitment to this challenge, her will to complete her duty."

The blood started to smoke—at first red, then orange, then golden-yellow, and finally brightest white—billowing over Albus' hands and into the air. Then, retreating back into the Goblet as if time was rewinding itself, it turned to water, bright and glowing and burbling unlike any liquid Remus had ever seen.

Madam Pomfrey did not move, but Remus saw the same astonishment in her face as must have shown in his. It was that same feeling he always got when Sirius turned into a dog, or when the full moon shattered his own bones: a reminder that magic was not always conducted neatly through wands; that it was a powerful, mysterious force that could change anything, everything, and they were barely in control of it . . . if even that much.

The light from the Goblet cast its white-gold glow across his face as Dumbledore reached for Harriet. Lifting her shoulders off the bed, he held the Goblet to her lips. Madam Pomfrey's hands tightened on the bandage, twisting it, though she still didn't make a sound. Remus stared at the thick, dark line of blood coursing down Dumbledore's forearm as he tipped the Goblet all the way back, draining its contents into Harriet's mouth.

Then he lowered the cup, still holding her against him.

Each second they waited, silent and unmoving, felt a second too long to wait.

Then Harriet coughed.

Madam Pomfrey's whole body sagged. Remus felt dizzy, light, like he might lift straight off the ground and float up to the ceiling.

Harriet coughed again, then several times more, and then retched one, twice, three times. Madam Pomfrey straightened and hurried to the bed, summoning a pan to catch whatever Harriet was hacking up, allowing Albus to retract the Goblet (which had served to catch the first three expulsions).

"Ugh," Harriet moaned.

"Easy does it, Miss Potter," Madam Pomfrey said, propping her up. Her arm curled around Harriet's shoulders, and she held her hair out of her face as Harriet was sick again.

Albus vanished the contents of the Goblet and stored it back in its box. He looked . . . tired.

"Your arm, Albus," Remus said quietly.

He lifted his head, smiling faintly. "Nothing I can't fix for myself." And he shook his sleeve down till it covered his bloody forearm. "Forgive me these abrupt comings and goings, but I must get this back to the Ministry before anyone notice it's gone missing."

With a brief touch to Remus' shoulder, he was off again. It was just as well he hadn't lingered for an answer, since Remus found, just then, that he was rather out of things to say.


	64. Harriet's Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Some canon dialogue in this chapter. I'm sure you'll recognize it :)
> 
> -THANK YOU, dear ones, for continuing to read and enjoy! ♥

"All _four_ dragons, Severus?" Dumbledore asked wearily.

Severus refused to speak to him.

"Let me out or I'll curse you unto the tenth generation," he snarled.

Refused to speak to him on _that_ point, anyway.

"I have no children," Dumbledore said, "and it's quite unlikely that I shall, you know. Aberforth, too. At least, I don't think he ever did. . . it seems unlikely, with the goats—"

"LET ME OUT!" Severus bellowed.

"No. Severus—ah, thank you, I never liked that vase—Severus, the only reason you're not in prison right now is that I agreed to keep you here, where I could ensure you wouldn't get into any more trouble."

Severus knew the real reason he wasn't in prison was that Dumbledore had used his considerable powers of charm, influence and manipulation to keep him out of it, but he wasn't going to thank Dumbledore for it. He'd destroy all of Dumbledore's things and raze the roof from his tower.

"I can't let you out," Dumbledore said, gazing as imperturbably at him as if Severus wasn't seething with the desire to smash everything Dumbledore owned, including his head. "I know you, Severus. You've almost lost all sense of control. You cannot allow yourself to lose sight of what's—"

Severus hexed him. Dumbledore parried it without even breaking his flow.

"—important. You can't protect Harriet from Voldemort," (Severus flinched), "if you're shut up in prison for poisoning four members of an endangered species in view of thirty witnesses. How would I explain to the Wizengamot the reason that I need you here, with me? Our fight against the Dark Lord is of vital importance, Severus."

"And if Miss Potter gets flamed to a crisp by a dragon, that will help the fight, will it?!"

"You must have more faith in Harriet, Severus. That is the most important consideration of all."

* * *

Harriet awoke feeling like she'd come off a very bad flu.

She was really, really sick of opening her eyes to the sight of the bloody hospital wing.

 _Stupid bloody vaulted ceiling_ , she thought. _Stupid bloody diamond-paned windows and stupid bloody minty curtains and stupid bloody. . . Remus?_

Remus was asleep in a chair next to her bed. His head was resting against his hand and he was breathing evenly, his mouth slightly open.

A stream of blurred memories flowed through her mind: Dumbledore gazing sadly at Sirius in the garden; Remus and Sirius shouting at each other; that cold that ran like rivers through her bones, almost as bad as the dementors'. It hadn't stirred up any memories, but there had been some great, terrifying nothingness on the other side, one that she'd been falling into like a frozen weight, completely helpless.

She shivered, then grit her teeth. She wasn't going to stay in this bloody stupid hospital wing a moment longer than she had to.

"Harriet?" Remus muttered, only half awake.

"Hi."

Remus sat up in his chair, rubbing at his eyes and scrubbing his hands through his hair as if trying to wake himself up.

"How are you feeling?" His eyes looked blurry, but his worry was clear.

"Fine," she lied stoutly. She pushed back her blankets and set her bare feet on the freezing floor. "I'm ready to go."

"I'll get Madam Pomfrey—"

"I don't need to see her. I feel fine."

"Please," Remus said. She resented him a little, then. Couldn't he see she didn't want to be here any longer than she absolutely had to?

When Remus left, Harriet hunted in the bedside cabinet for her clothes. Madam Pomfrey, however, knew her too well and had hidden them somewhere.

With a rustle of cloth, Madam Pomfrey appeared, pushing back the curtain that surrounded Harriet's bed. She was completely dressed even though it was still dark outside. "Miss Potter, what are you doing out of—"

"I feel fine," Harriet repeated, though her legs were feeling like jelly and desperately wanted her to sit down. She forced them to keep her standing. "I don't need to be here."

Madam Pomfrey started to reply but stopped at the sound of the infirmary doors opening. Was it Ron and Hermione? They must've been worried when she hadn't shown up yesterday _or_ last night.

But when Madam Pomfrey looked outside the curtain to see, she said, "Headmaster," and Harriet's heart sank.

"Good morning." Dumbledore joined them behind the curtain, wearing robes the color of a purple sunset. "I'm glad to see you're awake, Harriet. How are you feeling?"

"She says she's fine," said Madam Pomfrey in the voice of one who doesn't believe it for a moment. She passed her wand over Harriet, who did her best to ignore the spells flashing and blinking a rainbow of colors across her eyes.

"I _am_ fine."

"Not eight hours ago you were in the grips of a very powerful geas," said Madam Pomfrey, as if Harriet were behaving like a foolish child. "No one would be 'fine,' Miss Potter. Now, sit."

"No! I want to leave."

" _Miss_ Potter—"

Dumbledore said, "If Harriet wishes to go, Madam Pomfrey, I don't think we should stop her."

"What?" Madam Pomfrey looked about five seconds or one more idiotic remark from tossing him out of her infirmary on his ear. "Headmaster, you saw the state she was in! And you yourself had to—"

"You have an excellent memory, Poppy," Dumbledore said, smiling. "As excellent as my own. Certainly Miss Potter was in dire straits last night, but she appears quite well enough to know her own mind this morning."

Harriet hated being talked about as if she weren't there, but she'd endure it if it meant getting out of here. Remus was completely silent. He hadn't even tried to get a word in.

Madam Pomfrey's jaw was set. "I advise against it, Headmaster. Very strongly."

"I understand your position completely. But Harriet has a task to prepare for. I don't think we should keep her from it any longer than we have."

Remus looked away, like he was ashamed. Harriet was sure Dumbledore had just said something significant. Last night. . . last night he'd said something about her having to see it through to the end. . . that if there'd been a way to remove her from the tournament, he'd have done it. . . He'd said she had to compete. And he was right. She'd always known that. When her name had come out of the Goblet on Hallowe'en, she'd been numb, she hadn't wanted to believe it; but once it had sunk in she'd never really believed she'd get out of it. Even last night, with Sirius so determined, she hadn't believed it.

She hadn't really thought she'd be _hurt_ , though. She'd just thought the judges would make her participate. She hadn't though the Goblet itself would have anything to do with it.

She shivered again. It didn't have anything to do with her bare feet on the bloody icy floor.

Magic. . . suddenly, it seemed. . .

The grown-ups were still arguing.

"In light of what she'll be facing on Tuesday," Madam Pomfrey was saying to Dumbledore, "I see all the more reason to keep her here!"

 _TUESDAY._ Harriet's mind reeled and she almost did have to sit down, then.

"I understand your concerns," said Dumbledore, "but Harriet cannot be cured today by regular remedies any more than she could last night. The Goblet's magic wished for her to participate in the Tournament. She will mend swiftly; you shall see."

"I want to prepare," Harriet said. "I need to. I can't waste the day in here."

Madam Pomfrey looked like a captain who'd just seen his crew mutiny on him.

"Very well," she said, breathing out hard through her nostrils. "Very well. I only hope she may not suffer worse from this foolishness."

She strode off to her office, slamming the door so hard they felt the breeze.

Remus silently handed Harriet her clothes, and Dumbledore pulled the curtain shut so that she could dress in private. She threw on her jeans and jumper, tying her muddy trainers in half-knots; she wanted to be out of there before Madam Pomfrey changed her mind and stuck her to the bed with a spell.

When Harriet shoved aside the curtain, Professor Dumbledore broke off his conversation with Remus—if it could be called that, since Remus still didn't seem to have said a word. His arms were crossed and his face looked grave and distant.

"Ah, Harriet. I was just telling Remus that Professor Snape has taken a short leave of absence," said Professor Dumbledore.

Harriet stared at him. The floor suddenly didn't seem to be right beneath her feet—it was like it had disappeared when she wasn't paying attention.

"L-leave? Where?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you." Dumbledore did sound like he regretted it, but Harriet barely noticed. How could Snape have just left? She wasn't ready for the First Task—she still had no idea how to fight the dragons—he had to know that. He'd given her all those books, but he had to know she hadn't really been reading them all that closely. He was too clever, he knew her too well.

"Well, off you pop," said Dumbledore, smiling down at her. "I wish you all luck on Tuesday—though I know you've skill enough not to need rely on chance. Remus, shall we?"

With a final parting smile, Dumbledore turned toward the doors. Remus said quietly, "I'll see you Tuesday, Harriet," and followed him, not meeting her eyes.

Harriet was left standing alone in the middle of the infirmary, feeling like she'd been abandoned.

* * *

Harriet wandered through the castle with no idea where she was going. She was like one of those balls in a pinball machine, propelled out of the hospital wing and bumping her way through an obstacle course. . . only very slowly, because the game was broken. Or it just sucked.

The first task was only two days away.

Snape had _left._

What was so, so _bloody_ important that it would take him away when she needed him to help her?

 _Well, then, it probably_ is _very important._

Or he just didn't care.

_Don't be stupid, he wouldn't have given you all that help so far if he didn't care.  
_

But that was just for her mum, wasn't it?

_Snape's free time isn't up for anyone to grab, I bet you anything._

What could be more important than her fighting dragons?

What was more important… than her?

A flock of birds went rocketing past the window, startling her. She stood blinking stupidly, feeling quite disorientated, when she heard someone shouting her name.

"Harriet!" cried Hermione's voice.

Turning, Harriet saw Hermione and Ron pelting toward her. Hermione skidded to a stop, or tried to; she plowed right into Harriet, sending them both staggering into the wall.

"Gah!" Harriet's arms pinwheeled.

"Oh—" Hermione clung to Harriet's neck, perhaps to keep from falling over. "I'm sorry—I misjudged my velocity—are you all right?"

"Fine," Harriet wheezed, rubbing her windpipe, where Hermione's rather bony shoulder had caught her.

"No thanks to you," Ron said to Hermione, shaking his head.

"Well, I've been worried!" Hermione said defensively. "When you didn't come back yesterday—I thought—"

"Thought what?" Harriet asked when Hermione just wrung her hands.

"She thought one of the Durmstrang or Beauxbatons lot might've bumped you off," Ron said—casually, but Harriet thought his freckles didn't look as bright as usual.

"Ron!" Hermione said, like he was being insensitive.

"Ohh." Harriet remembered a section from one of the books about all the times something like that had happened in the Tournament over the years. "No, nothing like that. I just wound up staying over with Remus and Sirius, is all. Remus brought me back."

Her conscience squirmed at the lie, but they both looked so relieved that she couldn't force out the truth: that she'd almost. . . well. _Had_ she nearly died? Or. . .

She hadn't asked what had really been the result of the Goblet's insurance policy, and no one had offered to tell her. Their silence told her a lot.

Maybe it was a good thing Snape had gone off somewhere. If he'd found out what happened to her last night, he might have tried to kill Sirius. . .

Wait. What if that's what had happened? What if he'd seen her last night and gone off to kill Sirius and he was now in Azkaban?

"I'm sorry!" she blurted to Ron and Hermione. "I've got—I've got to ask Dumbledore something! I'll come find you later—sorry—"

And she pelted off, leaving them staring in amazement after her.

* * *

"How long am I going to have to stay here?" Snape muttered, glaring out Dumbledore's window. He'd been confined to the Headmaster's quarters, not even allowed into the office, in the interests of maintaining the fiction that he'd "gone on leave" rather than "been to all intents and purposes arrested." Dumbledore was giving him the run of his private chambers, which included a private library and a luxurious guest room; but with his customary presence of mind, the Headmaster had removed everything breakable and wrapped cushioning charms around the furniture.

Severus wanted to kill something, like Karkaroff or a Hungarian Horntail, not sit in a comfortable chair and read.

"Severus, you've not been here twelve hours yet."

"It _seems_ interminable."

"Harriet will be fine," Dumbledore said, as if Severus was talking about something else entirely.

"Just because she's come out on top from battling man-eating monsters _before_ doesn't mean she ought to be thrown in front of another one!"

"Sometimes I can't help wondering if keeping Harriet out of high-risk contests isn't wasting her natural talent," Dumbledore said thoughtfully, a comment which Severus thought in extremely poor taste.

Before he could tell Dumbledore what to do with his insights, however, the Headmaster's gaudy spangled robes actually _chimed_.

"Ah." He pulled what looked like a woman's makeup mirror out of his pocket and clicked the clasp on the top; it stopped chiming. "Someone's in my office, wishing to speak with me. I'll return shortly—with some lunch. Severus, when was the last time you ate anything?"

He left the room. Severus was about to slam the door after him when he heard Dumbledore saying, "Harriet, my dear?" in a tone of some surprise.

Severus paused with his hand on the door. He couldn't see into the office from the corridor, but he could hear well enough, especially since Miss Potter had no notion of how to speak quietly.

"Professor—" Her urgent voice carried from the study into the hall. "Professor Snape's not in Azkaban, is he?"

"Azkaban?" Dumbledore repeated, as if he still wasn't following her. Severus wondered how she could possibly have found out about the dragons. . . unless Hagrid had told her—? Yes, of course Hagrid had told her.

"I thought, if he'd tried to kill Sirius—"

And then the door shut between them, a silencing spell smacked across it, and Severus heard nothing more.

Black? What had Black done that Severus should need to kill him?

His eyes narrowed. Miss Potter must have hit on something or Dumbledore wouldn't have blocked their conversation. He wouldn't want to give Severus any extra murderous incentive.

He must have forgotten that when it came to Black, Severus always had an incentive.

* * *

"Professor Snape is quite safe," Dumbledore assured Harriet. "As is Sirius. Although, given Sirius' regretful status, I don't believe Professor Snape would be tried for attacking him. . ."

Harriet had forgot about that bit. She suddenly felt rather stupid. "Oh. Right. Yes."

Dumbledore smiled at her. "I'm sure they would both appreciate your concern. But at present they're equally well."

"Will. . . will Professor Snape be back for the Tournament?" Harriet asked.

"I'm afraid not," Dumbledore said, as if he realized how uncomfortable it was for her stomach to ball up and drop like that. "But perhaps that's better. Between you and me," his eyes twinkled faintly, "I'm not so sure he could survive it."

* * *

"Why am I supposed to have murdered Black?" Severus demanded when Dumbledore returned bearing a tray steaming with coffee and piled with sandwiches.

"I knew you'd have heard that," Dumbledore said calmly. "Goat cheese and watercress? I know you won't eat the pancetta."

"What's he done?"

"Sirius," Dumbledore deftly moved his cup into position before his senile coffee pot could pour itself over the carpet, "had the same idea as you."

"I didn't see any other fucking idiot getting cornered by thirty dragon-handlers." The humiliation of his own stupidity still writhed in his gut.

"The details were different, but the design was the same. You both tried to keep Harriet out of the Tournament." He selected three sandwiches and arranged them on a tiny plate with a border of pansies. "Sirius' plan was no more successful than yours."

Severus ignored the plate, which Dumbledore placed on the table in front of him. "What did he do?"

"I'm afraid that's all I can tell you right now. Do try the sandwiches, Severus."

"I'll be happy to—over Black's cooling corpse."

"Severus," he sighed, "you don't even know what it is he's done."

"If it weren't egregious, you wouldn't be keeping it from me."

"You've never needed an added incentive to demand Sirius' blood." This was so close to what Severus himself had thought that he didn't like it one bit.

"He's always given me plenty of reasons."

"Indeed, I think it's a feud that will never die." Dumbledore looked pointedly at him. "Considering that you both have the same goal, I should think you'd be able to put all that aside."

"Then you don't know either of as well as you claim. I'll put all that aside when Black is dead."

"Somehow, I doubt it will happen even then."

* * *

As soon as Harriet climbed through the portrait hole, she was swamped with a homecoming reception. Ginny, Neville, the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and Parvati had apparently all had the same idea as Hermione and thought someone from Durmstrang or Beauxbatons had tried to bump her off. They dragged her over to the sofa in front of the fire and treated her to a litany of their best assassination theories.

"We thought they'd tied rocks to your feet and thrown you in the lake!"

"Or fed you to the Giant Squid—"

"Or walked you off the plank of their ship!"

"I thought those Beauxbatons cows might've hexed all your hair to fall off," Ginny said darkly. "I've been learning that Bat Bogey hex to get back at them."

"How would that kill me, though?" Harriet asked, bewildered.

"Well, I thought you might've attacked them in a rage and been sent to Azkaban—"

This was so close to what Harriet had imagined Snape doing that she almost started laughing hysterically.

" _I_ 'd have gone into hiding," said Parvati, shuddering. "From the shame."

"I'm fine," Harriet kept saying. At first she thought they might be so preoccupied with discussing possible assassination attempts that she'd be able to get away without having to say anything more. But then Ginny asked the dreaded question:

"Where _were_ you, anyway?"

It wasn't a good moment to realize that she didn't have a good lie to tell them. She'd been so preoccupied with Snape's disappearance that she hadn't thought of an explanation for her own.

Then Hermione, the wonderful girl, saved her at the eleventh hour.

"Harriet?" She elbowed Fred aside, smiling in an extremely fake way that shouldn't have fooled anyone. "You've a letter, and, and it's urgent."

"Sorry," Harriet said to everyone, "I'll talk to you later."

And grabbing Hermione, she sped up the girls' staircase.

"Whew," she muttered, throwing open the door to the dorm. "That was—Nitwit?"

Sure enough, Remus and Sirius' little owl was buzzing round her bed, hooting his head off.

"There really is a letter?" Hermione said, surprised.

"You just made it up, then?"

"It was the first thing I thought of, when I saw them cornering you."

Harriet plucked Nitwit out of the air—catching him always felt like holding a furry Snitch—and managed to get the tightly compacted letter off his leg.

All it said, in words pressed so hard into the paper they almost tore it, was:

_I'm so sorry, hollyberry._

"Something did happen yesterday, didn't it?" Hermione asked quietly. "Something more than you just staying over at the last minute."

"Yeah."

Harriet found a quill and wrote, _It's all right_. She stared at the parchment for some time, her quill dripping ink down her hand, but she didn't have anything else to add. Maybe it was for the same reason that Sirius' letter was so short.

She tied her letter to Nitwit's leg and opened the window to let him fly away. As he disappeared into the sky—which didn't take very long, as it was quite cloudy and he was so small—she thought about what she had to do now. The cold air on her face seemed to clear her head.

It was time.

"Let's find Ron," she said. "I've got something to tell you both."

* * *

 _Thirteen years_ , Remus thought. _Thirteen years, and we still haven't broken old habits. Though that means 'habits' is the wrong word, doesn't it?_

Sirius hadn't acknowledged his return. He only sat hunched at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, hair caught between his fingers. A memory now almost twenty years old laid itself over the present, the colors faded but the strike in his gut the same: that morning after the full moon, when Sirius had tricked Snape down the tunnel, and James. . .

It hadn't been Snape whom Sirius had thought of later, or even Remus. It had been James. James, who'd been upset with him for almost getting someone killed, for nearly hurting Remus. James, who'd almost been Remus' victim. They hadn't been Animagi yet. James would have been just another human.

_It's always been this way. You put other people in danger and I watch. First James, now Harriet. . . they forgive you, because that's the sort of person they are. And because you love them so much._

_It never changes._

The night where Remus had almost killed Snape (the first time) had been the only time when Remus had had no control over his own actions. He should've tried to stop Sirius last night.

_"And what are you doing, Remus? What have you done this whole time? Not a damn bloody fucking thing."_

"I'm going away for a while," said Remus to the curtains that hung motionless across the window over the sink. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius raise his head. "After the First Task. I need to. . . I need to think."

"Where the hell would you go?" Sirius croaked.

"It's not important."

 _It won't solve anything._ He knew that. _You were apart from him for thirteen years and you fell back into old habits-that-aren't-habits._ He knew. _Running away won't change anything._ It wouldn't.

_This is part of who you are._

"You can't." Sirius cleared his throat. His voice sounded as sore as if he'd been howling for hours. After full moon nights, when they'd run the forest through the night, he'd sounded like that the next morning. Had he become Padfoot when Remus had taken Harriet away last night?

"Sirius—"

"The wolf's getting bigger. A lot bigger."

As Remus stared at the dark pink ditsy print on the curtains, the flowers seemed to warp and swell. "What?"

"The wolf's grown. He's twice my size now. That's why the Wolfsbane hasn't been working like it should." Sirius' chair creaked. "I didn't know how to tell you."

Remus shut his eyes. He put his hand on the counter, to have something to hold onto.

"You can't go," Sirius said roughly. "If Snape's shitty potion isn't working anymore, I'm the only one who. . ."

He trailed off, but he didn't need to finish. Remus knew he was right. He could have asked a thousand questions, picked apart every detail, but the pain that had been increasing steadily for months, the recovery periods getting longer each time. . . Sirius' gentleness and silence. . . he'd known that Sirius knew what it was.

Sirius knew that Remus needed him. Sirius wouldn't let him go.

He felt his resolve to leave splinter and break apart, falling to mingle with the dust of everything else he'd resolved on and given up.

Remus was relieved, to the very bottom of his heart.

He hated himself for it.

* * *

"Druh. . . dragons?!" Hermione squeaked.

"Holy _shit_ ," said Ron, and Hermione was still in such a state that she didn't even scold him.

"Sirius tried to keep me out of the Tournament by putting a barrier up round his house," Harriet said heavily. "It didn't work."

She was holding the debriefing session in the Room of Requirement. She knew from her own experience that when the subject of four dragons came up, no one could help shouting it out for everyone to hear. So far, though, Ron and Hermione had been a lot more composed than she had. Hermione was just clutching at her face and squeaking, and Ron kept muttering swearwords.

Suspicion shadowed Hermione's dumbfounded panic. She lowered her hands from her face. There were nail marks bit into her cheek.

"It was worse than that, wasn't it? Something happened to you."

"I'm fine."

Hermione studied her. Ron looked between them, wary but keeping silent.

"The Tournament is serious business," Hermione said. "I've read every book I can find on it. Some of the champions later changed their minds and tried to run away."

"What happened?" Ron asked, glancing briefly at Harriet, then away.

"Some of the defectors were all right, if they returned before too long. But some of them. . . well. They died."

Neither Ron nor Harriet spoke. Ron swallowed, though, and Harriet felt a chill.

"There's a geas on the Goblet," Hermione said quietly. "A. . . penalty to ensure the players are punished if they try to renege on their promise. The magic is very old. . . the spell was cast over five hundred years ago, and they used a form of magic even older than that. It's very powerful, I imagine."

"Harry. . ." Ron bit down on his lip. "Did something. . . like that. . . happen?"

Harriet thought of the champions who'd tried to run. They'd have gone off on their own, wouldn't they? And the cold would have washed over them like the tide. . . that paralyzing nothingness. . . they'd have been dragged under, like she had. They'd have died alone somewhere before anyone found them.

"Remus brought me back. I'm fine now."

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other. They really were becoming that good at speaking to each other with just a look. But she could still understand what they were thinking: something bad had happened or she wouldn't be avoiding the question.

"What are you going to do about the dragons?" Ron asked at last.

"I wish I knew."

" _You don't have a plan_?" Hermione squeaked, her panic rushing back.

"I've tried learning some spells to deal with them, but it's like the Summoning Charms. It all just leaks out of my head."

"Well, it can't!" Hermione cried. "You have to do _something_ on Tuesday!"

"I could ask Charlie," Ron offered. "You know, I bet that git's known the whole time—remember how smug they all were at the station? And Charlie hanging on all summer! Blimey, I bet he's here right now—"

"It wouldn't be fair to ask him to help," Hermione said. "It might compromise his job, Ron—"

"You _want_ Harriet to get set on fire?"

"Of course not!" Hermione said, stung. "But we can't ask your brother to help us cheat—"

 _Yep_ , Harriet thought. _Definitely not telling her about Snape._

* * *

The next morning—Monday—the thought in Harriet's head that seemed to crush all the others to unimportance was the realization that the First Task was now only one day away.

She felt like a zombie, moving through the tasks of dressing and brushing her teeth and stumping down to breakfast without really noticing what she was doing. In fact, Hermione had to tell her that the reason her tie wouldn't fit round her neck was because it was her sock.

The moment she left the Great Hall for class was the first moment of clarity she'd experienced all morning: when she saw Cedric bobbing away with a clump of his friends. Seeing the back of his perfect head retreating, she suddenly knew what she ought to have done a long time ago.

"I'll catch you up in Charms," she said to Hermione and Ron. "There's something I've got to do—"

"We've Herbology next!" Hermione called fretfully after her as Harriet sprinted away.

Not wanting to go up to Cedric in front of his friends and admirers, Harriet hung back, following them at a distance. Then, she got an idea.

Hiding behind a statue of Paracelsus, Harriet pointed her wand at Cedric's bag and whispered, "Diffindo!"

The bag split open and all his books and parchment cascaded out.

"Don't bother," he said exasperatedly to his friends as they stooped to help. "I'll clean up this lot—tell Flitwick where I've gone. . ."

Harriet had been hoping this would happen. As soon as his friends had trooped away, she dashed up the corridor, skidding to a stop next to him.

"Hi," Cedric said, looking up at her. "Bag split—can you believe it? Brand new and everything—"

"Cedric," Harriet said quickly, before anyone could come along and ask what they were doing, "the First Task is dragons."

Cedric stared at her, the book in his hand dripping scarlet ink all over his trousers. "What?"

"Dragons. They've got one for each of us, and we've got to get past them and get something, I don't know what."

A dart of panic stole into his face, an echo of what she'd been feeling for the past two weeks.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Dead sure."

"But how did you find out? We're not supposed to know."

"Never mind. Now—now you know."

Cedric stood, clutching his things against his chest, smearing red all over his sleeves. His stared at Harriet with a puzzled look in his eyes, and a shade of. . . suspicion.

"Why are you telling me?" he asked.

 _I should've told you earlier._ "So we both know. . . so it's fair. We're on equal footing now, aren't we?"

Cedric was still looking at her in a suspicious way when the sound came from behind her.

Clunk. . . clunk. . . clunk.

"Diggory," growled Moody's voice, as Harriet's stomach jumped up next to her heart. "Late for class, looks like. Best get on. Potter. . . with me."

 _Shit_. "Er, Professor, I'm supposed to be in Herbology—"

"Never mind that. Come on."

Not daring to look at Cedric, Harriet followed Moody. She was absolutely resolved not to say anything about Snape. She'd swear up, down and sideways that she'd found out on her own, even if Moody turned her into a ferret.

Moody opened a door and pointed her inside. It wasn't until Harriet was walking through it that she realized he'd taken her to his office. She knew the room well, having visited Remus there so many times; but it looked quite different now. A bunch of odd, rather sinister-looking instruments stood buzzing the room, hung gleaming on the walls, sat humming on his desk. She felt more than ever like she was walking into an inquisition. Straight ahead of her, a mirror swirled with fog in hues of storm-cloud grey and opal-white, steel-silver and angry bruise green. Shadowy figures moved around behind the smoke, but the glass didn't reflect her at all.

"That's my Foe Glass," Moody said. "See them in there, skulking around? I'm not in trouble till I see the whites of their eyes."

Harriet imagined Voldemort's face looming out of the mist—though his eyes would be scarlet.

"Heard what you said to Diggory."

She held up her chin and braced herself for the interrogation.

"Mighty decent thing you did there, Potter."

She blinked.

"Sit." He pointed at a chair across from his desk, which looked like he'd carved it himself the same time as his clawed peg-leg.

Harriet sat, wondering why on earth he'd brought her here if he wasn't going to scold her. Or maybe he was trying to put her at her ease—get her off her guard?

"So, you know about the dragons," Moody said. "Know how you'll be facing them?"

Harriet blinked again. "I. . . I think I've got a pretty good idea."

"That's good." Moody seemed to know she was lying. She supposed an Auror would have learned to tell. "'Cause I'm not going to tell you how. I don't show favoritism, me. But you've got promise, Potter, I don't mind acknowledging that. The key thing is always to play to your strengths. I assume you'll have thought of that."

"Yes, sir," Harriet said, which was a complete lie.

"Right. You're a damn good flier, from what I hear."

"But I'm not allowed a broom. I've only got my wand—"

"Exactly," Moody said loudly. "So you can get what you need, when you need it. I'm sure you'll have thought of that, too."

"Right," Harriet said, still not seeing what he was driving at.

"But I'm only telling you what you know, I'm sure." Both his eyes, electric blue and beady black, were fixed straight on her. "So I won't take up any more of your time. Play to your strengths. Get what you need. Nice and easy. Good plan, girl. Good plan."

Harriet left his office, wondering what on earth had just happened.

She'd just pulled open the outside door to go down to the greenhouses when understanding passed through her mind like a rush of November wind.

She raced across the grass to Herbology, so distracted that she had to turn around halfway down the aisle and sprint back to apologize to Professor Sprout. Then she sped toward Ron and Hermione, wedging herself in between them.

"You two have got to help me master the Summoning Charm by tomorrow morning."


	65. The First Task

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Select bits from the canon chapter of the same name have been reproduced herein because they were too good to leave out. (Now with bonus profanity!)

At two o'clock in the morning, Harriet stood near the Gryffindor fireplace surrounded by heaps of objects—books, quills, several upturned chairs, an old set of Gobstones, and Neville's toad, Trevor (who was too dazed to even try crawling away). Only in the last hour had she really got the hang of the Summoning Charm, even though she'd been practicing with Ron and Hermione since lunchtime.

"That's better, Harriet, that's loads better," said Hermione, whose hair was almost as wild-looking as Harriet's by that point.

"Now we know what to do next time I can't manage a spell," said Harriet, throwing a Rune Dictionary back at Hermione so she could practice again. "Threaten me with a dragon."

"Unless the dragon was what was blocking you in the first place," said Ron darkly.

"Don't you wreck my concentration," Harriet said, "with your pessimistically ironic theories. _Accio dictionary_!"

The heavy book soared out of Hermione's hands and across the room to Harriet, who managed to catch it before it beaned her between the eyes.

"Harriet, I really think you've got it!" said Hermione delightedly.

"Just as long as it works tomorrow," Harriet said. "The Firebolt's going to be much further away than the stuff in here. It's going to be in the castle, and I'm going to be out on the grounds. . ."

"That doesn't matter," Hermione said firmly. "Just as long as you're concentrating really, really hard, it'll come."

"Good thing you know about the dragon already," Ron said. "If you'd found out for the first time tomorrow, Harry, it might've been hard to concentrate."

* * *

Harriet had been focusing so hard on learning the Summoning Charm yesterday that she hadn't had as much time to panic; but when she woke up Tuesday morning, the inside of her head was empty of everything else. _Accio accio accio_ kept running through the echoing dread in her mind; all through breakfast, small objects came juddering down the table toward her—a pot of cream, ketchup bottles, forks, Trevor again. In the corridors, quills shot out of people's bags as she walked past, and in the classroom bits of chalk followed her to her seat.

The atmosphere in the school was thick with tension and excitement. By mid-morning Harriet was in a state of nervousness so advanced, she wouldn't have been surprised if at any moment she lost her head and started cursing everyone in sight. She felt quite detached from everything, even her own body.

At lunchtime, when Professor McGonagall materialized next to her seat at Gryffindor table, Harriet was surprised (in a distant sort of way) that she didn't faint into her goulash.

"Miss Potter, the champions have to come down into the grounds now." Professor McGonagall's shoulders were as straight as if Moody had transfigured her bones to a fire poker. "You have to get ready for your first task."

"Okay," Harriet heard herself say, and felt her legs stand up.

"Good luck, Harriet," Hermione whispered, looking absolutely terrified. "You'll be fine!"

"You'll do great, mate," Ron said like he was desperately trying to believe it.

"Yeah. Thanks." Harriet followed Professor McGonagall out of the hall, wondering who'd attached strings to her body and was pulling her along like a puppet. They'd were good at planning ahead, whoever they were. There was no way she'd have made it to the task on her own.

"Now, don't panic," Professor McGonagall was saying. At some point, she'd put her hand on Harriet's shoulder and was gripping her quite hard. "Just keep a cool head. We've got wizards on hand to control the situation if it gets out of hand. . . the main thing is just to do your best and nobody will think any the worse of you. . . are you all right?"

"Yes," said Harriet, who wouldn't have thought she'd have been able to force out a lie so thick. "Yes, I'm fine."

* * *

"The task will be starting soon," Dumbledore said. "I must be there, of course, voting for the school—"

"I don't know why you're bothering to waste your breath telling me what I already know." Severus' eyes were glued to the window from which he could most clearly see the arena where the task would be taking place, which wasn't very clearly at all. Dumbledore, in his _great_ magnanimity, had offered him two telescopes and the run of the Headmaster's study; but for all that this was a better view than any of the other rooms had, it was still shit.

"I just wanted to leave you this. It's one of your extra strength Calming Draughts." Dumbledore set something down on a nearby table; Severus heard it clink. "And I'm reminding you that you're expecting a guest."

Severus finally looked up from the telescope. Dumbledore's little smile, just visible beneath his overhanging mustache, sent a frisson of unease through his gut. That was his special My Plots Are Unfolding Swimmingly smile. Nothing good could ever come of Dumbledore smiling at him like that. "A guest? How can I possibly—"

Someone knocked at the study door. Politely.

"You needn't hide, Severus," Dumbledore said over his shoulder as he went to answer the door. "This will be _your_ guest, after all. Ah, Remus, good afternoon to you. I hope you didn't have trouble getting in?"

"No, it was fine—the castle's quite deserted now, everyone's gone out to the. . . oh," Lupin said when he saw Severus, who felt he should've known.

He bared his teeth at the dog Lupin was leading. Black let out a long, low, threatening growl.

"Padfoot," Lupin said, frowning tightly. "Not now."

"Oh, I'm sure there's no need for any of that." Dumbledore fixed his eyes on Severus over his half-moon rims. "I trust the two of you—Severus, Sirius—might watch the First Task together, in something resembling peace."

They had better, in other words. Severus infused as much contempt and scorn into his silence as he was able, while not breaking eye contact with the mongrel. He thought he heard Dumbledore let out the faintest sigh.

"We'll settle for that. Remus, shall we be off? We don't want to miss any of the champions' performances—especially Harriet's."

Lupin cast a doubtful look down at the dog, then a second at Severus, but let Dumbledore usher him from the room without a word.

The door shut behind them, flaring gold at its edges as sparks of spell-fire faded into the air. A sealing spell. One of Dumbledore's most powerful.

Well. . . now Severus knew why Dumbledore had arranged _two_ telescopes.

* * *

"Harriet! Good-oh!" said Bagman happily as Harriet walked into the tent on puppet string-controlled legs. "Come in, come in, make yourself at home!"

Bagman was the only person in the tent who had any color, probably because he wasn't about to march out and face off against a dragon. Fleur, Cedric, and even Krum looked pale and deflated, as if all the air had been sucked out of them and nothing left behind but nerves. Fleur kept clenching her hands on her knees; Krum looked even surlier than usual, and Cedric was pacing. He smiled tightly at Harriet when he saw her.

"Well, now we're all here—time to fill you in!" said Bagman. Harriet wished he'd sound less bloody cheerful, or better still, that he'd just shut up. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag, from which you will each select a small model of the thing you're about to face. There are different, er, varieties, you see. Your task. . . is to _collect the golden egg_!"

Cedric nodded, then resumed pacing. Neither Krum nor Fleur reacted at all. Harriet wondered if they were afraid that if they moved even the slightest bit, they'd be sick. Well _they_ , at least, had volunteered for this, the mad bastards.

Then she heard the dreadful sound of hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of feet tromping past the tent. . . hundreds of voices laughing and chattering and joking. . . it made her think of the World Cup, before the Death Eaters had ruined it, of course. . . She ought to have out there having fun. . . But she was finding it awfully hard to think of any time recently when she'd had _less_ fun than this, without involving Dementors or nearly being eaten by a werewolf or attacked by drunken Death Eaters or losing her mind to a time spell or a magical geas. . .

Bagman was opening the neck of his purple bag.

"Ladies first," he said, offering the bag to her and Fleur.

Fleur picked first, which was just as well, since Harriet's arm didn't want to move. When Fleur withdrew her hand from the sack, in her palm sat a tiny, perfect model of a green dragon with the number two round its neck.

The dark mouth of the sack was yawning at Harriet. She reached inside. Her fingers closed around something prickly that writhed.

When she opened her hand, she was holding a black dragon with a mace for a tail, wearing the number four.

* * *

"Why in fuck are _you_ here?" Severus snarled at Black.

"That's _my_ fucking line," Black snarled back.

" _I_ live at the fucking school, if you'll remember."

"Well, Harriet's _my_ goddaughter, and she's out there." He jerked his chin at the window.

"No _shit_ , Black. I thought it was only the fucking replay of the Quidditch World Cup."

Black shoved two fingers into the air as he strode over to the other telescope. He peered into the eyepiece, then scowled. "The view from here is shit."

Severus wasn't about to gloat that the view from his own window was slightly better; Black would only try and steal it. "Your little doggy disguise ought to permit you to watch from the stands next to your pet werewolf. Don't tell me you're in the _dog_ house?"

"Could say the same fucking thing to you," Black retorted. "Why are you up here instead of down there, fawning over that piece of shit Karkaroff?"

"You did something you shouldn't have done." _Sirius had the same idea as you_ , Dumbledore had said. _You both tried to keep Harriet out of the Tournament. . . his plan was no more successful than yours._

And whatever that plan, it had been of a nature to cause Miss Potter to fear Severus' trying to kill her worthless dogfather in retaliation. If Black had been able to get her out of the Tournament, Severus would almost have ceased to hate him with every fiber of his being; maybe with only nine tenths of it. For a short while, anyway.

But if Black's plan had somehow hurt Miss Potter. . . It was almost impossible to imagine what wildly fucking moronic notion he could have concocted to achieve such a result. . . but Black was such a reckless fucking idiot that the details hardly mattered. . .

"The Tournament's starting," Black said, squinting into his eyepiece. "And I can't fucking see shit."

Then his gaze fell on Severus' telescope, comprehension darting through his narrowed eyes. "Let me guess. That's got the better view. Right, Sniv?"

"You can have it," Severus said, drawing the words like hisses through his teeth, "over my dead fucking body."

Black's smile bared his teeth like a dog's.

* * *

It was worse than Harriet could ever have imagined, sitting inside the tent and listening as Cedric fought his dragon without being able to see what was happening. The dragon's roars, the crowd's screams and yells and gasps, were driving her to the outer edge of her sanity; and Bagman's commentary was determined to vaporize her last remaining particle of calm:

"Ooh, narrow miss there, very narrow! . . . He's taking risks, this one!. . . Clever move—pity it didn't work!"

When a deafening roar drowned out every other sound, Harriet knew it could only mean one thing: Cedric had got past his dragon and seized the golden egg.

The whistle blew a second time.

It was Fleur's turn. Trembling from head to foot, she walked out of the tent with her head held straight and her wand clenched in her hand. In that moment, Harriet almost liked her.

 _I'm going to have to listen to all that_ three fucking times, she realized as the crowd greeted Fleur with screams and a shattering torrent of clapping.

Harriet wanted something to distract her—anything—but there was nothing in the tent and she probably couldn't have concentrated on it anyway. Krum, the only other champion left, wasn't exactly a grand conversationalist even when he wasn't in danger of being toasted to a crisp in front of a crowd.

She tried to imagine what Snape would be doing now, if he were here. Probably giving her a nasty pop-quiz on those books he'd foisted on her. Or making her practice her Summoning Charm. Why hadn't he thought of her flying? He knew she was rubbish at reading and remembering things out of books. . .

It seemed ages later that wave after wave of applause broke across her ears. Fleur must have got past her dragon, too.

Krum was standing from his chair as the whistle blew for the third time.

"Good luck," he grunted in Harriet's direction without looking at her, and slouched out of the tent.

Two down. One to go.

* * *

CRASH. "That's my fucking telescope, you shitting bastard, you can fucking stick to your own!"

"I don't want your shitty telescope, _Snivellus_ , I'm getting it out of my way so I can see—"

"Like hell you are, arsehole!"

"She's my goddaughter, you fucking twat!"

"Who would have guessed that occupation would become so dear to you only _after_ you'd dragged your flea-bitten arse out of prison!"

With a snarl, Black grabbed his telescope stand and tried to bash Severus' to the side; Severus swung it around and cracked Black on the eye with the cylinder. Black roared. Severus drove his elbow as hard as he could into Black's solar plexus, only realizing too late that he should've used the tripod again: he'd put himself right in range of Black's swinging the telescope, stand and all, down toward his head. They were too tangled together; Severus had to block with his forearm—painfully, the thing was solid fucking brass—but Black used his momentum to bear him down. They went tumbling across the carpet, Severus hard-pressed to decide whether it was more painful to go flying down a hill or roll over a telescope stand.

They slammed into one of Dumbledore's spindly tables. Something that had been sitting on it tumbled over and shattered, dumping liquid across their hair and faces, along with shards of glass spelled not to cut. A familiar scent filled Severus' mouth and nose: something he'd always imagined clouds might smell like.

He blinked as his murderous rage dissipated into the fluffy ether that was now gently blanketing his mind.

"Fuck you, Black," he said, feeling strangely free of blood lust. "You knocked over the Calming Draught."

"It was you, arsehole." Black, however, didn't sound too concerned. He plucked one of the bottle's shards out of his hair and peered at the iridescent liquid gleaming on the glass. "Why's there Calming Draught sitting on a table, anyway?"

"Dumbledore," Severus said, as if that answered everything. But Black nodded sagely, as if it did.

"Seems pretty bloody powerful."

"I brew it for NEWT students. It's three times the normal strength." He thought for a moment, then slowly leaned forward and shoved Black, who rather unconcernedly fell over.

"Prick. What was that for?" Black said, propping himself up on his elbows and peering at him through damp strands of his hair.

"For whatever you did to Miss Potter." Then he remembered. "Shit. The first fucking task."

He grabbed the nearest telescope; but before he was fully standing, Black swung his leg out, hooking Severus in the ankle and knocking him to the floor.

"You cock. What was that fucking for?"

"That's my telescope," Black said calmly. "This one's yours." He waved the one he'd tried to smash. It had come detached from its stand, which lay in a rather sad heap on the floor between them. At least the telescope itself looked undamaged.

Severus grabbed it from Black's hand and stumbled over to the good window, pressing against the eyepiece. Far away and below in the enclosure that he could barely make out, the scarlet head of the Chinese Fireball was rising and plunging again repeatedly, attacking whoever was out of sight beneath the trees.

"I can't see shit."

"Me neither," said Black, having returned to the other window. Apparently, under the influence of the Calming Draught, he didn't care that Severus had the better view. "Which dragon is that? Fuck. . . how many did we miss?"

Severus wasn't sure whether he should hope they'd brawled straight through Miss Potter's performance or not. It was torture of a particularly insidious kind, watching the dragon's head writhe in the air and expel bursts of fire, wondering if Miss Potter stood at its feet. This stage seemed to go on and on. . . What was the idiot champion _doing_ that should take so bloody long?

If it was Miss Potter—he hadn't prepared her properly—if something happened to the reckless girl, it would be all his fault—

Were it not for the Calming Draught, he'd have flinched when the Fireball emitted a horrible, roaring shriek that pierced across the grounds and through the glass.

"Looks like the crowd's clapping," Black said. "They—yeah, those blokes're leading the dragon away. Guess whoever it was got through."

"Shut up, Black."

The Fireball was gone now. A few endless, dragging, eternal moments later, the spiked, hell-black head of the Hungarian Horntail rose where the Fireball had stood.

And Severus knew, with distantly rage-filled certainty, that this would be the dragon Miss Potter got.

* * *

The whistle blew and Harriet walked out of the tent on someone else's legs, the panic rising in a crescendo inside her. The trees around her warped into the faces of the watching crowd; some kind of great, unceasing energy was thrumming and crackling through the air; and on the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over a clutch of eggs, was a black dragon with evil slitted yellow eyes and wings that when unfolded must stretch above the tops of the stands. . . its tail was dragging on the ground, leaving gouge marks in the earth that was hard and frozen beneath her feet. . . she couldn't hear anything but a roar. . . not a dragon's roar or the crowd's roar but a noiseless noise inside her mind. . .

It was time to do what she had to do. . . to focus entirely and absolutely upon the thing that was her only chance. . .

Harriet raised her wand.

 _"Accio Firebolt!"_ she shouted.

* * *

"What was that?"

"Would you _shut up_?"

"That thing that went zooming off just now, was that a bloody _broomstick_?"

"Shut up, Black!"

"It's gone down into that pen thing—d'you think that's Holly-berry? Do you—"

Severus would have slammed the telescope into his skull if he'd been able to unglue himself from the eyepiece. But he couldn't look away, on the off-chance that Miss Potter actually came into view for even a second. . .

. . . which she did then, as she soared out of the enclosure on a broomstick.

"Fuck me sideways," said Black. "She Summoned a fucking broom—look at that, would you fucking _look_ at her—"

Severus couldn't have looked away if the Dark Lord was regenerating on the carpet behind him. As Miss Potter flew higher into the air, leaving the dragon far below her, in his imperfect ring of sight he watched her smile flowing across her face as if something pure and incandescent had lit inside her.

 _Miss Potter_ , he thought, _you utter lunatic._

* * *

Something wonderful happened as soon as Harriet was in the air, the crowd and the dragon shrinking to dots below her: her fear vanished, as if she'd left it behind on the ground, as if it had come apart in the wind rushing through her hair. It was just like the first time she'd flown, when Malfoy had stolen Neville's Remembrall and she'd leapt onto the broom after him, realizing this was easy, it was _brilliant. . ._

She looked down, where far, far below she could see the golden egg glinting Snitch-like amidst the dull grey clutch of dragon's eggs. Unlike a real Snitch, it was stationary. . . unlike a real snitch, it was being guarded by a dragon. . .

But that was all right. This was just another kind of Quidditch match. That Horntail was just another kind of ugly opposing team. It had been a while since she'd played a real game of Quidditch, but that didn't matter either.

She was back where she belonged.

"Okay. Diversionary tactics," she said under her breath. "Let's go."

And she dived.

* * *

Miss Potter looked extremely small as she hovered for a moment on her broom, high out of the dragon's reach. The wind carded her hair off her forehead, then back into her eyes; she tossed her head, shaking it away. He caught the moment when the thrill of being airborne seceded to determination, her eyes narrowing as she concentrated.

Then she dived.

The dragon's head wove around, following her; Severus gripped the telescope so tight that his circle of vision trembled as a wave of fire exploded into the air right where Miss Potter would have been if she hadn't rolled away at the last moment. He saw the heat from the fire rippling the air above her as she pulled out of the dive upside down, her concentration not wavering by even a hair.

Black was making a lot of noise, but Severus heard it as if through water, understanding nothing.

Undeterred by the danger that she'd escaped by the grace of an inherent gift, Miss Potter was ready to try again. Now soaring higher in a circle, she had the Horntail's head revolving on its neck as it tried to keep her in sight. Was she trying to make it dizzy? It wasn't going to work for long—the dragon was going to—

Miss Potter plummeted as the Horntail expelled another sheet of fire, but she saw its tail too late: though she swerved out of the way more swiftly than he could've guessed, one of the spikes clipped her on the shoulder. Severus saw her wince and a cast-off trail of blood spatter up her neck onto her cheek.

His clear view of her warped; he realized he'd driven his fist into the window. Spelled unbreakable, it didn't suffer any damage, though he felt pain shattering through his hand. He ignored it, fixated on Miss Potter as she zoomed round the dragon, trying to get behind it. She didn't look like she was paying any more attention to the blood on her face or the cut on her shoulder than he'd paid to his hand.

Trapped behind two solid layers of glass and one amorphous layer of false calm, he witnessed in her face the moment that she found a plan.

* * *

Harriet's shoulder was stinging, screams and groans were echoing up from the crowd, but she didn't think the cut was deep. It stung, but she didn't feel lke she was about to slip off her broom.

Anyway, she still had an egg to catch.

As she zoomed around to the Horntail's back, something occurred to her. . .

The Horntail didn't seem to want to take off after her; she was too protective of her eggs. Though she would writhe and twist and blast fire to keep Harriet away, she was afraid to move too far from her clutch. . . but Harriet had to persuade her to do it or she'd never get near the golden egg. The trick was to do it carefully, gradually. . .

She began to fly from side to side, not near enough to earn another blast of fire but still close enough to pose a threat. The Horntail's head swayed after her, watching her out of those slitted pupils. . .

Tightening her hands on her broomstick, Harriet flew higher. The Horntail's head rose with her, neck stretching to its fullest extent, wings twitching, claws scraping the tips of her eggs. . .

Harriet rose a few more feet, and the Horntail roared her frustration. Her tail lashed at the air, but Harriet was too high to reach. Fire shot into the air—Harriet dodged—the dragon's jaws opened wide, showing glistening teeth and a blackened tongue. . .

"Come on," Harriet hissed, swerving above her, "come on, come and get me. . . up you get, now. . ."

And the dragon reared, spreading her wings in a shadow that fell across the stands below—and Harriet dived yet again.

Before the dragon knew where she'd gone or what she'd done, Harriet was plunging toward the ground as fast as the Firebolt would go, towards the exposed eggs—she took her hands off the Firebolt as the golden egg gleamed in front of her—

* * *

 _Wronksi Feint_ , Severus thought as Miss Potter plummeted toward the ground for the third time, as he remembered telling Lupin what he'd do if he ever saw her practicing that move—

She disappeared from sight, dropping straight down into the enclosure as the dragon's head swerved around, looking for her, screaming and snapping its wings—

And then Miss Potter came rocketing out of the stands, a fat golden egg clutched under her good arm, her face so thrilled and so exhilarated that he was almost glad he hadn't managed to poison the dragons after all.

Almost; meaning not. Not even if it put that expression of joy on Miss Potter's face; that elation that was so radiant, it could only have come after a long period of despair.

He couldn't seem to unstick the telescope from his eye. It remained trained on Miss Potter as she flew toward the exit, until she sank beneath the trees and he could see her no longer.

It was over. . .

She'd got through it. With blood on her face, beaming fit to burst, clutching that egg like the trophy of trophies, she'd got through it.

He lowered the telescope. His arm felt like a dead weight. His whole body, in fact, had grown heavy and lethargic.

Ah. The Calming Draught was hitting its third stage.

Black must have been feeling it, too. When he glanced at Severus, his face was sullen and suspicious, shaded with dislike.

"Why'm I suddenly feeling like shit?" he grunted.

"The Calming Draught is three times the strength, moron. That means triple the aftereffects."

Black only grunted again and slouched into a chair. Severus sank into another, wondering if he had the energy now to bash his telescope over Black's head for whatever he'd done to Miss Potter.

The Calming Draught had buried the most incendiary part of his hatred beneath layers of gauze, leaving him aware that it existed but rather uncaring of the fact. The first and quickest stage produced a carefree detachment, the second a tranquil unconcern that lasted longest. The third stage infused the body with a listless torpor that eroded into the fourth stage, which rendered the drinker unconscious for approximately forty-five minutes. After that brief sleep, they would awaken, somewhat restored from the ravages of stress. There was no way to resist that final stage and stay awake. . . but he refused to pass out before Black. Even under a calming influence this strong, there was no saying what Black might do to him. . . because if Black passed out first, Severus was certainly going to do something to _him_. . .

"Miss Potter thought I might've killed you." Severus heard his words slurring. "You must've done something terrible. . ."

"What's it to you, Sniv'lus?" Black mumbled. His eyelids were drooping as the fourth stage stole over him, his head lolling against the back of his chair.

"Typical arrogance, Black. . . you think you're the only one who cares."

It was probably best, Severus thought as he slipped into sleep, that Black had dropped off before him. If he'd heard that. . . if he had. . .

Well. . . it wouldn't have been good. . . but worth it for the look on his face.

* * *

The aftermath of the First Task streamed past Harriet in a euphoric haze. Remus, Hagrid, and Professor McGonagall ran to meet her outside the enclosure. Remus' pallid face and his tight hug echoed back to the night of the Quidditch World Cup, but he managed to smile and say, "You were truly amazing, Harriet." In the medic tent, Madam Pomfrey, her face stormy, slapped some smoking purple salve on Harriet's cut and healed her in a trice. Ron and Hermione, supporting each other on jelly legs, squeezed her in double hugs and dragged her off to see her scores, Ron going purple with fury when Karkaroff awarded her only four points (he'd apparently given Krum _ten_ ). Bagman gathered all the champions together to tell them they'd find their next clue inside the golden egg before sending them on their way to rejoin the classmates who, he claimed boisterously, were eager to celebrate their victories.

The walk back to the school seemed to take Harriet into a different world. Before the task, she couldn't have imagined she'd be part of the laughter again, that she'd ever return to feeling lighthearted and excited; but as Ron recounted each champion's fight against the dragon and Hermione wound their arms so tightly together that they kept bumping into each other, and as people from the crowds called out their congratulations, Harriet felt something flowing back into her that she'd lost the night her name erupted from the Goblet of Fire. Even when she thought back to the fight against the Horntail—dodging its flames, spiked tail and gleaming teeth—she knew there was no comparison: the wait, the isolation, had been interminably worse.

_There are many variations of courage. Waiting for the inevitable. . . is one of them._

Snape had said that to her the night he told her about the dragons. Mr Crouch had called it "courage in the face of the unknown." But Harriet didn't feel that she'd been very courageous at all. She'd just got through it—with everyone's help.

As she climbed the path back to school, laughing at Ron's imitation of Cedric trying to dodge the dragon, the only thing she could've wished for was that Snape had been there to see her win.


	66. Did He Really

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been so long since I updated and even sorrier that this chapter isn't longer and more substantial for you. I picked up a 4th class at work, which started right after I posted the last two chapters, and as a result my writing time got stripped to the bone. The good news is that it will be over soon...!...but not for another 2 weeks (bah). Please accept my humble sop, I mean peace offering, in the meantime.
> 
> You remain totally rocking awesome, dear ones :)

Severus awoke to the rocking motion of someone shaking him gently by the shoulder. He forced his gritty eyes to open and found his vision crawling with a hundred million strands of silver.

"Don't you ever get tired of dealing with all that beard?" he muttered. His tongue felt much too fat for his mouth.

"At times," said Dumbledore's voice, sounding amused. His beard waggled when he spoke. "But then I remember what a weak chin I have and I am resolved anew to bear it out. How are you feeling?"

 _As if your entire beard had been stuffed into my ears and dragged out again._ "Fine," he grunted, rubbing at his eyes.

"Oh dear. That poorly?"

Severus abruptly felt five hundred times worse when he heard a disgustingly familiar voice groaning:

"Moony, how could you leave me alone with that greasebag tosser?"

Lupin's only-slightly-less-disgustingly familiar voice replied: "You're asking me that? When you appear to have destroyed half the Headmaster's office?"

Severus forced himself to focus on the world beyond Dumbledore's beard, if only because he did not feel capable of hexing Black, which was the only other thing he wanted to do. Several of Dumbledore's spindly decorative tables had been knocked flying, and their contents spread, crushed, and shattered across the floor. One of the telescope stands was bent in a way that told Severus he was going to see rod-shaped bruises on his back and sides when he next looked in a mirror. He could already feel them throbbing.

"No lasting harm has come to anything important," said Dumbledore (as Severus wondered if that was true of his own left hip). "Dare I hope the two of you managed to set aside your differences long enough to witness Harriet's considerable triumph?"

"No," said Severus, with as much contempt as he could muster at hearing a man as clever as Dumbledore ask such an asinine question.

"I'd agree with him," said Black, "but that'd defeat the point of refusing to ever agree with a bleeding thing he says."

"You missed seeing Harriet?" Lupin said, sounding as if he didn't know whether to thwop Black between the eyes or tell him that he bloody well deserved to miss seeing her, after being such a bloody idiot.

"That isn't what the Headmaster asked, Lupin," Severus sneered at him. "He asked whether or not we managed to set aside our differences long enough to see it."

"He hit me with the tripod," said Black, glowering at Severus. Lupin looked at the beat-up thing, his eyebrows disappearing into his graying fringe.

"I hit you on the eye with the telescope," Severus reminded him, ratcheting up the sneer. "You were the one who tried to use the tripod on me."

"Am I to take it that you both did manage to catch Harriet's performance?" Dumbledore asked before Black could retort.

"We did," Severus said. Black's face lit up, even the nasty bruise darkening on his forehead.

"She Summoned a broom, Moony," said Black, as if Lupin hadn't had front row seats as Dumbledore's not-disgraced guest. "A broom! She was absolutely bloody brilliant—"

"Harriet acquitted herself magnificently," Dumbledore said. "To the admiration of nearly all the judges."

"Karkaroff." Severus made a note in his mental ledger to give Karkaroff a bruise to match Black's. And then twelve more.

"Lousy, biased dickbag," said Black. Severus would have agreed, except it would have defeated the point of refusing ever to agree with a single fucking thing Black said.

Lupin sighed.

"He gave his own pupil ten," he said, "despite his accidentally leading the dragon to trample most of its own eggs."

"Even so, Harriet is well up on points," Dumbledore said. "When it came to it, she performed as well as any of the others—out-performed, possibly," he added thoughtfully, "given how, er, dynamic her solution was. . . I don't suppose, Severus, that you had anything to do with it?"

Lupin and Black looked at him, one with curious surprise, the other with suspicious hatred. Severus wondered if Dumbledore had explained to them why he was there. Given that he hadn't shed much light on Black's reasons, Severus damned well hoped he hadn't been any more forthcoming with his own. And the truth was, he'd wound up here for nothing. Miss Potter had apparently needed neither his intereference nor his assistance.

"Miss Potter," he said, coldly and truthfully, "won without any help from me."

* * *

Harriet was flying high above the stadium, the Horntail shrinking to a dot below her, feeling freer than she'd felt in ages and ages. She pushed her broom to fly higher and higher still, laughing as the sounds of the stadium and the dragon, the cheering and the roaring, faded into the wind. . . everything falling far, far below her. . . even the memory of what she was supposed to be doing.

There was something. . . something she was looking for. . .

When something silver-white sparkled off in the forest, her Firebolt shot toward it like it was obeying the pulse of her heart. _There._ That was it, that's what she needed to find.

She streaked across the dark canopy, following that beautiful glitter, like a trail of stars flown down to earth. . . Once she got it, the stadium would explode with cheers, she'd be the greatest champion Hogwarts had ever seen, she could win the first task and all the rest. . .

She dipped beneath the branches—

It was gone. Motes of light shone between the black trunks, as if it had only just broken apart and its last glow lingered—but it was—

Harriet opened her eyes to complete darkness, her heart beating like a firework had just gone off in her face.

The dorm was as silent as it was dark (except for Parvati snoring gently, which she'd never, ever admit to). When Harriet pushed a hand outside her curtains to see the time, the nearly full moon broke into diamonds on the window pane. Silvery blue white, the color of. . .

Falling back on the bed, she threw her arm across her face. She didn't need Trelawney's dream books to help her interpret _that_ one.

She punched at her pillow. It was too bad she couldn't punch a dream, or better yet, her stupid fucking subconscious. It had ruined the first good sleep she'd had since Halloween.

Now her pillow was uncomfortably lumpy. She punched it back into a better shape and shut her eyes, hoping that if she just kept them shut in the dark, that sound sleep would fold back over her again. Preferably without dreams.

She hoped Snape was okay. The git.

Wherever he'd gone.

* * *

The next morning had a sheen of surreality to it. The dragon was behind her, and it was over two months till the next task, but dread had sewn itself so solidly into her last twenty-four days that the feeling lingered even though the threat was gone. She would think, _When I face the dragon_ — and then would have to remind herself, _Oh yes, that's done._ Lavender helped her forget at least five times as they were all getting dressed by acting as if Harriet hadn't been at the stadium yesterday at all.

On walking into the Great Hall, the first place Harriet looked was at the staff table, to see if Snape was there. He wasn't. Her heart starting beating in that hard, fast way again as the dream-memory of the empty forest path swam back to her, glittering with the motes of the Patronus that had burst apart and disappeared.

She sat down at Gryffindor table, trying her fiercest to pretend she didn't care, while hoping nothing had. . . happened.

The post owls arrived in a sweep of feathers, but Hedwig's snowy white did not gleam amidst the swirl of brown and grey, and no manic ball of feathered energy plummeted from the sky. Harriet frowned. She'd have thought Sirius, at least, would have sent her something. She'd left the party in Gryffindor last night especially to owl him a letter about her glorious defeat—well, not so much a defeat as maybe a triumph. Even though Remus was sure to have told him, she'd wanted to tell him herself.

"Ugh," Ginny groaned, sliding onto the bench next to her. "I just heard from Daisy that _Snape's_ back."

Harriet dropped her fork.

"You're lucky, little sister," said Fred. "Those two, blessed Snape-free days were more than George or I ever got—"

"Or Bill, or Charlie," George added.

"Or Percy," Fred finished. "First time Snape's been absent from his tormenting in all his glorious career."

Harriet picked up her fork and sank the tines slowly into the fleshy part of her eggs. Snape had already been gone on Sunday. Perhaps even on Saturday afternoon; she didn't know. . . three days, possibly longer, for the first time ever. . .

Something must have happened. But Dumbledore hadn't seemed worried.

She mashed at her eggs, spilling the yolk out, gutting them. First her pillow, now her eggs. She sighed.

She knew full well that even if she asked Snape where he'd gone, he wouldn't tell her anything except that it was none of her bloody business. If she even told him that she wanted to know, he'd probably lock the information in a box and bury it on a desert island. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Or maybe not.

Well. Perhaps she wouldn't ask. Perhaps she'd pretend she didn't even know he'd gone. That it didn't matter at all.

She used her toast to mop up her egg yolk, wishing she could project her indifference through layers of ancient stone, all the way to the dungeons.

"What's that toast ever done to you?" Ron asked her.

* * *

Severus had one good thing to say about being forcibly imprisoned in Dumbledore's Tower: he hadn't had to teach. At the time he hadn't been able to enjoy it. The hindsight now resulted in lingering bitterness.

His frustrations with Black, Dumbledore, and (let him not forget) those fucking dragons, he took out on his students. His victims included Miss Potter's class, in the very last lesson of the day. She looked perfectly fine—no disfiguring scars or twisted limbs—and was even up to old tricks: after starting off with a probing look, which was clearly meant to be subtle, she proceeded to attempt a sophisticated strategy of ignoring him. He recognized in her manner a particular and terrifying artistry that women seemed innately to possess, the way birds were capable of flying. It was a method of radiating her extreme displeasure while pretending, down to her toenails, that she _really wasn't mad_. She hadn't quite got the proper hang of it, but he shuddered to think of the day when she had.

He supposed she was miffed at him for disappearing on her, and didn't blame her. Instead, he blamed Dumbledore so hard his teeth hurt, and resolved to poison Karkaroff with something extremely painful yet probably not fatal.

At the lesson's end, when Miss Potter came up to his desk to submit her vial of potion for grading, she treated him to another of those searching looks. They were almost as good as Dumbledore's by now. Whatever she saw made her frown slightly, and she lingered for a moment, until Tracey Davis came up behind her and said, "Any time this year, Potter." He expected her to retreat behind that armored shell of femininity that teenage girls had to develop or wither and die—the one that enabled them to crush male egos without breaking a sweat and raise icy walls as thick as the Antarctic shelf—to suddenly and completely blot all of Slytherin, including its Head of House, from her sphere, and to walk back to her desk with her head held high.

Instead, Miss Potter rolled her eyes and uttered an unimpressed (and, admittedly, unimpressive), "Good one." As she went back to her seat, she sneaked a look over her shoulder at him, a speculative look gleaming behind those monstrous frames. It was then that he remembered—with a new significance—that she'd come rushing to Dumbledore's office in dread that he'd been sent to Azkaban for killing Sirius Black. At the time, he'd taken it as proof that Black had done something reprehensible; but now it occurred to him that in her own, illogical way, Miss Potter had a fair grasp of what he was like.

He hoped it wasn't too good. He still needed to figure out what Black had done, and she was his best hope of finding out. But she wouldn't tell him if she knew what he'd do with the information.

Unfortunately, he'd never been any good at convincing people that he was a better person than he really was.

* * *

Snape seemed okay. Harriet couldn't tell if he'd been ill or not because he never looked very healthy, but he didn't look any worse than normal. Not particularly. Considering it was Snape and all. Rage broiled a hair's breadth beneath the surface, if every single one of the Gryffindor boys' getting detention by the end of class meant anything. Harriet took this overkill to mean that wherever Snape had gone, he hadn't enjoyed it one bit.

A tendril of hope dared to sprout that he was angry enough to peel paint because he'd missed seeing her task. She told herself to stop being silly.

But it was a nice thought, all the same.

"Harriet," said Hermione, pointing up Gryffindor table as they walked along the benches to their usual seats.

"Hedwig!" Harriet dashed the last few feet. Hedwig was bullying poor Neville, holding his pumpkin juice hostage, while he nervously kept his hands far away from her beak.

"H-hi Harriet," said Neville, looking wistfully at Hedwig as she settled happily on Harriet's upper arm. She didn't blame him for wanting an owl. Trevor didn't seem to be much of a pet, and was always trying to get away.

"Is it from—?" Ron asked, and then said, "I didn't say his name!" when Hermione kicked him under the table. She gave him a look of mingled horror and frustration.

"Wh-whose name?" Neville asked, his ears going red.

"Professor Lupin's," Harriet said, giving Ron a kick of her own and adding a glare for good measure.

"Oh," said Neville. At least he didn't sound like he also thought Remus was a child molestor.

While Ron rubbed his ankles and muttered blackly under his breath, Harriet peeled Sirius' leg off Hedwig's leg and fed her some bits of beef from her stew. When Hedwig was full, she hooted her thanks, nibbled affectionately on Harriet's ear, and took off, swooping low over the Slytherin table and making Pansy Parkinson shriek. Harriet smirked.

Everyone was absorbed in their dinners, laughing and talking (with their mouths full) about this and that; often about the First Task. Lavender had taken to recounting Cedric's maneuvers whenever she could, to an increasingly bored Parvati. With the others occupied, Harriet unrolled her letter.

 _You were amazing Holly berry_ , it started, without any preamble. _I saw the whole thing from the Headmaster's Tower. Dumbledore put me and Sniv in there together, trying to do what I'll never bloody guess if I live to be a hundred_

Harriet stopped and read that over again. _Sniv._ Short for Snivellius, right? Snape? Snape had been there, too? Snape had seen her?

Bending over the letter, as if that would make the incomprehensible truth clearer, she read faster:

_but what am I doing talking about that [a word, which she was fairly sure read 'prick,' had been heavily crossed out] git when I could be talking about you and how bloody [she was confident he'd crossed out 'fucking,' there] impressed I was. Summoning that broom was bloody brilliant, I've never seen the like. Not even your dad would have thought of that, but he'd be dead insufferable right now if he were alive. Right now Moony's giving me an appalled look, Holly berry._

Harriet had never before felt hysterical laughter, a warm, happy glow, and exasperation all at once. Her usual pleasure at receiving Sirius' and Remus' odd letters and her pride at his praise bubbled beside her frustration that he clearly did not, for once, intend to go off about Snape at length, just when she most wanted him to.

She read the one line mentioning Snape over again, wondering. . .

So, Snape had apparently been watching the task (with Sirius, of all people; and even more dumbfoundingly, neither of them had died). In the Headmaster's office! She knew why Sirius hadn't been down at the Task—or she assumed she did, for reasons of being a mass-murdering fugitive—but why Snape? Why had everyone pretended he'd been called away?

And Snape had seen her but said nothing. Was he just going to pretend he hadn't?

She wanted to tear out her hair. Or better yet, Snape's. Why did the bloody man have to treat the tiniest bit of information as if it was a deadly secret?

"Are you done with supper?" Hermione asked her. "Only I wanted to get to the library before it closed, there's a translation of a runes I wanted to double-check for my assignment that's due next week—"

"Yeah," Harriet sighed, tucking the letter away.

"What'd he say?" Ron asked as they passed out of the Great Hall. Harriet was trying so hard to act as if she wasn't trying to watch Snape out of the corner of her eye, while really watching him as hard as she could, and being extremely frustrated that she could barely see anything with him sitting on the other side of Hagrid, that Ron had to tap her on the shoulder and repeat himself.

"Oh—just congratulating me on the task."

"Oh," said Hermione, sounding entirely too surprised. But then Harriet saw what—or who—had surprised her.

In a satisfactory staging of deja vu, Asteria Greengrass was standing at the foot of the Great Staircase, clutching something envelope-like to her chest. By the time Harriet spotted her, Asteria was already rushing toward her.

"These are for you!" she said in a breathy squeak, pushing the envelope-y thing into Harriet's hands. Then she threw her arms around Harriet's neck and whispered, "You were absolutely, stupendously brilliant!"

Then, in a swirl of flaxen hair, she was off again, vanishing down the Slytherin stairwell with pattering feet. Harriet blinked at this rather whirlwind method of delivering the mail.

"Odd girl, that," Ron said. "Mighty good-looking, but odd."

"Is she, now," Hermione said coldly, and marched off toward the staircase, her shoulders suddenly as straight as if she'd stuffed a coat hanger down the back of her blouse.

In his bewilderment, Ron turned to Harriet. "What did I say?"

Harriet tried very hard to appear as if she'd been so absorbed in opening Asteria's letters that she hadn't heard him.

Asteria had made her a card. She'd painted a fearsome-looking dead-ringer for the Horntail on two sheets of parchment that she'd deftly sewn together, with a golden comet that swept across the front. On the inside, the dragon lay curled around its eggs, happily asleep, while the golden comet wove back and forth through the air above it. The sleeping dragon's nostrils even smoked gently.

Harriet smiled, and then turned to the second letter.

It was sealed with black wax. Slowly, carefully, she cracked the seal and unfolded the parchment.

_Miss Potter—I hope this note does not find you deep in complacency. There are yet two more tasks for you to prepare for. I will see you Friday evening for a report on your progress._

Harriet slid the note into her pocket without reading it twice, and followed Ron up the stairs as if nothing was wrong. But it was very difficult to keep a satisfied smile from spreading across her face.


	67. An Honest Heart as Compass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone, for that sweet and delightfully effusive welcome back. It made the long, dark days that stalk the end of the semester that much brighter. ♥

As the moon grew in the sky, Sirius talked of Harriet (and, every now and then, of longing to wallop Snape with his telescope again). He was as animated and proud and focused as Remus had ever seen him. The futility of his attempt at keeping Harriet from the Tournament, the haunted self-loathing that had preyed upon him before they'd gone together to watch her apart, seemed forgotten. . . but how could it have been, really?

Sometimes (often) Remus wondered whether Azkaban had stripped Sirius' soul down to a kind of simplicity of thought and emotion. Could twelve years of siphoned memories ever truly return? Or was even the "better" that he seemed to be now, far from those first desperate weeks of contact, simply an illusion that he could sustain at some times better than others?

Sirius had never been very good at dealing with the tangle of emotions that was simply a part of everyday life. He blasted through them, pushed them away, crushed them underfoot. Perhaps if he'd had time to really grow up, out in the world, he'd have got better. . . but he'd spent years with nothing but regrets and the echoes of the past. He'd stagnated, if nothing else. He hadn't had the chance to do anything else.

And the world they were facing now. . . the complexity of caring for Harriet as Voldemort grew stronger, his will surely bent on her. . .

Would Sirius be able to face it?

Would Remus?

The threat of the moon always made the preceding days seem darker, eating its way through his thoughts and into his heart, until he struggled to force himself from the bed in the morning. And this month, the threat was even blacker. He and Snape had not had time to discuss it past that one, abortive attempt where Snape had sneered and acted his usual, unhelpful self—but what if last month's agony had not been a simple byproduct of the Hallowe'en moon? What if this month, the potion did not work at all?

What if the potion _was_ the problem?

For a split second, as he uncovered the goblet and tried not to retch while the smoke crept into his nose and mouth—for the first time since Snape had handed him the first batch of this gag-inducing reprieve, all those months ago—he considered not taking it. . .

But then he pinched his nose and downed the lot. He would take the Wolfsbane as long as it worked as a safety catch for the others. If Snape was poisoning him, well. . . as long as the potion still did what it was supposed to, Remus would take it.

He said nothing of this to Sirius.

Sirius was uncharacteristically quiet that afternoon, as the day grew dark, as they waited for the moon to arc gently (never really gentle) above the horizon. Remus didn't feel the moon running through his bones like marrow and coursing through his blood. It wasn't like that. He felt a little hotter, achy and queasy; his whole head seemed to throb, his temper pushed to the surface like lava brewing before a volcanic eruption; but he could not feel the moon. That was all. . . just the change.

"I never got a lick of help out of Snape," Sirius said abruptly.

Remus rubbed at his forehead, as if he could push the wool aside and massage understanding into place. It was harder to think. . . it hadn't used to be quite this hard. It had been getting harder, lately.

Now, rubbing circles on his forehead, something clicked into place.

" _You_ went to _Snape_ for help?" No, it must be the full moon talking.

Sirius muttered and poked at the logs in the fireplace, then withdrew the poker and let them settle to ash. Remus (the wolf) hated fires, this close.

"He wasn't any fucking help." Sirius threw the poker into the rack, wincing at the clang when Remus twitched.

"We can talk to him tomorrow," Remus said, as the thought _If I'll even be conscious then_ flitted through his head, as unwelcome and bitter as the stench of Wolfsbane. "Now that we're not all distracted by Harriet's task, we can surely get to the bottom of. . . of it."

Sirius glanced at him, bit his lip, and nodded.

Remus shut his eyes and lay back in his chair, pretending he was tired. It was the only time he'd show any weakness, when it was feigned; to obscure the fact that he wanted to be running, running across the open ground as the moon rose in the sky and broke the world into fragments of silver and bone.

* * *

Harriet spent the two days following Snape's note attacking the puzzle of her golden egg, abetted by largely useless advice from her housemates. No matter how solemnly Fred and George insisted, it wasn't likely to be Percy singing in the shower, and she knew that Neville couldn't be right about the Cruciatus since it was illegal. (The First Task had shown there _was_ a line between "illegal" and "insane.") Next, the library proved Seamus' banshee theory false; it had books that would scream in the exact copy of a banshee's voice if you touched your wand to the page - and get you thrown out by Madam Pince and banned for a week, as Harriet and Ron found out.

"D'you think McGonagall will let us off that scroll about Switching Spells now?" Ron asked without much hope as they kicked their heels (or, in Harriet's case, the wall) in the corridor outside the library.

(Hermione, who had been quietly researching runes by herself, had escaped retribution. If she'd somehow missed Harriet and Ron's sensational departure from the library, it might be quite some time before she noticed they'd gone.)

"No," Harriet fumed. A couple of third year Ravenclaws came out of the library, giggling at her and Ron as they passed. Harriet kicked at the stone wall and swore when her toes jammed together and nothing whatsoever happened to the wall. "Why would that old bat stock the bleeding book if we're not allowed to use it?"

Ron was too good a mate to point out the obvious, which was that they should have checked it out before setting it off. "I reckon there's got to be a picture of a librarian somewhere in that book. And it hisses 'Quiet!'"

Hermione joined them some ten minutes later with her two gigantic books, one of which was almost as big as Harriet. Although Hermione was an excellent friend, she was a little too fond of being right to avoid saying:

"If only you'd waited to—" Then she noticed Harriet's expression, and Ron making an axing motion across his neck. "Well, anyway," she said hurriedly, "I managed to save it when she was, erm—anyway, here it is."

She held out the mouldering old volume: _Shreeking Beests of Scottlond, Eireland, Waels, and Engelond_.

"What good is it now?" Harriet asked, not feeling kindly disposed to the library, books, or to people who didn't currently hate either.

"Well, I thought you might want to check the other entries, in case they really do correspond to the egg. Just because Seamus was wrong about the banshee doesn't mean it isn't some other monster."

Harriet had to admit that this was a sensible plan—much more sensible than hers, which was to drop the book down a long flight of swinging staircases.

"Why are you so worried about getting it done now?" Ron asked as they headed back to Gryffindor. "You've got three months!"

"I just. . . thought it'd be good to get started," Harriet said, avoiding both their gazes. Snape's spiky handwriting swam smugly through her recent memory. _I will see you Friday evening for a report on your progress. . ._ His unimpressed voice echoed uncomfortably in her a-little-less-recent memory. _You are capable of working hard, but you aren't hardworking. . ._

She set her jaw.

His strategy for dealing with the dragons had been too. . . not-her. It was the way Hermione would have done it—or Cedric Diggory, maybe, seeing as he was so hardworking—but Harriet's way. . .

Had been to take Moody's suggestion, really. She couldn't decide whether she wanted Snape to think she'd thought of it on her own or not. It would be nice if he could possibly believe she was that clever—even grudgingly, considering it was Snape—but then surely he'd be expecting her to pull off something equally sensational for the other tasks. . .

One thing was for certain: she wanted to do this one herself. Because. . .

Just because.

* * *

Mindful of the extreme impropriety, Severus had instructed Miss Potter to come to his quarters on Friday evening. This was absolutely not something he should have done. He'd allowed her in two weeks ago because she'd turned up unexpectedly, with a clear and present need, but he shouldn't've done it then, either. Accusations could be made that would see him sacked at best.

But he'd always had a knack for combining motives. He wanted to find out what Sirius Black had done; he wanted to prod Miss Potter toward her next clue; and he wanted to get back at Dumbledore.

(It was Wednesday, and he was still displeased with Dumbledore. He'd probably be displeased with him on a Wednesday five years from now. If they both lived that long.)

Remembering Dumbledore's prudish fussing that summer, he contemplated telling Miss Potter to bring her game of Scrabble. Let Dumbledore stick that one in his beard.

It was a dangerous game to play—the retribution via gross impropriety with one's underage students, not the Scrabble—but the Headmaster needed him. Just as he'd interceded thirteen years ago to keep Severus from prison, so would he refrain from sacking him for giving Miss Potter tea. He might grow angry, he would certainly retaliate in that way of his that was like being savaged by a goldfish; but he wouldn't let Severus go.

. . . As long as no one else found out. Severus hoped Miss Potter had wits enough to be discrete and treat it like any other secret cheating session.

But as Wednesday melted into Thursday, he began to feel uneasy. More accurately, the unease that had crackled through all his days since the World Cup renewed its efforts to distract him. He was annoyed. He'd begun in the proper vindictive spirit, and now he was almost. . . having an attack of _conscience_. It certainly wasn't for Dumbledore's sake.

But Miss Potter. . .

He grimaced at the awkwardness of explaining to her that she ought not to tell anyone that she was meeting with him in secret, while making it clear that were it anyone else, she ought to tell Minerva directly. When it came to the girls in his house, he always placed that responsibility with his seventh form female prefects. He had no doubt that they explained it in terms of what (and who) could be exploited, but he made sure they took it seriously, in their Slytherin way.

But then Sirius Black distracted him, by coming to tell him that Lupin was dying.

* * *

The banging on the door ripped away the shreds of sleep Severus had managed to pull around himself less than an hour ago. For one disorientated moment, he thought it must have been Miss Potter, and it was Friday night and he'd fallen asleep in his chair by the fire, too exhausted to stay awake after dinner (or growing too old). The clock read a quarter to six—in the morning.

Maybe Dumbledore was coming to sack him, he thought as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. Maybe he'd found out about the meeting with Miss Potter. . . maybe she'd told the house-elf. . .

He must still be half-asleep, if he was having these stupid thoughts.

He bit his tongue to wake himself up, and was tolerably alert by the time he pulled the door open.

Sirius Black appeared to be on the other side. So Severus was still asleep.

"What took you so fucking long?" Black did not growl; he did not sound sarcastic, disgusted, or impatient: he sounded desperate. "You've got to come, now—"

"What for?" Severus would not normally have been too tired to be mean, or too confused, but he was too much of both.

"Remus—he's dying. Come on!"

Severus stared at Black, who swore and grabbed him by the arm and pulled.

"Would you move? I'm dead fucking serious and that is not a pun!"

Severus saw himself throwing off Black's arm, pronouncing good riddance to bad rubbish and locking himself inside his quarters; going back to bed properly and dreaming, for the next hour, of a Lupin-free world.

Most peculiarly, he did none of these things. His feet moved along without permission, submitting to Black's tow, and his voice said, "Black, if this is a ploy to get me out of the castle so you can wreak your nasty revenge on me—"

"It's not," Black snarled.

"Because you have such a good history of honest dealings, when it comes to me—"

Black shoved him back a step, then flung an arm up and down his torso. "What does this look like!" he roared.

Severus stared at what looked like a great deal of blood. It looked, in fact, like it had been vomited out.

He was suspicious enough to want to touch it, but if it was werewolf blood, he wouldn't. There were no documented cases of the infection passing through blood—Black would have surely caught it by now, if anything but the bite were infected—but he still would not touch it.

"I don't have time for this!" Black continued shouting. "Are you coming or not?"

"I'll come if you'll fucking shut up. You are aware that you're still a wanted fugitive?"

Black seemed to accept this—with a look of hatred and disgust, but he accepted it. He transformed into the dog and bounded down the corridor.

And Severus found himself following.

* * *

Lupin was human. For some reason, Severus had been thinking he'd find him as a wolf, even though the moon had set. Night still clung to the trees and paths and draped down from the sky; dawn was nowhere near. The croft was lit by firelight and one lamp in the bedroom. Shadows pooled in the hollows on Lupin's face, his chest, his ribs.

Lupin was still as death and about as pale, in between the shadows. Severus found his pulse, which was weak yet quick. Lupin's skin felt like burning. But werewolves were like that, Lupin had told him during their Wolfsbane testing sessions. They always ran hotter. Lupin's own theory was that it enabled them to survive in the wild.

Severus did not think it was his imagination, however, that Lupin felt too warm.

"Why am I here?" Severus' sleep-deprived brain asked. He set his enduring sluggishness down to not really caring whether Lupin lived or died.

 _Then why_ are _you here?_ asked one of his Inner Houses; probably Ravenclaw. It would have been either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor who dragged him out here. He could have hexed and bound Black and left him to be trod on by one of his Slytherins. He had no explanation for why he had not.

"You're the bloody expert with fucking werewolf potions," Black said.

"I can brew the Wolfsbane, idiot. I'm not a bloody werewolf Healer."

"But you make the fucking potion." That desperate edge had returned to Black's voice; Severus supposed it had never really left. "There's something wrong with it, I'm telling you! It's doing this to him!"

"Black, I told you this, weeks ago. The human body breaks down over time. There's a great deal of documented evidence on—"

"He's not DYING!" Black roared, and the lamp exploded in the corner of the room. Severus deflected the ceramic missiles with a shield spell. The light in the room was all red and black now from the fire in the grate.

"You said he was when you came banging on my door."

"I meant here, like this, not—in general!" Black dragged his hands through his hair. His face was eloquent of such fury and helplessness and grief and misery that, quite unbidden, Severus remembered a night thirteen years ago, when Dumbledore had looked at him in his office and said three simple words. . . and for a moment, now, for a split second, Severus wondered if his own face had looked the way Black's did now.

Empathy for Black was appalling and sickening and everything he did not want.

"Your werewolf lover is going to die. Probably slowly and painfully. You'd be doing him a favor if you smothered him now, in his sleep."

Black stared at him. For a moment, he looked truly shocked that anyone could be so cruel. For a split second, he looked almost. . . hurt. Severus wanted to slap him, to tear that wounded expression off his face with his fingernails. How dare Black be small and vulnerable and human?

Then the hurt transformed, quick as fire, into rage. Whatever spell he'd intended, whatever darkness was roiling in his heart and shooting like sadistic electricity into his wand, Severus never found out, because a hoarse, gravelly voice croaked:

"'sif anyone. . . could sleep. . . you two. . . bellowing. . ."

"Moony." Black's rage was swallowed up by desperate relief, and he was at Lupin's bedside in a flash. Severus moved away, intending to leave, not wanting to witness any more of this raw, heartfelt emotion that stirred up. . . things.

But Lupin rasped, "Snape. Please. . . stay. We. . . need to talk. . . about. . ."

He stopped to cough—a full-body, hacking, wracking, seizing cough that ended with him spitting blood into a basin that Black held out. The skin on Black's face was so tight it seemed ready to peel back from his bones.

"You need to rest," he said, his voice almost as hoarse as Lupin's always was. "Not talk to this fucking monster." The rage reared again, and the eyes he turned on Severus were filled with even more hatred than usual. In the ugly light, Black looked like his own sort of monster.

"Padfoot." Lupin's voice was crackling with pain, and it was so quiet it barely stirred the air, but it shut Black up with a completeness that Severus had always longed to achieve and knew, absolutely now, that he would never be able to.

Severus waited, but Lupin did not say anything else, only continued to breathe as if it both burned and stabbed. Black hovered, looking helpless. Severus loathed them both, more than ever.

"You're aware that unlike the pair of you, I have a job to get back to?" he asked, cold and sneering.

He wondered, looking at Black's face, if one of them would really kill the other this morning.

Lupin raised his hand, slowly and unsteadily, and dropped it onto Black's arm. That was all Severus could call it: there was no grip, no steadying; to lift it and let it fall where he wanted was the most he could do.

"Come. . . later. . . can't. . . talk now. . . you can. . ."

He started coughing again. Severus threw open the bedroom door with a crash and left them.

* * *

_The room had a ceiling so high it disappeared into darkness. Its walls were lined with empty shelves and its floor spread with drifts of sparkling granules whose light filled the air with the glow of golden stardust._

_But the stardust-light was rising in clouds, and as it rose it faded away._

_As it faded, the room grew dark._

_And as the room grew dark, Harriet knew, down to the core of her heart, that she had just lost something so precious it could never be replaced._

* * *

She opened her eyes to complete darkness. She was in her bed in her dormitory in Hogwarts, her heart pounding and her stomach roiling.

She fumbled the covers off her legs and shoved her hangings aside. It was still dark out; her bedside clock, when she touched it, glowed softly awake: 6:32 AM.

She felt shaky and ill, inside and out. Shivering at the touch of the icy stones on her bare feet, she picked her way over to Hermione's bed and peeked past the curtains. Hermione was soundly asleep, her hair tangled around her face.

Harriet breathed out, trying to calm her heart; and it was a bit calmer, but still that sense of unease beat in time, as persistent as the cold radiating from the floor through the skin of her feet. She climbed back into her bed and wrapped the blankets around her feet, rubbing warmth into them.

What _was_ that place? She'd never been there. . . at least, she didn't remember ever having been there. It had been a long time since she'd felt a memory return with the tell-tale rush of fresh recollection that meant it had been displaced by her time-accident. . . but this dream felt different from those. This felt like a dream with something behind it. . .

Could it have been a what's-the-word. . . a premonition? She chewed her lip. She didn't really have those; she wasn't a Seer. At least, she never had been before. . .

Except for the one time that summer where she'd dreamed about Voldemort and Wormtail. Could Voldemort have done something to the room? Could it be connected to him?

She rubbed at her freezing hands.

Or maybe it wasn't anything to do with him at all. Maybe it was something that was going to happen. . . something she'd learned, when she was under the time-spell. . . something coming back to her.

Something, she thought, shivering at the lingering despair and helplessness that echoed through the dream, something terrible.

As quietly as she could, she hunted in her book bag for parchment and a quill. Clenching her wand in her teeth, she wrote down by the light of a Lumos every dream-detail she remembered. Then she dressed in the dark, while Parvati snored gently behind her curtains.

Harriet folded the letter up, wrote _Anaita Patil_ very clearly on one side, and struck out into the dark and cold and silent corridors for the Owlery.

* * *

"What do they expect me to do?" Severus snarled.

He ripped a book off his shelves, tore it open, and flung it away with a snarl before reading more than two words. It thudded to the carpet about a foot to the left of the previous book, at the end of a trail of broken volumes that lay in a skewed path across the floor.

"I'm not his fucking Healer." Severus twisted one of the moleskin notebooks in which he'd made his notations that summer the year before, when he and Lupin were testing the Potions. "I'm not _anyone's_ fucking Healer." A second later, he flung it onto the pile, knocking one of the pages loose. "There's fuck-all known about werewolves—it could be _anything_."

The indifferent silence of his chambers answered him. His quarters suddenly felt cavernous. The shadows were old as the night, and the night was ancient. And things that were ancient simply didn't care. Passionless, comfortless—

He turned toward the mantle, seeking the source of solace he always kept there. . . and experienced a jarring sense of panic when it wasn't there.

Then the firelight glinted off something thin and metallic and he sagged with relief. The frame. He'd placed the picture face down. . . at some point. He vaguely remembered doing it . . . but not when. When was the last time he'd looked at. . .?

He picked up the frame, almost afraid of what he'd see.

The photograph was blank.

He stared at it, at the faintly stirring leaves on the bushes behind where she should have stood.

He must have kept it face-down for a very long time if she'd gone somewhere else.

His mind's eye replayed Lupin dropping his hand on Black's arm. He hated them—it flared incandescent in his heart—

The wind moved soundlessly in the empty photograph in his hand, tearing a petal off the climbing rose that was all he held a picture of anymore, and suddenly he felt drained and exhausted.

He didn't have time for this. He had classes in under an hour. He needed to drag himself up to the Great Hall and resent his breakfast.

He arranged the photograph on the mantle, to face out at the room so she would come back. As he did, he thought of Miss Potter's reaction if she had seen Lupin that morning, with blood on his lips, and Black looking as if every wet cough bit like teeth into his heart—

He paused, his fingertips chilled on the cold frame. He'd nearly forgotten.

Miss Potter. Tonight's meeting.

Letting out an explosive breath, he Summoned parchment and quill. He wrote one sentence only, experiencing a sense of lightness and resignation as he did so. She would be angry, but what was the anger of a child to him?

It was better this way, and he knew it.

* * *

"I've never heard of a room like that, no," Hermione said curiously when Harriet described it to her. She'd even tried to draw a picture, though she didn't have Asteria's talent, not even a distant, bastard cousin of it. "Golden dust, you said?"

"Yeah. All over the floor." Harriet strained to recall anything else, but that was all the memory she could gather: the golden dust and the feeling of loss, seeping into every corner of her heart.

She didn't really know how to put that into words, so she hadn't.

Hermione frowned one of her Thinking Frowns. "You don't think it had something to do with the Second Task, do you? I mean—perhaps you're remembering the Tournament now."

Harriet sat stunned, almost unable to believe this hadn't occurred to her. Then doubt crowded in. "I hope it isn't, because if that's the second task, it's _really_ not going to go well."

Hermione's reply was lost in the sudden rush of wing-beats that filled the air, as the post owls streamed into the hall. Harriet was more than surprised when an unfamiliar owl thumped down in front of her with a letter in its beak. It spat the envelope at her, hooted resentfully, and took off without waiting for a response.

"What on earth?" said Hermione, carefully straightening her glass of orange juice, which the owl's departure had nearly knocked into her lap.

Harriet turned the neat little letter over.

It was sealed with black wax.

Grimly, she glanced toward the staff table, but Snape was not there. With a clarity that could have just as easily come from foreseeing what the letter would say, she knew that once she read this letter she was going to be mad at him again.

Not that she needed any powers of clairvoyance to know that. This was ruddy _Snape_ , after all. You knew he was going to do something aggravating as soon as the sun rose.

"Harriet?" Hermione asked tentatively.

"Hm?"

"Who's the letter from?" Ron asked. "Not from Si—" He choked on his bacon when Hermione glared at him.

"I don't know. Well, there's no address, is there?" she asked when they stared. She probably should be acting more concerned, or at least curious, about a letter from a strange owl with no return address and only her name jotted on the front. It just so happened she knew exactly who it was from and was rather certain she knew exactly what it was going to say.

But why would Snape, who was so devoted to being secretive, send her a letter like this, so obviously and in front of her friends?

"It can't be that important," she said dismissively, shoving it in her pocket. "Well, it's not from Remus or Sirius or either of you, is it? I hardly care what anyone else has to say. Come on." She stood from the table. "We ought to get to Herbology."

She saw Hermione and Ron exchange a troubled glance as she turned away, and cursed whatever was going on in Snape's unfathomable head.

* * *

She finally got a chance to read her letter when she ducked into the loo after Herbology. She split the seal and read, with a sense of mingled satisfaction and frustration at having been perfectly right:

_The meeting must be canceled for tonight._

That was it. She knew without blasting any revealing spells at it, even if she knew any that Snape's magic couldn't defeat.

She ground her teeth and crumpled the letter. Damn, damn, _damn_ Snape!

Stuffing the letter into her bag, she threw open the door to the stall, almost sending a first-year Hufflepuff flying. Harriet barked, "Sorry!" but this seemed to do more harm than good, as the Hufflepuff squeaked and fled the bathroom altogether, hauling her petrified friend after her. Harriet felt rather bad about frightening them, at the same time she wanted to laugh. Snape would probably—

Right. She was mad at him. Really, really _steamed._

Well, Snape could schedule and cancel meetings all he liked. This time, though, she wasn't going to accept it. She _was_ going to that meeting.

Whether he was expecting her or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter turned out to be nothing like what I had planned. It was initially supposed to be Snape and Harriet having something that passed for a conversation, with them, with a little line in brackets: "Need a Remus & Sirius scene?" and then this happened. Nice going, me :P
> 
> The chapter title comes from Nightwish's song, Nemo: "Without an honest heart as compass."


	68. Palliative

Something was up with Snape.

Harriet didn't really know how she knew. Snape always looked bad-tempered, in varying ways. It was just that in class on Friday afternoon, he looked within one stupid word of wringing your neck.

Well, he usually looked like that, come to think of it.

But _something_ was up.

Perhaps that was the reason for his strange behavior with the letter. Changing his mind at the last minute and fobbing her off was typical, but sending the note to her like that. . . The complete lack of secrecy was so unlike him.

Hermione and Ron now had _questions_. Surely Snape must have thought of that happening.

Harriet tried to say the letter had come from someone who did not think she should be in the tournament—she thought Snape's cavalier scheduling and un-scheduling of another person's time would have put her out-of-sorts enough to be convincing—but Hermione and Ron only looked doubtfully at one another, as if they thought that explantion a little too thin to hold water.

"What?" Harriet asked, more irritably than she'd meant to; but how was a person supposed to react when her two best friends were sending each other eye-messages about her?

Hermione and Ron did not break eye contact. Harriet didn't think it was entirely her imagination that they seemed to be gathering courage from one another. She could practically see the invisible waves of borrowed valor curdling the air between them.

"It's nothing." Hermione put three times as much space between each syllable as she normally would.

"Doesn't seem like nothing."

"It's probably only the tournament, I'm sure," Hermione said, the spaces between her syllables shrinking until they were all crammed together.

"Something's been bothering you," Ron said at last—like he'd made up his mind to throw himself off Gryffindor tower and see if he landed on his broom.

Harriet blinked. "Yes, the tournament has been bothering me."

But an old shoot of guilt was trying to struggle free from where she'd buried it. She'd been lying to them all this while, or at least concealing, and if they were figuring it out. . . well, it was only natural that they should. She tried not to squirm.

"You've been disappearing a lot," Hermione said, twisting her fingers together. "And—I've been going to the library constantly, trying to find you—" For a second, she looked exasperated. "But there's only Viktor Krum and his fan-club."

When Harriet didn't answer, Ron (who looked like he was only just refraining himself from defending the implied slight against Krum, or perhaps showing jealousy of his fan club), said, "So you haven't been in the library?"

". . . No."

Harriet looked at them both, biting her lip. They stared back at her, their faces almost. . . fearful?

What could they possibly be afraid of? _They_ weren't the ones who'd been cheating and lying.

She slumped. She supposed there was nothing for it but to jump off the tower after Ron.

"I've been. . . meeting with someone." She glanced around the common room to make sure they wouldn't overheard, but with Fred and George waging battle against each other with a couple of their trick wands, nobody was even looking at their little corner—

"You've got a bloke?" Ron said incredulously, loud enough that a couple of people did look over.

"No!" Harriet said loud enough to make the onlookers giggle, while Hermione put a hand over her eyes. " _No_ I do _not,_ " she hissed at a very sheepish Ron.

"Sorry," he muttered, even his freckles blushing.

"She's talking about the—the you-know-what," Hermione said in a long-suffering tone. "Harriet, do you mean you've been—" She mouthed the word _cheating_ , and Harriet didn't think it was entirely because she wanted to keep it a secret. She probably was so scandalized she couldn't bear to say it aloud.

"Ohh." Ron's expression cleared. "Well, nothing wrong with that. _We've_ been helping her," he said when Hermione turned equally scandalized eyes on him.

"I'd have been roasted to a cinder or trampled flat within the first minute if I hadn't done," Harriet said, ignoring the guilt squirming harder in her stomach, like Trevor trying to get away from Neville.

Ron gave a satisfied nod. "You wouldn't want that to happen, now would you?" he asked Hermione.

"Of course not," she said heatedly, "but I don't think—"

"We were going to meet tonight," Harriet said. "About the second task. But—they cancelled."

She tried not to grind her teeth.

"Well, you've got three months," Ron said consolingly. "That's plenty of time to work on it, you can take the evening off. It's Friday, anyway! Want to play Exploding Snap?"

 _No, I want to wring Snape's neck_. But she supposed Ron was right. . . or at least, she could pretend he was right. And Hermione's eyebrows had that tilt to them that said she was rule-breaking-specifically troubled. She couldn't talk about it freely here, in the midst of everything. . . but she _could_ ask Harriet up to the dorm and proceed to grill her on every tiny detail that Harriet would refuse to give up, and wring her hands, and generally make Harriet feel like dishonest scum.

So Harriet opted to play Exploding Snap with the loudest, most explosive zeal she could muster, until even Fred and George noticed over the sound of their trick wand battle and swooped over to add their raucous expertise. Then, Hermione excused herself, and went up to the dorm alone.

As Harriet watched her best friend go, she hated the Tournament for another thing it was mucking up in her life.

* * *

Everyone stayed up late on Friday nights, to Harriet's extreme irritation. They were still playing Exploding Snap at half past ten when she decided enough was enough, and excused herself.

She crept up to the dorm, trying to cudgel her brain into producing a plan that would let her placate Hermione, grab her cloak, make her way down to Snape's dungeon, and finagle a meeting out of him when he was clearly now dead-set against it.

Unfortunately, her head just produced an empty shushing sound.

Taking a deep breath, she patted her cheeks until they stung. Then she squared her shoulders and threw open the dorm room door.

Lavender and Parvati looked up from where they were stretched out on their stomachs on Parvati's bed, reading the newest _Witch Weekly._ They blinked at Harriet, who felt rather silly, standing there with her arm flung wide from opening the door so dramatically.

She scanned the room for Hermione, but she wasn't there. Huh.

Lavender sniffed and dropped her eyes back to the magazine, pointedly flipping a page. "Ooh, Cora Pirbright is doing a new wireless serial—"

"Where's Hermione?" Harriet asked Parvati.

"Shower," said Parvati, then let Lavender claim her attention with a squeal of delight.

"With _Esmond Haddock_! Ohh, they're so perfect together—"

Well, Harriet wasn't going to waste the opportunity. She dug into her trunk, dragged out her cloak, and stuffed it underneath her jumper to hide it from Parvati and Lavender. Since Lavender was aggressively ignoring her, it was easy enough.

She shut the door behind her, slung the cloak on, and legged it out of there.

Rushing round the third curve, she almost plowed straight into Hermione.

Harriet twisted out of the way, clamping her lips shut and holding her breath in, and bunched her fists in her cloak to pull it after her. Hermione, her bath things clutched to her chest, her hair damp from her bath, trudged past, her eyebrows still pulled together in that troubled bunch.

Harriet stayed where she was, her heart jumping around between her ribs, as Hermione's slippered footfalls disappeared up the stairs.

Harriet went more slowly down after that.

* * *

Honestly, did Slytherins _have_ to live in the creepiest, coldest, shadowiest part of the castle?

Since Harriet was invisible, she didn't need all of the shadowed pools for creeping around in, so she would have appreciated a lot more light. It was bloody hard to see. The torches really only seemed to be there to make the place creepier.

Reaching Snape's door, she knocked, hoping no one was skulking in his excessive number of shadows. It would serve him right if someone _was_. That'd teach him to keep the place so poorly lit.

She shifted from foot to foot as she waited, running over the plan in her mind. She had come up with a little something on the way down. (It mostly involved barging in while invisible.)

Snape opened the door.

Holding her breath, Harriet aimed toward the gap between his body and the jamb, knowing as she angled for it that she wasn't going to fit. But as soon as her elbow bumped Snape's arm, he pulled sharply back, widening the gap.

Well, she wasn't going to waste that good fortune. She lunged the last foot, as Snape gathered himself and slammed the door.

Her hem got caught in the door, and the entire cloak was pulled off her as she tumbled onto the rug. She sprang to her feet immediately, trying to look as if she'd planned to enter on a roll.

Snape glared at her. It was quite an impressive glare—but only three days ago, Harriet had been on eye-level with a firebreathing dragon.

It was pretty much exactly the same, when you got right down to it.

"If you have a suitable explanation," Snape said, in a voice that built menace from the ground up, "I suggest you offer it very. _Very_. Quickly."

"I'm here for the meeting," Harriet said (a bit challengingly)

"The meeting," Snape's eyes were now slits, "was cancelled."

Harriet raised her chin (more than a bit challengingly). "I don't recall agreeing to that."

Snape's glare continued drilling into her, diamond-hard, while she stared back until her eyes started to water. _Don't blink don't blink don'tblink—_

And then all the rigid fury seemed to puff out of him. Though the line of his shoulders did not suddenly become less rigid, he seemed to give up; without putting his head in his hands, he radiated the desire, as if he was doing it in spirit. Harriet thought that was a bit rich, considering how he made a person want to tear out her hair all the live-long day; but he could spiritually bury his face in his hands all he wanted. She was feeling rather magni—mag—forgiving in her victory.

"Miss Potter, I am quite busy," Snape said, and then, without waiting for her reply, "or, no, I suppose you shan't except that. Miss Potter, it is dangerous for you to be wandering the halls alone—no, that certainly won't carry any weight."

Harriet remembered, then, that there was no winning with Snape. He always got the last word, the way Dudley always stole the last jam doughnut.

"Miss Potter, entering another's living space without warning—no, I can see where that will make no impression—"

Harriet decided she should just wait for him to get it out of his system. That was the way she'd dealt with Hermione when Ron had borrowed her notes and spilt jam on them. Snape surely couldn't go on for a whole week.

"And the fact that it is quite late, and after a week of teaching I am more than ready to have anything even remotely resembling a student out of my sight, will certainly get me nowhere. So," Snape said, pinning his attention on her again, with one of his finest glares, "since no common argument will have any effect, how shall I convince you to leave?"

"I'll go after we have the meeting," Harriet said, though she did feel rather sorry for him now. She thought he was being really honest about the last bit. Underneath all the ire, he did look extremely tired.

"Very well," Snape said, baring his teeth. "We've had it. This is all I had in mind to discuss. You may go." He jerked open the door, grabbed her cloak off the floor, and threw it back at her—but then, instead of chucking her out, he shut the door most of the way, as if blocking sight of her off from the corridor.

She saw it was time to play her trump card.

"I had another dream that I thought might be about Voldemort."

Snape stared at her, shrewd and suspicious, his hard black eyes daring her to be lying to him.

Well, she did think it could be about Voldemort. Possibly. And Anaita's reply wouldn't reach her until tomorrow at earliest.

"If this is a lie," Snape began in one of his most dangerous tones.

"It's not," she said, with adequate sincerity.

Snape shut the door all the way, with exaggerated care.

"Explain," he said in one of his second-best dangerous tones.

Harriet described the room as best she could, glad that Hermione had already drilled her on every aspect that she could remember. (Predictably, Hermione had spent lunchtime in the library, cross-referencing magical storage facilities and golden sand—but with no luck.)

"The Dark Lord was not in this dream?"

"No one was. Just me." She frowned. "At least, I think I was. . . I mean, I saw the room, but I didn't look down and see myself."

"Were you present in the previous dream? The one from the summer?"

"No," she said slowly. "That was like. . . I was watching a film or something. That's a Muggle moving picture—"

"I know what a film is, Miss Potter."

Ron hadn't, nor any of the Weasleys. Harriet supposed Snape had picked it up over time, considering he was much older. Or. . . her mother had told him. They'd been. . . friends, after all.

Yes, that was probably it.

Snape finally moved away from the door, pacing across the room (but giving Harriet a wide berth, like that bump to his elbow had been traumatic contact enough for one night).

When he reached his cluttered side-board, he stared at it for a moment before turning, his eyes falling on Harriet. When a frown traced across his face, she wondered if he'd forgotten she was there.

 _I didn't mean to worry him_ , she thought, and then felt stupid and selfish, because of course telling Snape that she might've been dreaming something to do with _Voldemort_ would worry him.

She'd just been trying to get his attention. . . but that made it even worse, didn't it?

"It could also be one of my memories," she blurted, "or something from the future. Hermione wondered if it was about one of the other tasks."

Snape's frown settled contentedly into the lines on his face. "Perhaps you should ask Mrs. Patil—the fortune-telling expert."

"I already wrote to her," Harriet said, not liking the way he said 'fortune-telling expert.' "Mrs. Patil is very clever. She's not like Trelawney at all."

Snape was clearly thinking something of his own, but he did not reply.

"If anyone will know," Harriet said, goading him a little, "I bet she will."

"Then I wondered you bothered to come down here at all," Snape said coolly.

Harriet wanted to grind her teeth. Not only did Snape always get the last word, but he could parry without even blinking.

"Now, surely," Snape said, pointing at the door, "you may go."

Harriet stared at him helplessly, now completely out of ideas. "But—"

"Miss Potter," he—yes—growled.

"But—" she tried again.

"Miss Potter, do not make me _throw_ you out!"

Harriet drew in breath, as loud and angry words crowded into her mouth, ready to be shouted—

On the other side of the door, someone knocked.

Snape and Harriet froze. At the expression on his face, she experienced a flash of understanding: he could get in a _lot_ of trouble for having her there. Mrs. Weasley had thought—about Remus—that— well, just from a letter that she only _suspected_ was from him. All of the words she'd been on the verge of shouting dived back down her throat with a squeak.

"Get that cloak on," Snape hissed as he reached for the door-knob, "and hide behind something. _Now._ "

Harriet darted into the next room, the one with the fireplace, and crawled behind Snape's armchair so that her back was to the wall. When the door opened and she heard the voice of his visitor, her stomach bottomed out.

"Severus," said Dumbledore, "I'm sorry to disturb you so late."

Harriet made a face at herself.

"Well?" Snape asked curtly. Harriet wondered if he was capable of throwing Dumbledore out. . . but then she heard the unmistakable sound of the door shutting.

She tried to curl into a tighter ball, tucking the edges of her cloak beneath her feet. Dumbledore had somehow known she was visiting the Mirror of Erised even when she'd been invisible; what if he could see through her cloak somehow?

She held her breath as Dumbledore rustled into the sitting-room, and then decided she was being stupid and instead tried to breathe very, very quietly.

"Have you heard from Sirius since this morning?" Dumbledore asked Snape as he moved toward the fire and the armchair, _dammit_.

—Wait, Sirius? Sirius what?

"To my complete lack of surprise, no," Snape said, like he didn't care.

"To mine, as well," Dumbledore sighed, "considering how you provoked him. . ."

"I simply," Snape said coldly, "told him the truth."

Harriet wished they would bloody well give details.

"You might have spared him at such a time," Dumbledore said. Harriet couldn't see the expression on Snape's face, but Dumbledore murmured, "Well, that is fair. Forgive me. But Severus, I wish you would not turn on others the very pain that you have felt—"

"You might as well ask an adder not to _sting_ ," Snape said viciously. "If you are here to pester me about Lupin's condition, you're wasting your time as much as my own. I. Know. _Nothing_. How ever much you lot continue to thick-headedly insist that I must understand werewolves if I understand the Wolfsbane, it will not be true, as _potions_ and _living creatures_ are _not the same thing_."

Dumbledore had magicked himself a plushy purple armchair out of thin air and taken a seat in it, his glittering blue hem (which was all of him that Harriet could see) giving off every air of patiently listening to Snape trying to blister the ears off his head.

"I do understand, Severus. I apologize if I have placed unfair demands on you. I do not expect you to solve Remus' condition—as you say, you are certainly no werewolf expert. Won't you take a seat?"

Snape sat down in the chair behind which Harriet was hiding—almost threw himself into it, it felt like; the chair juddered and Harriet tightened all her muscles and squeezed her eyes shut, praying she wouldn't fall over.

"I merely wish to ascertain your thoughts about his current ailment. You do understand how the potion works," Dumbledore said. "Thus any theories you might have as to—"

"I don't," Snape cut him off.

"Beg pardon?"

"I don't understand how the potion works. From the first, I thought it strange that it should work at all. I have always thought it a miracle it didn't kill Lupin the moment he ingested it. Its primary ingredient is _aconite_ ," Snape said, and whether it was in response to Dumbledore's expression or this was a tirade he had long wanted to air, Harriet couldn't say, as Dumbledore's hem was not currently being communicative. "Aconite is _fatal to werewolves_. Every month Lupin has been imbibing a substance that should poison him."

 _My dream_ , she thought, as the memory of that feeling of loss clenched her heart as if she'd only just woken from it. _No—_

"Are you saying you believe the Wolfsbane to be responsible for his condition?" Dumbledore asked, like he was simply trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, while Harriet couldn't believe that anyone would have thought it was a good idea to feed Remus a potion-that-was-a- _poison_. She had studied all of that theory this year, and even _she_ knew there was no way to balance out a deadly poison, no matter how many other ingredients you added to it.

She wanted to tear at her hair; but Snape's voice cut through her panicked frustration like a hot knife through soft butter:

"I don't know. The symptoms he has related aren't reflective of aconite poisoning. It causes heart complications—results in numbness, muscle weakness—there can be vomiting," he admitted, and Harriet wished she could jump up and demand they tell her _exactly_ what was the matter with Remus, _right now_ , "but Lupin only mentioned an increase in pain and a longer than usual recovery time after last moon—the Hallowe'en moon, which he claimed worsened the effects of the curse anyway—and Black said he'd doubled in size."

"Yes, he mentioned that," Dumbledore murmured, while Harriet's head spun. All of this had been going on and no one had told her? _Grown ups! "_ I have been corresponding with a few old friends with tolerable expertise, and they say that the wolf grows alongside the man."

"So Lupin is bigger as a wolf now simply because he's older?" Snape demanded. "Shouldn't _he_ be aware of that?"

"Remus does not have much contact with his kindred," Dumbledore said quietly. "He sequesters himself at the full moon. You are aware he is never in any state to know himself at that time."

"Well, he should have been bigger since Black met him again. Even Black couldn't fail to notice something like a werewolf doubling in size!"

"I wouldn't expect Sirius' memories to be very reliable, after so many years at the hands of the Dementors. It does not surprise me that it took him a while to work it out. It is hardly his fault. Nor is Remus' current condition to be laid at your feet," he added, when Snape made a noise of deep scorn. "But it is coming to a certainty in my mind that Remus must stop taking the Wolfsbane immediately, before the damage is irreparable."

"He can't do that," Snape said, with something like alarm; his armchair jerked, as if he'd moved sharply. "He is _dangerous_ without it."

"I cannot allow Remus to continue jeopardizing his health for a palliative should it pose a danger to him," Dumbledore said, not unkindly, but firmly. "There are other methods of controlling his wolf side—"

"Yes, we all know how effective those have been!"

"He is nowhere near the school, Severus," Dumbledore said, as if he knew exactly what Snape was thinking. "I can assure you, the croft is far from any human settlement—"

"I do not trust him," Snape all but snarled, "and I certainly don't trust Black to keep him in line!" His armchair's clawed feet scraped on the rug, as if he'd dug his feet into the ground to stop from jumping up and hexing something. Harriet did hold her breath that time. "You know, you surely remember, their history of violating every rule laid down for safety, for years!"

"My memory is as good as ever, Severus," Dumbledore said, more than a bit sharply.

"Then how you can possibly allow—"

"The circumstances are different," Dumbledore said with finality. "Please do not make the mistake of thinking that I have forgotten what transpired, or that I will not do everything to ensure a similar lapse in judgment does not happen again."

Snape swiftly changed tack. His voice took on a layer of almost coaxing menace. "Do you really think _Sirius Black_ is capable of safeguarding the well-being of others?"

"Sirius has the ability to calm the wolf at full moons," Dumbledore said after a pause that lasted for three heartbeats. "The task of ensuring that Remus is protected shall fall to me. Rest assured that only my strongest wards will be in effect—with Sirius to help him, should he need it. And if you have an antidote for aconite poisoning," he added, "I believe I shall take one with me tonight."

"I can brew you something," Snape said, his voice gone cold and sneering. "You may hope it works. If it is aconite poisoning, then he has been ingesting the substance for a prolonged period of time." He stopped speaking, almost as if he'd cut himself off, and Harriet wanted to shake his chair to find out what he'd been going to say.

"Will that take long?"

"To brew an antidote to aconite? No. To find an antidote to the Wolfsbane itself? Exceedingly, if not impossible. I will not give you false hope," he added, so sharp he was almost vicious.

"I need none," said Dumbledore, unperturbed. "Only your skill. Will you come with me now?"

Snape paused, the tiniest bit. "Give me half an hour to brew the antidote and to gather a few supplies. If it isn't aconite poisoning, I cannot give him an antidote without it posing another complication."

"Very well. I shall leave you to work in peace." Dumbledore stood, his hem glittering as he moved. "I shall await your company at the entrance hall in a half hour."

Snape stayed sitting in his chair until Dumbledore rustled from the room. He was on his feet, though, as the outer door shut, striding into his messy anteroom before Harriet could scramble out of her hiding space.

Snape was rattling bottles on his cluttered side-board when she pulled off the cloak to stand in the open doorway. His profile was facing her, but he so adeptly pretended not to see her that she could have believed she was still clutching her knees behind his chair, invisible to everything and everyone.

A million jagged words rose painfully in her throat. Why had no one told her? Why had they all let Remus keep taking that horrible potion when he was sick? Why had they given it to him at all if they knew it was full of poison? Why. . .

"Why did no one tell me Remus was sick?" Her voice was quiet, to her surprise. She felt like yelling. She'd almost never felt _more_ like yelling.

"Yes," Snape said coldly, while his fingers moved over bottles and beakers and stirring rods with a speed and deftness that was almost like playing a piano. "It's understandable you're shocked, since Lupin is normally so open about his condition—"

The bottle in his hand exploded.

Harriet clapped her hands to her mouth in horror, as Snape stared at the mess on his palm—the sharp green color of the potion he'd been mixing, blended with shards of glass and—was that blood?

"I'm sorry!"

Snape picked up a rag and wiped his palm. The cloth definitely came away streaked with blood. Harriet felt sick.

His face perfectly calm, he reached for a vial of sharp brown liquid and tipped it onto his palm.

"That was not your fault," he said in an odd, stiff voice as he cleaned the cuts methodically, unhurriedly, without once looking at her.

"I didn't mean to—" she said, feeling miserable and horrid.

"I know you didn't, Miss Potter." He opened a drawer in the sideboard and pulled out a squat amber bottle. "Unscrew that, if you would."

Harriet gripped the bottle, her hands shaking a bit. A buttery-colored ointment was inside. She'd have put it on his hand—up close, she could see several cuts at odd angles, the biggest one about an inch long—her stomach churned—but when the jar was opened, Snape dipped his fingers in without comment and streaked the paste across the cuts.

"Lupin does not communicate," Snape said as he worked; Harriet had been so intent on watching his hands that she almost jumped at the sound of his voice. "He does not tell anyone anything that would set him apart from. . . non-werewolves. I was forced to ask him a number of necessary questions as I was preparing the Wolfsbane for him the summer before last. He answered them all with extreme reluctance. I would say he almost resented having to answer them at all."

"He never lets me see him the day after the full moon," she said quietly.

"Lupin despises his condition. Close that up," he said, and Harriet screwed the lid back on the ointment jar and placed it back in its drawer. "I would not be remotely surprised to find that matters have been worsening for months, though he kept it to himself until Black would no longer let him ignore it."

He picked up his wand and began to spell the cuts closed, now they were disinfected. Harriet bit her lip.

"Can I help you make the antidote?" she asked, feeling very small.

"I work more quickly alone."

Well, that made a person feel smaller. But she had just thrown him off schedule by shredding his palm, so she knew she deserved it.

"I'll go, then." She picked her cloak off the floor where she'd dropped it again. "Will you. . . tell me how Remus is doing? Since he won't."

Snape flexed his fingers, opening and shutting them, and rubbed at his palm. When he nodded, Harriet assumed it was in satisfaction that he'd successfully healed her blunder. But as she turned to go, invisible beneath her cloak, he said: "I will."

She turned toward him, glad she was invisible because of the way she was sure her mouth was hanging open. Snape still wasn't looking at her. He'd set down his wand and returned to his beakers.

"Call that foolish house-elf of yours," he said, turning away to reach for a bottle, hiding his face from her completely. "Do not go walking the halls alone at night. You may have bested the dragon, but it was not the one who entered you into a deadly tournament against your will."

"No," she whispered, not meaning to be so quiet, but her throat seemed to have clogged suddenly. She coughed to cleared it. "Good night, then. Thanks," she added, and slipped out into the hall, shutting the door softly behind her.

* * *

Once Miss Potter was gone, Severus leaned against the side-board, rubbing his forehead.

 _When it comes to that girl, you are sincerely out of your depth_ , said the snide voice of his own self-mockery.

"I know," he muttered.

The problem with Miss Potter was that she did not act the way she was expected to. He knew how to mine for anger and fear; he could pick at a person's ego and good will and erode their faith in him until they wanted nothing so much as never to speak to him as long as they lived. He knew how to make them hate him. It was one of his greatest talents, unwrapped in childhood, still fresh nearly thirty five years later. Dumbledore was the only person who continually put up with him, and that was because he had to.

He flexed his hand again. The cuts were pink and tender, but they'd disappear within the hour.

 _You were cruel_ , said a tiny, disused voice that he would have thought belonged to his conscience, if he had such a thing.

"Of course I was cruel," he whispered, dumping Lupin's antidote into a traveling jar. "It's _who I am_."

He'd allowed Miss Potter too much leeway. Not simply tonight but over the years. He favored his Slytherins but kept them in line; they knew where to tread lightly and when to obey without question. The other Houses knew to fear his retribution, should they toe too far over the line. But the only way to get Miss Potter to back down was. . .

To be cruel.

He ran his thumb over his palm, rather glad she had blown up that jar. Her remorse had made it easier to relent. That stricken look on her face. . . It was such a little thing, those shards of glass in his palm. Miss Potter had no intent to hurt, only a temper that flared with uncontrollable heat. He knew what that was like.

And in the face of her misery, he'd made her another (foolish) promise he should not have done.

He looked toward the mantel, where Lily's picture frame stood upright, and still empty.

"Your daughter will be the death of me," he muttered. Prompted by Black and Lupin's little display of vulnerability and closeness, Severus had spent all day thinking morbidly of a Hallowe'en thirteen years past ( _They placed their trust in the wrong man, Severus, rather like you did_ ). He'd felt the ghost of that shell of a man he'd become that night, when his hopes had been burnt to dust and a single, sustaining spark was lit grimly within him. _Her daughter still lives. . ._

"But perhaps that is fitting."

He gathered his supplies, doused the lights, and left his rooms as cold, dark and empty as he would ever know them to be.

* * *

When Harriet crept back to the dorm, it was just past midnight. Lavender and Parvati had conked out, still spread across Parvati's bed. The magazine was stuck under Lavender's cheek and Parvati was snoring gently.

Hermione was awake.

She looked up from her book as Harriet peeked around the edge of her four-poster, and Harriet knew she was due for quite a serious conversation when Hermione straightaway marked the book and set it aside.

"It worries me when you sneak away," she said in a low voice.

Harriet rummaged in her head for a reply, but she couldn't find anything. It was hard to think with Parvati snoring like that behind you.

"I had to wear the cloak so nobody would see me leaving," she said at last, knowing that wasn't what Hermione meant.

"You know that's not what I mean." Hermione tried tucking her hair behind her ears, but there was too much of it. Harriet couldn't help wondering which of them had been dealt the worser hand when it came to having maddening hair.

"I just. . ." Hermione frowed at her, though she was clearly frustrated with herself. The only thing that put Hermione at a loss for words was fear of Harriet's temper.

 _My temper_ , Harriet thought, remembering the sound the glass made as it shattered; a muffled sound, not as loud as you'd expect, with the glass curled in the hollow of Snape's hand.

She swallowed a sickening taste.

"Say it," she said heavily, wanting to curl up in bed. She'd mucked up everything with Snape, even worse than she normally did (she didn't normally _hurt_ anyone); she'd got no answers, no help, and all she wanted to do was to sleep and forget everything.

Though knowing Remus was sick, maybe _worse_ than, she probably wouldn't sleep anyway.

"I don't like it," Hermione said in a rush. "I don't like the sneaking, I don't like the cheating, I don't like the—" She hesitated, looking helpless, then said in a rush, "The lying. It's not like you, and it's not right."

Something cold uncoiled in Harriet's heart, whipping out like a snake's tongue, tasting the air. "So you not telling me about the Time-Turner, what was that about, then?"

Hermione drew back as if stung. "I told you why," she said, and the hurt in her voice made the coldness shrivel back in on itself. "You know why I couldn't—"

"You said you'd get into trouble if you told. I know." Harriet scrubbed at her face. "I'm not lying for myself," she said, ignoring the pulse of hatred that came from knotting yet another lie together, "I'm lying for. . . the person who's helping me. That's all they're doing, Hermione—just helping. I can't. . ." She balled up the cloak, twisting her fingers in the fabric. "I can't do this by myself."

Hermione stared at her for a few long moments, then got up and hugged her. Harriet had no idea what to do. She didn't deserve. . .

"I know," Hermione whispered. Her hair tickled Harriet's face, coarser than her own hair. "I know."

In the background, Parvati let out a particularly intrusive snore.

Harriet rolled her eyes. "Kills the moment, she does," she muttered.

Hermione giggled, though it wobbled. When she leaned back, she kept her hands on Harriet's shoulders. With envious resignation, Harriet noted that Hermione was more than half a head taller than she was, now. Hermione's eyes searched her face, and she bit her lip.

"I'm not upset that someone's. . . helping you," she said. "I can hardly _sleep_ for worrying that something awful's going to happen and I won't have learned enough to stop it. I only wish you'd told me. Told us," she added, although Harriet was sure Hermione did not care quite as much that Ron had been left in ignorance, too.

There were dark circles under Hermione's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Harriet said, meaning it down to her core, but Hermione shook her head.

"You've always. . . kept secrets. And I understand why," she added hurriedly, releasing Harriet's shoulders to wring her hands a bit. "But I just worry that. . . one day it's going to be something really big and you'll have been keeping secrets for so long that you won't know when to stop," she blurted out in a rush.

Harriet knew her mouth was hanging open a bit, but she honestly had no idea how to reply. Hermione looked afraid but determined, a combination which resulted in looking like she'd eaten a bad roast earlier but knew this was the absolute worst time to lose her lunch.

"Like what?" Harriet said eventually, because she honestly had no idea what Hermione could be thinking of.

"I don't know," Hermione said—too quickly.

"Clearly lying," Harriet pointed out.

"I really don't know!" Hermione said, a bit too shrilly, for Lavender snorted in her sleep. Harriet and Hermione watched her, rigid with suspense, as Lavender smacked her lips, rolled over, and threw her leg across Parvati's stomach. Parvati simply snored on, while Lavender's hand dangled over the side of the bed, and her hair fluttered over her open mouth when she breathed.

Harriet and Hermione exhaled simultaneously.

"Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this now," Hermione whispered, eyeing their roommates.

"They're asleep," Harriet said with conviction. "Parvati won't admit she snores for real, she'd never fake it."

Hermione giggled again, then bit her lip. "Well. . . it's late. And you look tired. The first task was only over a few days ago, after all. You need your sleep."

 _To make up for what you lost_ , Harriet finished for her.

"I won't keep you up any longer." Then Hermione surprised her by kissing her on the cheek. Although they would hug in very emotional moments, Hermione was not nearly as touchy-feely as Lavender and Parvati, who brushed each other's hair and put makeup on each other and were now tangled together on Parvati's bed, as they often were.

"Good night, Harry," Hermione said. "We'll talk later."

"Right. G'nite," Harriet said slowly, wondering if she really wanted to know what secrets Hermione had in mind that Harriet would not tell her.

* * *

Lupin was still unconscious.

He had not been awake all day, Black reported to Dumbledore (while shooting looks of curdling hatred at Severus).

Severus did not really care that he wasn't awake. The man was so damn tight-lipped about his aches and pains and inconveniences that it would likely serve little purpose to talk to him. Severus could get on with his blood work without suffering the teeth-gritting tedium of drawing honest answers from Lupin.

"What's he doing?" Black demanded as Severus prepared the needle (a bit ostentatiously, to make _sure_ Black saw).

"Severus is going to ascertain whether or not Remus is suffering from aconite poisoning."

"WHAT!" Black roared. Lupin did not so much as twitch; nor when Severus wrapped the cord around his arm above the elbow. At least Lupin's arms were scrawny enough to make finding a vein a ridiculously simple endeavor.

There was a brief scuffle behind him—Black lunging at him and Dumbledore binding him to a chair, if it were Severus' guess—but he was in the midst of drawing Lupin's blood now and Dumbledore would scold him if he mucked it up.

"The Wolfsbane relies on aconite for its main ingredient," Dumbledore was explaining to Black. "Severus needs to ascertain if. . ."

Severus tuned them out. Testing for poisons was relatively simple: you poured into the blood a solution that used the suspected poison as a base and waited for it to change to black. He did not need to bend all his concentration on the task, but the dullest, rote experiment was more interesting than Black's bleating and raving.

In the beaker, Lupin's blood congealed to black, edged with rust and yellow and red.

"Severus?" Dumbledore rustled over. He peered at the beaker Severus held up to him. "That's unusual," he said after a pause.

"Yes."

"What?" Black demanded, storming over, to Severus' disgust. He wished Dumbledore would keep the raving fool bound for the duration of his visit. Bound and gagged, while he was wishing.

"What's that?" Black sounded revolted.

"It is aconite poisoning," Severus said, frowning at the mottled liquid in the glass, "but only in part. . ."

"You poisoned him." Black's breath whistled through his teeth. "You fucking poisoned him—"

"Sirius," Dumbledore said in warning, to no effect.

"The _Wolfsbane_ poisoned him." Severus wove several stasis spells around the beaker before encasing it in an immobile leather sleeve for further tests. "Slowly, over a long period of time."

Black rounded on Dumbledore. "He's not taking it anymore!"

"Of course not. I would never ask Remus to compromise his health—certainly not for half a solution to his ailments."

Severus rummaged in his bag, saying nothing. Black and Dumbledore might forbid Lupin from taking another drop of Wolfsbane, but Severus would continue to make it.

And he would try his damnedest to ensure that Lupin continued to take it.

He was reasonably sure he could manipulate Lupin into it. Lupin despised his condition so very much, was so desperately grateful for the control the Wolfsbane gave him, that the fear of having that taken away from him might be strong enough to battle his self-preservation, of which Severus thought Lupin had very little, anyway. He cared for Dumbledore's good opinion, not for his own skin. He wanted to be thought well of, to be considered self-sufficient and normal, but he appeared to place very little value on his own life. Severus could play to that.

He turned to Black, holding up the vial of antidote. "Give him this when he wakes."

"I'm not giving him a single fucking thing you've—"

"Sirius, please," said Dumbledore, managing to sound entirely supportive and understanding, rather than weary and exasperated. "Severus is here to help Remus. He has prepared an antidote to aconite."

"After a fashion." Severus set it down on the bedside table when Black, his teeth clenched and his face rigid with frustration and banked rage, still refused to accept it. "It will compensate for the arrhythmia." He shut his bag and said to Dumbledore, since Black was still directing the full force of his hatred at himself, "Madam Pomfrey ought to be here. His blood pressure and cardiac rhythm need to be monitored." _And I'm no Healer, as I keep telling you_. He kept it to himself, since arguing with Dumbledore was, as ever, a tree that bore no fruit.

"Why wasn't she here in the first place?" Black demanded.

"Because you're a wanted fugitive," Severus said, unable to believe anyone could be so stupid.

"And therein lies our problem," Dumbledore sighed. "Sirius, you will have to be Padfoot once she arrives. Severus—thank you. I won't keep you any longer from your rest."

Severus nodded curtly and left, with no final glances for any of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I had grand plans, at one point, of posting the Yule Ball chapters by Christmas.... annnnd instead, this happened. It's Snape's fault. Yes. Blame Snape! He won't cooperate and just have a nice, manipulative conversation with Harriet over tea. Instead, he wants to fight with Sirius. And with Harriet. As if they don't do that enough ~~after nearly 400k words, good freaking Lord, now I know a bit how McGonagall feels having to work with Snape all the time~~
> 
> 2\. According to HP Wiki, Dumbledore is "proficient at Potions" and did that whole thing with the Twelve Fancy Uses of Dragon's Blood, so he's basically amazing at everything. However, let's assume Snape's better at _poisons_.
> 
> 3\. As far as I know, there is no mention one way or the other in canon whether or not Snape continued making the Wolfsbane for Remus after PoA. As you've no doubt surmised, being the dear, clever readers that you are, I'm assuming he discontinued it ;)
> 
> 4\. I realized some time ago in this fic that Ron is eating or doing something with food practically every time he's on screen. It's like a cliche within a cliche. And yet I cannot seem to stop! 
> 
> 5\. I deeply apologize to anyone with a medical background who was assuredly cringing through the "medical" bits. I'm relying a bit on Google, and a huuuge amount on artistic license. 
> 
> 6\. Finally, Cora Pirbright and Esmond Haddock are the names of two characters from PG Wodehouse's _The Mating Season_ (whose marriage plans were scuppered by a surging sea of snooty aunts, until Jeeves came to the rescue). 
> 
> 7\. SORRY for this super fucking long A/N! I love you all, you are so super amazing I can't stop talking at you ♥♥♥


	69. Tea in the Mourning

Harriet awoke Saturday morning with chattering teeth. A storm had blown through in the night. Frost caked the windows, and icy wind played round the tower in the shrieking, rattling way that only winter could call "play."

Harriet would've liked to have stayed in bed, beneath the extra blankets that had appeared overnight. . . but she dearly wanted to know what Snape had learned from his visit to Remus last night.

"G-good thing the h-house elves got us extra b-blankets," Harriet chattered to Hermione as she pulled on the wool socks Mrs. Weasley had knitted for her. "We'd have woken up G-gryffindorsicles otherwise."

Hermione's expression darkened. Harriet's cold, Remus-occupied, sleep-logged brain was enjoying a leisurely moment of failing-to-deduce-why when Hermione saved it the trouble.

"What I wonder is when they get to _sleep_." Hermione jerked a brush hard through her hair, glaring at her reflection. "Have you ever noticed that the common room is _always_ tidy when we wake up in the morning? And the fireplace is _never_ dirty? And someone makes our beds when we leave them to go down to breakfast—and they must clean the entire castle—in the times when everyone's sleeping, or we'd see them, which we never do—have you ever wondered, do they ever get any rest _at all_?"

"Maybe you should talk to Dobby," she said as she pulled on a second jumper.

Hermione turned to blink at her, arm paused in the act of brushing her hair. "Dobby?"

"You know—the elf I know? Works in the kitchens?"

"Yes," Hermione said slowly. "He works in the kitchens. You took me to the kitchens once. Yes."

She reached for her trousers. The hairbrush was still stuck in her hair, caught in her curls. Harriet gently reached over and untangled it. Hermione was so immersed in whatever plan she was concocting that she didn't even notice.

A stout fire was blazing in the hearth when she and Hermione reached the common room, and what few people had dredged themselves out of bed were huddled near it, Gryffindor-patterned throws tucked over their knees. Harriet wondered if it would be possible to shake Ron and Hermione straightaway and find Snape, or if he might murder her for bothering him first thing in the morning.

"Morning," Ron said, round a yawn. In deference to the cold, he was wearing the maroon jumper that he hated.

"Mm," Hermione said vaguely, walking on by without glancing at him.

"What did I do now?" he asked Harriet, resigned.

"It's the house-elves," Harriet said in a low voice, eying Hermione as she climbed through the portrait hole (missing it on the first try). "Best let it run its course."

As they followed Hermione at a discreet distance down to breakfast, Harriet and Ron were careful to talk about nothing they thought could reasonably linked to house-elves, in case Hermione decided that they ought to join her on whatever mad crusade she was plotting. Harriet wondered how likely it might be that they would sit down to dinner that evening only to find the house-elves had gone on strike and Filch was dishing out tinned beans.

Harriet did her customary inspection of the staff table upon entering the hall and wasn't surprised to see that Snape wasn't there. Did he ever eat? All he seemed to ingest was coffee (and cigarettes, if that scent she'd caught a few times meant anything). No wonder he was so skinny and wound up all the time.

She turned back to the table to find Hermione scarfing down her toast and porridge at such a speed that Ron, in his amazement, had even forgot to start eating.

"Right," Hermione said, swiping a napkin across her mouth. "I'm off. I'll see you two later— _try_ not to get into trouble."

And she sprang up and dashed off. Harriet and Ron watched her go.

"What trouble does she think we'll get into at the breakfast table?" Harriet asked eventually.

"Dunno. Maybe she thinks we'll eat a canary cream and get stuck as a giant bird?" He dug into his bacon. "Or whatever else Fred and George have got planned." He dropped his voice so no one would overhear; Harriet had to lean in. "They're working on something new, won't tell me what. So don't eat anything they give you."

"I'd eat Sirius's food first." Then she winced, before realizing no one could possibly have heard his name. The Great Hall was rowdier than usual that morning. With the snowstorm, nobody could go outside—although the Durmstrang students had turned up for breakfast, snow frosting their hair and robes, looking quite cheerful. The presence of Viktor Krum only made things noisier.

Ron scowled over at the Slytherin table, where Krum was once again tucked away. This time, he was sitting next to Tracey Davis, who seemed to be holding a calm enough conversation with him.

"Why does he always sit with those slimy gits?" Ron growled.

"Maybe he likes the girls over there?" Harriet guessed. It was hard to tell. Krum always looked rather surly, and whatever Tracey was saying did not seem to be having a good effect on Daphne, at least. She kept shooting her friend icicle-barbed looks as she regally cut up her eggs. "Although Pansy's there, so yeah, on second thought they're probably using Dark Magic to get him over there."

Ron snorted with laughter. Harriet buttered a piece of toast to buy her some time to figure out how she was going to shake him so she could meet with Snape.

"Mail seems late," she said.

Ron squinted up at the snow-crusted windows. "Guess the weather's too bad for the owls to get through."

"Right," Harriet said, though her stomach clenched in disappointment. No letter from Anaita, then.

She just wished she knew if that dream had anything to do with Remus. She had no idea what golden sand could symbolize, or what it had to do with poisoning. . . but that's why Anaita was the expert and Harriet was begging her for help.

"So," Ron said as he cleaned up the last of his kippers, "what are we going to do while Hermione's—doing whatever she's doing? What is she doing?"

"I think she's planning to liberate all the house-elves. Just a guess, though."

"Great," Ron said gloomily. "We'll all be stuck eating canary creams, that'll be a laugh. How does she plan do to that?"

"I haven't a clue. But I have. . . I have a meeting." She didn't even bother with trying to ignore the guilty wriggle her stomach gave. _I just hate all the sneaking and the cheating and the lying_ , Hermione's voice whispered.

"Oh," Ron said, face falling.

"It's about Remus," Harriet blurted. "He's—been sick, and I'm going to—to find out what's been wrong."

Somehow, this blending of lies and truth made her feel worse, especially when Ron looked sympathetic.

"Sure. Come find me when you're done?"

She nodded and waved goodbye, trying not to look like she felt scummy inside.

* * *

"Is Remus going to be okay?" Miss Potter asked, twisting her hands together.

She'd turned up quite early, when breakfast in the Great Hall wouldn't even have finished, looking as if she'd slept badly, with hair wilder than was usual (even for her). Her air was anxious—distracted as she came in and glanced about his chambers, intensely focused when she turned imploring eyes on him—and she kept pushing at the too-long sleeves of her overlarge jumpers.

"That remains to be seen." Severus finished filling the teacup and pushed it toward her. Instead of picking it up, she gave him a look that was two thirds-panicked, one third-exasperated.

" _Has_ he been poisoned?"

"It's aconite poisoning in part." Severus picked up his own teacup so he'd have something to do with his hands—Miss Potter's hand-wringing was making his itch—and because one could never have too much caffeine before ten in the morning. "Which suggests that it's the Wolfsbane Potion itself that's to blame and not any single ingredient."

Miss Potter picked up her tea—which was still steaming—and swallowed a mouthful without even blowing on it to cool. She yelped and clapped a hand to her mouth.

"'M fine," she mumbled, her cheeks as red as if she'd splashed the tea on her face.

Severus decided, for once in his life, to be gracious. "I left Lupin still unconscious, with a potion to compensate for his arrhythmia, should your godfather deign to give him anything I've provided." Well, gracious about the tea incident.

Miss Potter (still blushing) stopped blowing on her tea and grimaced. "But Professor Dumbledore went with you, right? Surely he'll make sure Remus takes it."

"One can only hope," Severus muttered. _That the might of Dumbledore prevails against the rank stupidity of Sirius fucking Black._

"Last night, you said—you said making an antidote for Wolfsbane might be impossible."

"Yes." He knew that she wanted him to say something comforting, but he had nothing of comfort to offer. He wished she wouldn't look at him like that, with wide, desperate, searching eyes.

"Do you—do you really think. . ."

"I am not a werewolf expert, Miss Potter." _As I keep reminding everyone._

She finally stopped staring at him in that terrible, pleading way, but the way she hunched her shoulders and stared into her tea turned out to be worse. He tightened his fingers on the bone china of his cup, to avoid throwing it into the fire. The problem with Miss Potter was that she wanted things from him that he could not give—attention, kindness, reassurance. If she'd just stop asking the impossible of him, she wouldn't continually look so diminished.

 _She'll curl up even smaller if the werewolf dies_ , said his Inner Ravenclaw.

 _At least she won't be dead,_ he replied.

 _Square mile upon square mile of dense forest and open land lie between Lupin and Miss Potter_ , said his Inner Ravenclaw.

_Black and Lupin_ _**cannot be trusted.** _

"I wish I could see him," Miss Potter mumbled. Now she was tracing her finger along the rim of the cup, slowly, round and round.

 _You can't_ , Severus was fully prepared to say. But what he did say was, "If you mention it to the Headmaster, he'll likely oblige you."

Miss Potter blinked up at him. "Right," she said a moment later. "I'll. . . I'll try that. Thanks."

She did not exactly look any perkier, but she did take another sip of her tea. Then she grimaced. "Now it's gone cold," she complained.

The teapot was enchanted to keep warm, so Severus banished the tea from her cup and poured another. "Let this one cool," he said when she pulled it back toward her.

She went pink again. "I know how to drink tea," she muttered. "Not that you'd know it today," she added almost under her breath.

 _Say something kind_ , his Inner Hufflepuff suggested, its voice rusty from misuse.

 _Like what?_ he asked irritably.

There was a long silence. _I don't rightly know_ , his Inner Hufflepuff admitted, because it was his.

"I believe the Headmaster called Madam Pomfrey to see Lupin after I'd gone," he said a few moments later.

"That's. . . that's good, right?" Miss Potter asked, like she wanted to be hopeful but—perhaps—couldn't believe he'd say something reassuring. Clever girl.

"She probably has the most knowledge of Lupin's physiology. She has been Hogwarts' healing matron since we were in school, she's treated him since the beginning."

"Oh." Miss Potter did look relieved. "That's—good. I hope she'll be able to help him." It wasn't a platitude; he heard the weight of her whole heart behind it.

Now she was back to staring at her tea and fiddling with the cup. "I was wondering if my dream—the one I told you about, you know, with the golden sand?. . . if it had to do with—with Remus."

"Why would you make that connection?"

Miss Potter didn't answer right away. When she twisted her cup on its saucer, the porcelain produced a scraping sound that crawled into his ears and bit.

"Miss Potter—" _Stop that before I throw the cup in the fire._

"I felt like . . . like I'd lost something. Forever." She picked up the cup like she was going to take a sip, but stopped, staring into the tea like she was seeing something far away. "And it was. . ." She shivered, then said in a quick, flat voice, "Awful," and drank a long mouthful of tea.

A memory from the time disorder? Hadn't Anaita Patil said that might happen? That as Miss Potter drew closer to certain events, she would experience flashes of memory?

But what would golden sand have to do with Lupin's death?

"You're not a werewolf expert," Miss Potter said suddenly, but quietly. He glanced at her . "But you're. . . a Potions expert, right? You have a Gold Class . . . thing."

Severus blinked. "And how do you know that?"

She shrugged, though not quite in that annoying way of teenagers when they were pretending that interest in anything was beneath them; it was more an awkward shrug of not wanting to mention it. "Read it in a book. Gold Class of what?"

"What does this have to do with Lupin?" Though he suspected he knew.

"You might not know everything about werewolves but you know almost everything about Potions, right?"

There was a little curl of emotion in Severus' chest that felt like pleasure, and he ground it out. There was no merit to flattery borne of ignorance, even were it the ignorance of youth. Miss Potter knew so very little about Potions, and wasn't clever in the ways of accumulating knowledge; she likely never would be.

There were those imploring eyes again.

"It's impossible to know everything about anything," he said.

She pressed her lips together in a way that reminded him strongly of Minerva. Perhaps the Head of Gryffindor was giving her lessons in her Transfigurations review. "Last night, you said to Professor Dumbledore that you didn't know why the Wolfsbane Potion worked."

"Which rather proves my point."

"Why did anyone think it was okay to give it to werewolves, then? If you didn't know how it worked, then nobody could've, right?"

He felt the little curl of warmth trying to breath itself back to life, amidst a sea of confusion. Miss Potter wasn't mocking him, that was clear (he checked); indeed, she radiated earnestness, and he swore it twisted strands of her hair straight out from her head. But this steadfast faith in his supposed brilliance was baffling.

"The potion was not created to help werewolves, Miss Potter," he said at last. "It was created to help the rest of us by keeping them controlled."

She stared at him like she didn't understand what he was really saying. He supposed she didn't.

"You have only seen Lupin at Hogwarts, under Dumbledore's protection, surrounded by people who do not know what he is."

She was growing uneasy, he could tell: tightening in her shoulders, her fingers curling into her palms. Her eyes searched his face, not liking whatever they were seeing. He made his expression as neutral as possible, though he doubted it had little effect. He'd seen himself in the mirror enough times to know he _looked_ mean.

"People who consider themselves good witches and wizards would spit on Lupin if they knew what he was."

She stared like she couldn't have heard right . . . and then color rushed into her face, the brightness of indignation, and a shade of horror. She didn't say anything, though, and her silence made Severus uneasy. It suggested that she believed him, and that thought was disquieting.

But Miss Potter knew what it was to be hated by those who weren't your kind, did she not? That innocence had never really been hers.

"The Wolfsbane is a potion to dampen the influence of the wolf," he said. "It does not reduce the pain of the transformation or lessen the toll it takes on the body. Lupin is in just as much pain as ever when he takes it." Perhaps more, since he does not lose his awareness to the wolf.

"Why doesn't anyone make something to help it hurt less, then?" she asked quietly.

"Werewolves . . . aren't like the rest of us. Their physiology is different, separate. Potions work differently on them. No one has ever studied them to heal them."

"But you could." She looked him full in the face, serious and earnest. "I know you could."

It was not a condemnation, not an affirmation of disappointment, but rather faith, pure and somehow damning. He felt his resolve to keep Lupin on the Wolfsbane waver, like a scaffolding swaying with a new wind.

 _If he dies, she will never place this faith in you again_ , whispered Slytherin.

 _Either you shatter her belief that you can do anything, or you destroy her faith that you will do the right thing_ , Slytherin said.

 _Everything she believes about me is wrong_ , Severus thought.

_Do you want her to find that out?_

"Gold Class, Miss Potter," he said, reaching for the teapot, "means that very little is beyond my means."

For the first time since she'd left him the night before, Miss Potter smiled.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, look, an actual conversation between them! Awkward and difficult as it is, poor babies.
> 
> (✿◠‿◠) ♥ to you all


	70. Preparations and Expectations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some stuff lifted straight from canon.
> 
> Also, if last chapter just wouldn't get started, this chapter JUST WOULDN'T END.
> 
> And thank you!!! my dear sweet darling lovelies, for your super awesome response of love that I do not deserve, but treasure more than I can express ♥

And so Harriet started December feeling not exactly lighthearted, but at least hopeful.  

At least, until Professor McGonagall made an announcement that plunged her into a pit of horror.

“The Yule Ball is approaching,” she said, and Harriet suddenly remembered what she’d read in Snape’s book weeks ago. She was pleased to have forgotten all about it until now.

She was less pleased, however, to be suddenly reminded. . . and in need of a date.

Harriet had never thought about it before, but to be in dire need of a date was a deeply unpleasant state of being. In fact, even if you didn’t need a date to avoid looking a complete prat in front of an entire school and twenty visiting students, wanting one seemed unpleasant enough. Boys didn’t start turning up to ask you out just because you needed them to.

Everywhere she went that first week after Professor McGonagall sprung the Yule Ball on them, Harriet saw girls eying up the boys around them. They whispered together as they passed any boys; they compared notes loudly in the loo; they giggled madly if any boy approached them (which often made him turn tail and flee). Many girls seemed to know exactly who they wished would ask them, while others said frankly that they would take whoever asked, it didn’t matter, as long as someone did.

“They could try asking the boys _themselves_ ,” Hermione said waspishly on Friday afternoon, after five days of what she was calling This Nonsense. She glared at Krum’s fan club library contingent, which had tripled in size since the Yule Ball had become public. It wasn’t that they were noisy (for Madam Pince would have driven them away with handfuls of fire); it was that the focused weight of their Krum-admiration made it impossible to concentrate within a hundred foot radius.

“Fred says that makes you look desperate,” Harriet said absently, paging through a book on werewolves. Ever since Snape had told her what the Wolfsbane was really for, she had taken to reading everything she could find on werewolves. Snape said he wasn’t a werewolf expert, so anything she could learn about werewolves to help would be, well, a help to him, wouldn’t it?

But the books were. . . disgusting. They left a sick feeling pumping through her heart.

Hermione made a growling noise.

“What?” Harriet asked, staring at the fire in Hermione’s eyes (a look she imagined Madam Pince might have given her if she found Harriet wiping her nose on _Darke and Dangerous Beestes of the Highland Wilde_ ).

“ _That’s_ what Fred said, _did he_ ,” Hermione said, nostrils flaring.

Harriet shrugged. “Lavender said the same.”

Hermione chuntered under her breath. Little though they’d know it, Lavender and Fred ought to have been pleased to be elsewhere, or Hermione might have taken a bite out of them.

Hermione had not been in a good mood since returning from the kitchens last Saturday afternoon. Her expression had been such a mixture of frustration, helplessness and fury that Harriet and Ron had not dared ask her any questions. She had taken to pulling down library books about house-elves (of which there were even fewer than werewolves) and wizarding law, where before she had been researching golden eggs. Although Harriet had asked if she could help, Hermione, tight-lipped, had turned her down. Ron had tried smuggling one of her books upstairs while she’d been rewriting her Transfigurations essay to include another foot of information she’d learnt since completing it five days early, but he and Harriet weren’t able to understand anything except the commas.

“Does she think we don’t care?” he asked Harriet as they stared glumly at the book. “And that’s why she won’t tell us anything?”

“Maybe. . .” It was true that neither of them had shown much interest. “But she’s not really the type to give up, is she? She’d be more likely to try changing our minds.”

“Except she hasn’t,” Ron said.

Harriet had had nothing to say to that.

Now, she closed the book on werewolves, relieved to shut out the inky drawings of monsters with dripping teeth and jagged fur. If Remus had grown up around this shit, had read these books, it was no wonder he didn’t want her seeing him on full moon nights.

She pushed that thought—and the book—away for the moment. At least the Yule Ball provided a good opportunity to worry about something stupid for a bit.

“Who are you going to ask, then?” she asked Hermione, who froze in the act of opening a dusty-smelling book.

“What?” she asked, bewildered.

“To the ball. You just said _they_ should ask.” She nodded her head toward the stacks where Krum’s fan club was holding their intense, silent vigil. Krum sat hunched several tables away, his stacks reaching almost as high as Hermione’s. “So who are you going to ask?”

Hermione went pink in the face. “I wasn’t thinking of going with anyone. I couldn’t care less if I _find a date_ or not,” she said, now paging through the book with her shoulders set straight back. “I can go by myself, or not, as I choose.”

“If I weren’t a bloody champion we could just go together,” Harriet groused. “And not worry about dates at all. Except I forgot,” she added when Hermione started to reply. “ _You’re_ not worried.”

Hermione’s lips twitched, hiding her smile. “I’m not,” she said primly, and turned back to her book.

Harriet fiddled with a piece of leather that was flaking off the cover. She was bored of reading.

She glanced idly about the library. The windows were iced over, but through the thinner patches she could see snow tufting against the glass. It was really amazing that Krum kept coming up here in this weather, but she supposed Hogwarts was warmer than their ship out on the lake. . .

Krum, she noticed, mustn’t have been having any grater luck with his egg clue. He looked more than usually surly. Maybe his fan club was making it hard to concentrate, even for someone who was used to it.

Harriet got a funny idea, then.

“Hermione,” she whispered.

Hermione glanced up, curious, and then immediately looked wary. “What are you grinning about?”

Harriet arranged one of Hermione’s books between them and the rest of the room. “I dare you to ask Krum to the ball.”

“What?” Hermione squawked, loud enough that Madam Pince’s head whipped around.

She glared suspiciously, not finding anyone, since Harriet and Hermione had both dived beneath the table. They waited, Hermione with round eyes, her hands pressed over her mouth, while Harriet giggled silently until her ribs ached.

“Go on,” Harriet whispered, once she had herself under control. “I dare you.”

“I’m not going to ask Viktor Krum!” Hermione hissed. “I’m not _mad_.”

“Ron will just have to be jealous,” Harriet said. She had to muffle her giggles again when Hermione shoved her in the shoulder.

“Oh, shut up. Anyway, I’m not asking out the boy you fancy.”

“What?” Harriet blinked at her.

Hermione blinked, too. “What?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well. . . you’ve said you liked him,” Hermione said, looking confused.

“When?” Harriet asked, equally confused.

“When they first got here. Parvati said he was awkward and walked like a duck, and you said you liked him. She said he wasn’t even good-looking, and you said he didn’t have to be.”

Once again, Harriet was impressed by Hermione’s ability to remember entire conversations that she herself had forgotten completely.

“And you look at him a lot,” Hermione went on. “And listen to Ron talking about all of his amazing catches, when I can barely keep my eyes open—at least, that’s how it seems.”

“I don’t fancy Krum,” Harriet said. “I mean, he’s all right, I wouldn’t mind playing a game of Quidditch with him, but I don’t fancy him.”

“Oh.” Hermione looked embarrassed. She didn’t like being wrong, even about something stupid. Harriet started to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, anyone would think she liked a person after hearing her _say_ she liked them, but Hermione said:

“So who do you. . . fancy?”

“No one?” Harriet said, confused again. “What?” she asked, not understanding the way Hermione’s face fell and she bit her lip. “Why are you looking like that?”

“Nothing—”

“It’s not nothing or you wouldn’t be looking at me like that.” But a conversation was coming back to her, one from only a week ago, that night she’d returned from Snape’s. . . _I just worry that one day it's going to be something really big and you'll have been keeping secrets for so long that you won't know when to stop._     

And Hermione hadn’t told her what she’d had in mind then, either.

“It’s pretty rich of you to scold me for keeping secrets when you won’t tell me what you’re thinking,” Harriet said.

Hermione twisted her hands together and her eyes darted around, like they were seeking desperately for an escape.

“I don’t—”

Harriet shoved her chair out of her way, making to climb out from under the table, but Hermione seized her sleeve.

“Harriet, I’m _sorry_ ,” she whispered, very fast. “You’ve been sneaking around a lot, going off without me or Ron, and I don’t just think it’s about the Tournament, because it started before then, and you act like you fancy someone, you do, you’re preoccupied and you have these mood swings that I think must be connected to the way they treat you, which _can’t_ be very good because you’re so often unhappy, and I keep wondering why you won’t tell me and if it’s because I’m such a terrible friend that I don’t deserve to be confided in—”

Harriet couldn’t speak. She felt such a horrible press of guilt clogging her throat that she couldn’t have said anything even if she’d wanted to. She twisted her arm from Hermione’s grip, ignored her whispered plea of “Harriet!” and fled the library, not looking back.  
    

* * *

After fleeing the library, Harriet brooded around the castle.

The problem with telling half-truths was that you kept having to come up with more of them each time. And the problem with being Harriet and telling half-truths was that she soon lost track of them. Maybe Snape or Hermione would have a better time of it, since they seemed to remember everything. Although Harriet had never seen Snape rattling off word-for-word what the textbook said about Switching Spells, she reckoned he had to have an excellent memory to become a Gold class potioneer.

But now Hermione thought she fancied someone, and Harriet couldn’t explain how that wasn’t it at all, she was just trying to figure Snape out, and he was helping her cheat through the tournament and trying to make Remus. . . not die.

Although now she thought about it, Snape hadn’t done anything towards the egg clue. He hadn’t even asked about it. Maybe he’d taken her performance in the First Task to mean she didn’t need his help anymore? Though that didn’t seem very like him. Now she thought about it, it would be a lot more like him to give her a dressing down for flying around like a lunatic and not following any of his careful advice that would have kept her firmly on the ground. But he hadn’t said a word.

She’d been so preoccupied worrying about Remus that she’d completely forgot to quiz Snape about having seen her task and saying nothing.

She kicked at the base of a suit of armor. With a grinding screech, its helmet turned to give her a dirty look. She hadn’t thought an empty helmet could give dirty looks, but this one managed it.

“Sorry,” she muttered, and beetled away. Its visor clanked and rattled, like it was grumbling curses after her.

Harriet trailed down the stairs, thinking. . . Hermione might accept Harriet getting help from some unnamed source, but she would probably faint dead away at its being a teacher, and Snape to boot.

Besides which. . . the thought of telling Hermione that she was getting help from Snape made Harriet feel. . . uncomfortable, somehow.

She’d never thought about it before, but there were some secrets you kept because you had to, and there were some you kept because you wanted to. And this was her secret, hers and Snape’s, and she liked having nobody else know.

She felt bad about lying to Hermione, but. . . She didn’t want to be honest.

Harriet slowed to a stop, turning this thought over in her mind. What kind of horrible person did that make her?

_I don’t like Hermione being upset, but I also don’t like her bringing up the secret constantly. I just want it to be left alone so I don’t have to lie about it._

And Hermione wasn’t the type to let it drop. Since Harriet had admitted, a week ago, that someone was helping her cheat in the tournament, Hermione had only got more focused, trying to dig her way to where the problem started and pull it out by the roots. Harriet didn’t want her to. But she didn’t know how to stop her, either.

“ _Potter_? Great Salazar, have you got a death wish?”

Harriet looked round to find Draco Malfoy swaggering down the corridor toward her. His hair was perfectly slicked back, and Parvati would have cried tears of joy if Harriet spent half as much time fixing her hair as Malfoy must have practiced that smirk.

“What are you doing here?” Harriet asked, scowling.

“These are the dungeons, snail-brain,” Malfoy said, now too close for comfort, meaning that Harriet could have hit him with a ten foot pole. “The question should be, what are _you_ doing here?”

“Walking,” Harriet said coldly. “Not a crime, is it?”

“For a Gryffindor in the dungeons? Yes.” Malfoy was close enough that his smirk gleamed in the torchlight. “If Pansy’d found you here, she’d have hexed you in the back and stuffed you down an oubliette.”    

“First she’d have to figure out which way to hold her wand,” Harriet retorted.

Malfoy sniggered, and then looked extremely confused. Harriet felt the same way—had Malfoy just laughed at a joke she’d made?

Harriet narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t Pansy your girlfriend?”

“What?” Malfoy looked more confused than ever. “Potter, have you been Confunded?”

Harriet made a show of rolling her eyes. She hoped it was visible in this stupid dungeon torchlight. “Never mind,” she said, and made to walk past Malfoy.

“That’s the wrong way,” he said. “The way out is that way.” He pointed over her shoulder.

Harriet wasn’t falling for that. “Nice try, Malfoy.”

“No, really, Potter, if you go the way you’re going you’ll fall down a bottomless pit. You need to turn around.”

“I’m not going that way, you numpty, that’s where—” She bit down hard on her tongue because she’d almost said _that’s where Snape lives_.

Malfoy’s silver eyes narrowed. “That’s where what, Potter?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid—

But she was delivered from her own big mouth by a miraculous encounter.

Or maybe not that miraculous, since this _was_ where he lived.

“Mr. Malfoy.” Snape’s voice could take on a strange and wondrous quality sometimes, like thunder that whispered. It cracked and it hissed at the same time. This time, it made Malfoy jump an inch or two off the ground and Harriet's heart leap high in her chest.

Snape bore down on them, eyes narrowed with a precision Malfoy could only aspire to, and looked from Harriet to Malfoy and back again.

“What are you doing?” he asked, in a tone that promised dark and terrible things if they did not answer immediately and truthfully.

“I was just leaving,” Harriet said, although she’d have rather asked if he was going to see Remus. The satchel over his shoulder made it seem likely. But Malfoy or no, Snape would do his impression of a Hungarian Horntail if she tried to find an excuse to stick around. Snape had been very clear that he would only invite her for Remus-centric tea reports if she “stopped springing herself on him at all ungodly hours of the day and night,” and she didn’t want him thinking she was going back on her word.

“Then do so,” Snape said, still watching her through narrowed eyes. “Mr. Malfoy,” he added, in a tone that made Malfoy freeze, “shouldn’t you be in your common room?”

Though she did leave, Harriet dragged her feet a bit, in case Snape should catch up with her. . . but even though she stopped on the grand staircase to tie first one shoe, and then the other, she didn’t see him emerge from the dungeons. It would be too embarrassing to sit on the stairs and wait for him to show, so she had no choice but to go on.

She plodded the rest of the way to Gryffindor tower, glumly kicking at everything within foot-reach. But not too hard: those suits of armor were carrying spears, after all.

* * *

  
Hermione was not to be found in the common room. Ron, who was playing chess with Neville, waved Harriet over.

“She came through here maybe, what do you reckon,” he asked Neville, “ten minutes ago? In a right state she was,” he told Harriet. “Must’ve seen someone abusing a house-elf.”

Harriet felt her guilt and regret sinking like a stone into her stomach. “Did she go upstairs?” When he nodded, she knew what she had to do.

Of a sort. She definitely had to go upstairs. She just didn’t know what she’d say when she got there.

But she needed to go. Hermione was actually _upset_. As upset as she got about house-elves, which was about Level Eleven.

So she squared her shoulders and marched upstairs and only lingered a _bit_ outside the dorm.

When she opened the door, she did not immediately see Hermione. But then she paced out from behind her four-poster, wringing her hands, and paced behind Harriet’s, reemerging moments later and pacing back behind her bed.

Harriet stood in the doorway watching her do this about five more times before she stepped inside and shut the door.

Hermione stopped and turned, still twisting her hands together. She looked shell-shocked—not upset they’d had a fight, like Ron had thought, but stunned stupid.

“What happened?” Harriet asked, alarmed.

Hermione’s mouth opened and a weird, gasping squeak emerged. She closed her mouth, then tried again.

“I asked Viktor Krum to the ball,” she wheezed.

Harriet’s jaw dropped. She tried to say “WHAT” but couldn’t speak.

Hermione nodded once—sort of. It would be more accurate to say she jerked her head forward, then back. She looked like she was about to collapse.

Harriet reached toward her, head spinning, in case her knees gave out, because Hermione looked absolutely terrified.

“And he said _yes_ ,” she squeaked, and collapsed into Harriet’s arms.

Harriet made Hermione sit down, next to the fire, and put a blanket round her shoulders. She considered calling on Dobby to bring some hot chocolate, but in this state, Hermione might just lose her head if she saw a house-elf being summoned in such a cavalier way to tend to her needs.

“It was after you left,” Hermione said. “I was trying to read—I didn’t take in a word, though—”

 _Or only about half,_ Harriet thought, feeling very fond of her.

“—and so I went to put the books on the cart, and when I turned around, I almost ran into—into him. He was carrying books— _Coriolanus’ and Petrucchio’s Guide to Advanced Transfiguration_ and _Physical Properties of the Human-Animo Transformation_ —and he asked if he could talk to me. And I opened my mouth to ask what about, and what came out was, ‘Do you want to go to the ball with me?’”

She put her hands over her face, like she couldn’t bear to think about it.

“And he stared at me, and I thought I was going to _die_ , but then h-he said, ‘I would like that very much, yes,’ and then he put his books on the cart and went back to his table and sat down like everything was perfectly normal and I ran from the library and oh God I left my bag there and everything!”

Harriet rubbed her back. “That’s okay, Madam Pince collects that stuff, you know.”

Hermione moaned and hunched over until Harriet couldn’t see anything more of her than her hair.

A few moments later, though, Hermione rolled her head to peer suspiciously up at Harriet. “Are you—you are! Why are you _laughing_?”

“Can you imagine?” Harriet crowed. “His fan club's faces! Lavender’s face! Pansy’s face! They’ll all melt off from jealousy!”

But far from looking amused, Hermione sat bolt upright in horror.

“You can’t tell anyone!”

“I think they’ll find out when you show up at the ball with him," Harriet said.

“I—I know that.” She shook her head rapidly. “Just—not before then. They’ll only make fun of me or not believe it or be horrid and—I would just rather not have them know. As long as possible. Please?”

“If you don’t want them knowing, I won’t say anything.” Harriet didn’t care when they knew. She’d be just as happy watching their faces melt off from jealousy at the ball as at any time. In fact, it would probably be better to see it all at once. She grinned.

“What?” she asked, catching Hermione’s expression.

“Noth—” Hermione sighed when Harriet scowled. “I was just thinking that you really don’t fancy him in the slightest.”

“I said that, didn’t I?” Harriet asked, exasperated.

“Well, yes, but I thought perhaps you were doing it to—I don’t know, save face?” She looked embarrassed again. Save face from what? And why should she blush. . . ?

“Is this about you and Ron?” Harriet asked warily.

“Wh-what?” Hermione was now sitting ramrod straight. “What about me and Ron? What?”

She and Harriet stared at each other, Hermione’s eyes a bit wider than normal and fixed on Harriet’s face.

“Nothing,” Harriet said slowly.

Hermione held her gaze a moment longer, then she nodded and stood, her fists clenched and her shoulders straight, like she was about to walk off a plank.

“I’m going to—have a bath,” she said jerkily.

Well, Harriet mused as Hermione scuttled away. Now she knew how to stop Hermione talking about who she fancied.

She felt rather bad about it, but she filed that away nonetheless.

* * *

  
Next day, Harriet eagerly went to see Snape for the morning tea report. (Hermione did not say anything. In fact, she spent all of breakfast hiding behind _Abstracts in Wizarding Law of the Mid-Sixteenth Century_ and said not a word to either Harriet or Ron.)

“How’s Remus?” Harriet asked Snape once he let her in. He looked disgruntled, but he always did before noon.

“Stubborn, unhelpful, and infuriating,” Snape said.

 _Well, you’d know_ , Harriet thought, but had enough self-preservation not to say it—little though Snape would believe she had any such thing.

“I’ve been reading about werewolves,” she said instead.

Snape didn’t say anything, just set about fixing the tea.

“The books are bloody _horrid_. Hasn’t anyone written anything nice about them, at all?”

“No."

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Most people do not get close to werewolves the way. . . your father and godfather did.” He looked like he was grinding his teeth. “Most people regard them as slavering monsters. Hence the literature. Drink your tea,” he said sharply. “You look far too tired.”

Harriet thought it was rich of him to be scolding her for that, since _he_ always looked like he would collapse if he didn’t have that core of angry energy keeping him going. But she didn’t really mind this kind of hypocrisy, so she drank her tea and nibbled one of the muffins that were on the table this morning. Since she never saw Snape eating anything like them, they must have been for her. They tasted extra buttery.

“You must not expect instant results,” Snape said abruptly, his voice gone cold. His face had schooled itself into that distant, icy expression that had often made her feel so frustrated because she couldn’t get behind it. But. . . this morning, he’d just scolded her for being tired. He appeared to have ordered muffins expressly for her, since he did not eat them.

For the first time, it occurred to Harriet to wonder if Snape didn’t go to that place of distant ice not because he didn’t care, but from. . . some other reason. Something that didn’t have to do with uncaring.

“The Wolfsbane Potion took decades to perfect,” he said. “Such as it is. And I have not promised to brew an alternative. All I have engaged to do is figure out a way not to poison Lupin further.”

“Right,” Harriet said. She honestly didn’t know what Snape was getting up to; she only knew he’d said he would help Remus and she believed him.

Snape narrowed his eyes at her, like he wondered what was going on in her head, and then looked away, as if he’d given up on figuring it out.

“Concentrate on being well-rested,” he said flatly. “You’ll do no one any good if you’re half-dead from exhaustion.”

“I’d get more if it weren’t for that stupid ball,” Harriet said, taking another muffin.

“Surely that shouldn’t be keeping you up at nights.”

“I have to _dance_. In front of the _school_. Do you know how to dance?”

“I can manage,” Snape said, like he’d rather he couldn’t.

“Really?” Harriet tried to picture it, but ended up with a picture of Snape in a tuxedo, glaring through his greasy hair.

“Yes.” He poured himself not tea, but coffee from a tall silver pot. It was very black, like it was extra-serious coffee. Snape coffee.

“Where’d you learn?”

“It was a long time ago,” he said, doing that thing where he avoided the question.

“But was it at school? How am _I_ supposed to learn how to dance?”

“It was not at school.” Snape glared at her a little, as if it was her fault he was telling her this. She supposed it was. “Narcissa Malfoy had me learn,” he said at last, like the words were being pulled up his throat from his sternum.

Harriet couldn’t believe her ears. “Draco Malfoy’s mum?”

“Do you know any other Narcissa Malfoys?” Snape asked , already refilling his coffee cup.

“You're friends with the Malfoys?” She still remembered that look Mrs Malfoy had given her at the World Cup and in Madam Malkin’s. But this explained why Snape favored Draco Malfoy even above the rest of the Slytherins.

“Yes.” Snape stared straight at her, like he was daring her to say it: _When you were all Death Eaters?_

Harriet both did and did not want to ask that question, with all her heart. She dipped the crust of her muffin in her tea and said, “I think Narcissa Malfoy is a terrible snob.”

“You have no conception how much,” Snape said.

Well, she hadn’t expected that.

“Did you know she and your godfather are first cousins?” Snape asked, almost slyly.

Harriet opened her mouth, and then left it hanging open. She was sure she looked incredibly stupid, but she couldn’t manage to get it shut. Snape looked pleased with this reaction, in a hard-to-detect way. Snape's smiles were always difficult to pin down, like they were as light and frail as cobwebs.

“The wizarding world has no royalty,” he said. “The Blacks have always believed that it needs none as long as they’re alive.”

She could easily believe this of Narcissa Malfoy. And Sirius. . . well. _She_ was related to Aunt Petunia. And her wand was related to Voldemort, kind of. Just because your family were the biggest Muggle-hating fatheads to smarm around Diagon Alley didn’t mean any thing. Otherwise, Aunt Petunia would have been able to do something about Harriet’s hair.

“But how do you _know_ her?” Harriet said. "Are you related?”

Snape frowned. “Not as such.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that most people in the wizarding world are related in some way, unless they’re from completely Muggle families.” Snape looked like he didn’t quite know why they were having this conversation.

“I don’t _want_ to be related to the Malfoys,” Harriet said. “I couldn’t handle being related to both Aunt Petunia _and_ Narcissa Malfoy.”

For a split second, Harriet thought she saw one of those invisible smiles on Snape's face. No, she must be going mad—both Malfoy and Snape could not possibly have thought something she meant to be funny was actually funny, ever, let alone within the same twenty-four hours.

“No,” he said. “That would be too much for any one person to bear.”

That was definitely a joke. Harriet tried not to grin, she knew it would look too stupid. “I’m not really, though, am I?”

“There are genealogy books in the library that can set your mind at ease. Only don’t lose any more sleep over it.”

“Ha ha,” Harriet said. She took another muffin, because it occurred to her that Snape might at some point decide this conversation was too frivolous to allow, and throw her out, and maybe he wouldn’t do it if her mouth was full.  

“I’m sure there will be dancing lessons offered at some point,” Snape said. “Ask your Head of House. She’s. . . fond of dancing.”

There was a slight smirk lingering around his mouth, like this was the source of some joke about Professor McGonagall. Did he ever dance, even though he knew how? She wondered what that would look like. What did wizards wear to balls? Snape would surely wear black; she'd never seen him wear anything else, even when he'd dressed Muggle.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Snape how one went about getting a date for a ball. . . but then she felt her ears burn and knew she couldn’t ask him _that_. She could bug him at all hours and ask him about Death Eaters and Narcissa Malfoy but she would never ask him about dates until she wanted to vaporize in a puff of steam.

By next Friday, however, she wished she had.

Because Christmas was only two weeks away, and not a single boy had asked her to the ball.

More and more girls in the loo were looking smug; the giggling groups had increased in size; a number of boys looked deeply embarrassed but pleased with themselves, while others were gaining a hunted look, like they were lost in a jungle and expecting to be eaten by a leopard any day now.

Lavender was the first in their dorm to announce that she had a date—she was going with Seamus. Fred asked Angelina, and George had rounded up a Hufflepuff Quidditch player Harriet didn’t know. Ginny had been asked by a Ravenclaw boy from Harriet’s year, and Dean had found a date with one of Ginny’s friends. Harriet was slightly consoled that Parvati did not have a date, and nor did her sister Padma, despite being quite possibly the most beautiful girls in their year.

Boys, Harriet decided, were strange creatures. She’d have thought the beautiful girls would have been the first ones to go. And although Lavender was pretty enough, she was also a bit of a cow, in Harriet’s opinion. It made far less sense for her to have got a date—from a boy who knew what she was like, nonetheless, and had seen her every day at the breakfast table four years running—while Parvati, who was both lovelier and kinder, had not.

Harriet was still the only one who knew that Hermione would be going with Viktor Krum, probably because Hermione was treating the matter with such aplomb.

“Just ask someone,” Hermione told her consolingly, when Harriet was starting to get increasingly worried. Last night, she'd dreamt that she asked Snape to the ball, only he turned her down because he was going with Narcissa Malfoy; so Harriet had to go with the Hungarian Horntail, who'd burnt down the school. “It won’t be so very bad, he’s bound to say yes.”

“You almost fainted after asking Krum,” Harriet pointed out.

“That’s because it’s _Viktor Krum_. Everyone’s going to be _staring_ at me. . .”

 Harriet groaned. “At least we’ll be suffering together.”

* * *

When they were first-years about to embark on their first flying lesson, Hermione had spent the week leading up to it reading books on flying tips, which she’d spouted off to anyone willing to listen (only Neville). Harriet was not surprised, then, to find Hermione reading a book on traditional wizarding dances with unpronounceable names and a lot of incomprehensible diagrams.

She was surprised, however, when Hermione decided the books weren't good enough.

“Come on,” she said firmly, brandishing a flyer at Harriet, the first night of their winter holidays. “We’re going to dance lessons.”

“I don’t have a partner,” Harriet said, slouching in her chair. She wished Crookshanks would move his furry butt from the end of the sofa to her lap. Hermione might let her be if she was serving as a throne for her cat. “I’ll look a right prat without one. Just more preparation for Christmas."

“Then it’s perfect, isn’t it?” Hermione said crisply, and dragged her off.

According to the flyer, the dancing lessons were being held in a disused classroom on the fifth floor. As Harriet and Hermione rounded the end of the corridor, they heard a wailing waltz crackling through an open doorway, over the murmur of voices and laughter. Their steps slowed, and they looked at each other, and the despairing looks on each other’s faces made them double over giggling.

And the giggling somehow giving them courage, they marched into the room and managed not to turn tail and run when Professor McGonagall turned and fixed them with a beady look.

“Glad to see you at last, Miss Potter, Miss Granger,” she said, as if she’d had their names down on a reservations list and they were late. An enormous phonograph had been set up opposite the door, and a number of folks from all houses were staggering around the room in a drunken troll's version of a waltz. “Find partners, or you may partner up together. We’re attempting,” she cast a resigned look at the couple lurching past her, “a winter waltz.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Harriet said. Really, they ought to just chuck her out as a champion and concentrate on Cedric. He was tall, handsome, and dating the beautiful Cho Chang. They would look just fine standing next to Fleur and whatever handsome boy she’d permitted to be her date.

Although, if these were the people she was going to be dancing around, she thought, as Anthony Goldstein tried to dip Lisa Turpin and fell over with her, maybe she oughtn't worry so much.

In fact, Harriet turned out to be a much better dancer than Hermione, who kept moving wrong and stepping on her feet.

“Sorry!” Hermione said, cringing, when they had to stop for the fifth time so Harriet could rub her sore toes. “Maybe we should pair off with someone else. . . why don’t you dance with Neville?”

“Like that’ll be a better alternative,” Harriet said under her breath. But she felt remorseful enough at being so unkind that she steeled herself—wishing she could steel her toes—and went over to Neville, who was currently without a partner.

“Want to practice?” she asked.

Neville turned bright red from the chin up, like a teapot being filled with hot water. “Y-y-yes a-a-a-all right.”

To Harriet’s surprise, he did not smash her toes. He was loads better at this than Hermione—although the height difference was significant enough that Harriet was on eye-level with his cardigan buttons. Hermione might have been a danger to the toes, but it was a lot easier to look her in the eye. Harriet felt a bit silly, dancing with someone so much taller, but they made it through two songs without landing flat on their faces or kicking each other in the shins. He confided (very shyly) that he’d been coming to the lessons since the beginning and practicing alone on his own. She was impressed.

When the second song was over and she looked round for Hermione, Harriet couldn’t find her anywhere. She wasn't standing on the sidelines or dancing with anyone.

“Erm. . . Harriet?”

She turned to find Hannah Abbot holding out a square of folded parchment. “Hermione asked me to give this to you,” she said shyly—and, of all things, _bowed_ before she left.

Harriet unfolded her note. _‘Gone to the library,’_ it read. _‘Just thought of something important. Dance going well!! Meet you in common room.’_

Two exclamation points? Was this really from Hermione? Though researching on the evening that classes had ended for the Christmas holiday, that definitely sounded like her.

“Do. . . do you want to do another?” Neville asked, as shy as Hannah. At least he didn’t _bow_.

“Sure,” Harriet said. “I’ve been abandoned for the library again. I’m used to it though.”

They practiced through two more songs before Professor McGonagall brought an end to the session. Harriet was surprised to feel a little better about dancing on Christmas. If she had to dance alone, at least she wouldn't trip over her own feet. Maybe Neville could show her how to dance gracefully with thin air.

“There will be a Hogsmeade trip tomorrow,” Professor McGonagall announced, as everyone limped off the dance floor, “the last one before the ball. Make sure to get what you need!”

Right—Harriet needed to try on her dress and make sure it didn’t need altering. Jean had written only a couple of days ago to remind her.

Harriet and Neville left the dance lesson together, headed back to Gryffindor Tower.

“Are you going to the ball with anyone?” Harriet asked Neville, this being the easy topic of conversation at the moment.

He went, if possible, even redder. He tried to answer a couple of times, but they had traversed two corridors and climbed three sets of stairs before he got any words out.

“I d-don’t n-know. I—I—I was hoping—you might, might go. . . with me?”

Harriet nodded along. . . and then her brain kicked into gear as the words caught up. She actually stopped walking. “What?”

Neville was now a blotchy mixture of paste-pale and brick-red, but he said, looking like he was about to face both a Hungarian Horntail and Snape at the same time.

“W-would you go to the ball with m-me?”

Harriet blinked three times. She had to crane her neck a bit to get a proper look at his face. He looked like he was about to pass out.

“All right,” she said a moment later.

“That’s okay,” Neville said, face falling. “I understand. You’ve probably got. . .”

“Neville.” Harriet resisted the urge to laugh. “I said yes.”

Neville’s mouth fell open, and then just hung there, rather like hers had done when Snape had told her Sirius was related to Draco’s mum.

“R-r-r-really?” he said, like he couldn’t believe it.

Harriet felt embarrassed at the way he was staring at her. “Yes, of course.”

Neville still looked like he couldn’t believe it. They started walking again, Neville staring dazedly ahead, and Harriet sticking beside him in silence, watching in case he should fall off a staircase.

Then something occurred to her. “I should warn you, champions and their partners have to lead the dance. So. . . we’ll have to dance solo in front of the whole school, with the others. Is that all right?”

“Y-y-ye—” He finally gave up and just nodded.

She hoped he’d be a bit more talkative on the night of the ball.

When they got to the Fat Lady’s portrait, Harriet had to say the password (Neville was still struck dumb), and when they climbed into the common room, he suddenly went bright scarlet, squeaked, and fled upstairs to the boys’ dorm.

“What’s got into him?” Ron asked. “He looks like Hermione did a week back—she’s not got him into this house-elf stuff, has she?”

"Not that I know of.” Harriet didn't tell him what Neville had asked her. It was intensely embarrassing to know that Neville regarded a date with her in the exact same light that Hermione thought of one with Krum.

She found Hermione upstairs—reading, predictably. When she saw Harriet come in, she marked her book and set it aside, smiling.

“Did he ask you?”

“Yeah, he—wait.” Harriet narrowed her eyes. “You were in on it?”

“He told me he really wanted to ask you but he didn’t know how,” Hermione said. “I. . . may have approached him. Well, he so clearly fancies you, and so obviously wanted to ask you, and was so very unhappy he didn’t have the confidence, what else could I do?”

Harriet felt thrown. She’d been thinking Neville was only tongue-tied because she was the Famous Harriet Potter. “He fancies me?”

Hermione patted her hand. “Yes, of course,” she said kindly, like Harriet had just discovered rain came from the sky.

“But I don’t fancy him. Should I be going with him if he fancies me and I don’t fancy him back? That’s not leading him on, is it?”

“No,” Hermione said simply. “You haven’t agreed to date him. You’re just going to a dance together. They’re two completely separate things. Some people might be presumptuous enough to equate them,” she admitted, “but Neville won’t be. Don’t feel guilty, and don’t worry. You’ll have a lovely time. Neville’s very sweet, he’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

Harriet nodded, but she couldn’t shake a feeling of unease. Something about it just didn’t seem. . . fair.

"Let's try on our dresses, like Mum said," Hermione said firmly. “We need to make sure we get everything we'll need in Hogsmeade tomorrow.”

So they pulled out the brown paper-wrapped parcels they had got from Madam Malkin's back in August. After ridding herself of that pink monstrosity, Harriet had decided on a simple green dress. It nipped in high at the waist, with a slim but flowing skirt: rather plain, but they’d all agreed it brought out her eyes very nicely, and it was decidedly not frilly.

It was also too small.

The hem that had brushed the floor in August didn't now. The shoulders were too tight, the zip at the back wouldn’t close and the chest was far too tight.

Her chest. Her _breasts_.

She actually had something there now.

She hadn't noticed. How had she not noticed?

She had breasts! Small ones, but she had them.

"It won't fit!" she said, wanting to dance around the dorm. She turned to her mirror and looked, and sure enough, there they were, right where they ought be.

"Let me s—oh." Hermione's eyes widened as she came around the end of Harriet’s bed. "It certainly won't. Goodness—I had no idea you'd grown so much!"

Harriet felt silly to be celebrating it so, but elated. She'd grown! She'd grown taller and she'd grown out a bit, finally!

Then she remembered looking at Neville's cardigan button as they danced and sighed.

"We'll be going to Gladrags tomorrow, then," Hermione said.    

And for the first time in her life, Harriet found she was actually looking forward to a shopping trip.

* * *

The next morning, Harriet armed herself with her parcel, and she and Hermione wrapped themselves against the driving wind and snow and set out very early for Hogsmeade. The weather was icy and biting, with drifts of snow to plow through; but with the ball on the horizon and the elation of the Christmas holidays, Hermione predicted that most people would decide to brave the frostbite (especially the Durmstrang lot, who thought snow drifts only three feet high constituted balmy weather) and turn Hogsmeade into a madhouse.

"We don't want to be shopping when the store is overrun with girls buying last minute things," she said pragmatically.

Harriet was glad, later, that they'd set out for Hogsmeade when the world was steel gray. Gladrags was already open and packed with a troupe of girls from Durmstrang, as well as a couple of Slytherin girls who'd made friends with them. The Slytherins cast a dismissive eye over Harriet and Hermione, while one of the Durmstrang girls waved. Harriet didn't know her, but she waved back anyway.

A shop-witch bustled over as Harriet and Hermione were knocking snow off their shoes. "May I help—oh! Why, if it isn't Harriet Potter!" the witch said, beaming. Harriet tried not to cringe. She saw the Slytherin girls now giving her dirty looks. "It's such a pleasure to meet you! Do tell me, my dear, how can I help you?"

"Er—" Harriet floundered. What was it she'd thought, only days ago, about Krum being used to this sort of thing?

"We bought dresses for the Yule Ball back in August," Hermione said, coming to her rescue. "But Harriet's doesn't fit anymore. It's one of Madam Malkin's, but do you think you could alter it?"

"Bring it out, my dear, and I'll have a look," said the shop-witch kindly. She herded them to the back of the store, where a pedestal and mannequin were set up, and drew a curtain round the area. "Just have the dress on, Miss Potter, and we'll see what we can see."

When Hermione had helped Harriet get into the dress as best she could, the shop-witch took one look and shook her head.

"There's no altering that, my dear, it doesn't fit you at all! But here's what we'll do—I'll take that one in trade—you've never worn it, yes? It looks good as new!—and you may have any one from my shop. What say you to that?"

Harriet had no idea. She was quite sure this wouldn't have been offered if she hadn't been Famous Harriet Potter. She looked helplessly to Hermione.

"That's very kind of you," Hermione said firmly. "Harriet will pay whatever's the difference between the two."

"That's very generous of you, Miss Potter," said the shop-witch, smiling on her, as if Harriet weren't a complete numpty who couldn't handle buying even a single dress. "What do you think you'll be looking for? I've got a few gowns similar to this one, or we can find you something different, if your tastes have changed?"

Desperate to contribute _something_ , Harriet said, "I'll. . . get dressed and have a look?"

"Of course, of course. While you're getting sorted, I'll have a few things brought back that I think would suit your coloring, yes? Excellent!"

She bustled away, like a ship in full sail.

"She's eager for you to be seen wearing a Gladrags gown," Hermione said under her breath as she helped Harriet out of the too-small dress. "And for you to be a repeat customer. Just go with it, it will make this all _much_ easier. And she's going to undercharge you for the dress, so make sure you overpay her and we'll leave quickly before she can protest."

"This is mad, you know," Harriet muttered, pulling on her lumpy jumpers and feeling, amidst all the satin finery of the Gladrags gowns, rather like Narcissa Malfoy was there, just on the other side of a dress rack, ready to rake her pure-blooded snobbery across Harriet's skin and make her feel like she was back on Privet Drive.

As the little shop filled with girls and the shop-witch stayed glued to Harriet and Hermione, Harriet began to suspect they were being waited on by the owner. Every now and then, their shop-witch—whose name was Glenda—would make a gesture, and one of the other shop-witches tending to some other girl would turn to help someone new. But Glenda never left Harriet's side. She even offered her tea and biscuits.

Harriet had expected to be shown pink and lavender dresses, as she had at Madam Malkin's, but Glenda brought her an array of dresses in green, silver, red, and even black. "You're a winter, my dear," she said (whatever that meant). "Bold, stark colors are what you want. Do try this one. We've just got it in from Paris, and I think you'll find it very lovely on you."

Harriet had never paid much attention to clothes. She didn't know why this was: whether she was uninterested, or if she felt too silly, or because Aunt Petunia had somehow managed to grind it out of her. Jeans and t-shirts and jumpers suited her fine, and she didn't particularly care what they looked like as long as they fit. But when Glenda held out the dress she'd just got in from Paris, Harriet knew this was the dress she wanted to wear to the ball.

It was white. She hadn't considered wearing white. Some kind of silver embroidery overlaid it, curling thick across the bodice on the front and back and melting down to the hips, spreading in a thin net all the way down the full skirt. The neckline curved above the breasts, exposing the breastbone, and came up high along the back of the neck. Even knowing as little about clothes as she did, she could tell the cut would show off the necklace she'd chosen, like it was framing it.

Hermione helped her into it, as usual. The dress closed in the back with a long line of tiny hooks and eyes, all the way from Harriet's waist to her nape. They were too delicate to be hooked shut with a spell, so it had to be done by hand. It took forever, but when Harriet climbed onto the pedestal like all the other times, Hermione said softly, "That's your dress, Harriet."

Harriet could only nod.

She paid Glenda fully twice the amount she asked for.

* * *

It was amazing how having the perfect dress, a partner, and a bit of dancing practice could change the shape of a thing in your mind. Before that Saturday, the ball had stretched like a shadow of glum unease across Harriet's day, reminding her that she was too short and childlike, that nobody wanted to be her date and it was no wonder, that she was going to look like a complete prat in front of everyone. But with the new parcel under her arm, Harriet felt almost like a different person; like it was the end of the First Task all over again, only this time it was even better because Snape was being rather nice to her.

She and Hermione joined Ron at the Three Broomsticks and they laughed very hard at almost everything that was remotely funny. The pub was packed to overflowing, and everyone was in high spirits. Neville came in when they were halfway through their lunch of cottage pie, and Harriet waved at him, which made him run face-first into one of the support beams.

Ron snorted with laughter, until Harriet and Hermione smacked him on the arms. "Oy! What's that about?"

Harriet was feeling strong enough to tell him. "I'm going with Neville to the ball. You be nice."

Ron spat out a mouthful of butterbeer. "You're going with _Neville_?"

"Yes I am," Harriet said as he gaped at her, butterbeer running down his chin. "What's with that tone?"

"Because it's Neville," Ron said, incredulous, wiping at his mouth. "It's— _Neville_!"

"Neville is perfectly sweet," Hermione hissed at him. "Don't you dare be horrid, Ron Weasley."

"I'm not being horrid, I know Neville. Bloody hell, we all do—"

"And that's how I know Harriet will have a lovely time!"

"Who are you going with, then, Casanova?" Harriet asked Ron before they could get into a full-scale row and become the Three Broomsticks' lunchtime entertainment.

Ron turned a dull red.

"No one," he muttered, taking another swig of his butterbeer.

"Well, then," Harriet said, and loftily went back to cutting up her lunch.

George appeared out of nowhere, clapping Ron on the shoulder, so that he spilled his drink again. "Better get a move on soon, little brother, or all the good ones will be taken. Don't want to end up with a troll, 'ey?" Then he stole a bite of Ron's pie and disappeared into the crowd.

Hermione fumed. "Of all the—"

But Ron was now looking at Hermione. " _You're_ a girl, Hermione."

"Oh, well-spotted," she said acidly.

 _Shit,_ Harriet thought, seeing where this was going. She stuffed three bites of pie into her mouth so she wouldn't have to say anything.

"Go to the ball with me, then?" Ron asked.

"I can't," Hermione said, and Harriet couldn't read the expression on her face. "I'm already going with someone."

"No, you're not," Ron said. Harriet kicked him under the table to shut him up—or tried to, but stubbed her toe on the table leg instead.

Hermione's glare was hot enough to melt a trench in the snow outside. "Just because it's taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no one _else_ has spotted I'm a girl!"

Ron stared at her, as if trying to interpret this. Then he grinned. Harriet nearly groaned.

"Okay, okay, I know you're a girl," he said. "That do? Will you come now?"

"I've already told you," Hermione said, steam now curling off her hair, she was so angry, "I'm going with someone else!"

And she shoved her chair back and squeezed past a group of Beauxbatons boys, the equivalent of storming away in that crowded place. Harriet wondered _how_ mad she was. Did she need to give Hermione time to cool off, or should she collect their things and go after her because she wasn't coming back?

"She's lying," Ron said, staring after her. But as this equaled staring at the Beauxbatons boys, he quickly looked away, staring almost accusingly at Harriet instead.

"She's not," Harriet said.

"Who is it, then?" Ron asked sharply.

"I'm not telling you," Harriet said. "It's her business."

Ron looked extremely put out. "Right," he said. "This is really stupid."

And he got up and left the table, too—leaving his pie largely uneaten.

Harriet sighed and finished her pie. So much for the good feeling.

* * *

In spite of this little bump on the road to complacency, Harriet was finally able to enjoy the Hogwarts Christmas festivities. In trying to impress the other schools, Hogwarts was decorating for Christmas with all its might. Enchanted icicles hung from the banisters, glinting in the candlelight but giving off no cold; twelve massive trees in the Great Hall shimmered with luminous holly berries and hooted gently with live owls; and the suits of armor belted out creaky, half-formed versions of carols all the live-long day. The house-elves, far from being put off by whatever Hermione had done two weeks ago (or perhaps having recovered), impressed everyone with a long line of rich stews and elaborate puddings, which only Fleur Delacour disliked.

“It is too heavy, all this Hogwarts food,” Harriet and Hermione heard her complaining one evening as she and a troupe of Beauxbatons’ girls entered the Great Hall in front of them. “I will not fit into my dress robes!”

“Ooh, there’s a tragedy,” Hermione said testily, not bothering to keep her voice down; but Fleur either did not hear her or considered Hogwarts girls to be beneath her notice. She and her girls settled down at the Ravenclaw table as always, her back to the Gryffindor table and candlelight running like water down her flawless sheet of platinum hair.

“If I couldn’t fit into my dress, I might cry,” Harriet said fairly, thinking of the beautiful gown hanging upstairs next to her bed. She might just have developed a habit of staring dreamily at it at random times. It was the only piece of clothing she’d ever owned that she had ever loved.

“Hermione, who are you going to the ball with?” Ron asked abruptly.

Although he and Hermione had pretended, after Saturday, that they had never rowed, Ron had started springing this question on her—and Harriet—at random times, hoping to startle a response out of them. But Hermione just frowned at him and said, “I’m not telling you, you’ll just make fun of me.”

 _Or explode with jealousy,_ Harriet thought.

“You have a date?” Parvati asked despairingly.

“She’s had one for a while now,” Harriet said.

“Please don’t tell me you have one, too,” Parvati moaned.

“I’m going with Neville,” Harriet said.

Lavender spat out her stew. “You’ve _got_ to be joking.”

Down the table, Neville looked like he wanted to sink beneath the bench. Seamus and Dean were staring at him, Seamus with his mouth hanging open slightly. Harriet glared daggers at Lavender, but bless Parvati, she was so distraught that she pulled the conversation back to herself immediately, and Harriet and Neville were forgotten.

“Am I the _only_ one without a date?” Parvati looked truly horrified.

“They’re just afraid to ask you,” Lavender said, without a trace of irony. “You’re too beautiful, it intimidates them.”

Parvati didn’t look consoled by this. She pushed her plate of stew away from her and buried her head on her folded arms. Lavender abandoned her dinner and hung over her, petting her hair and trying to soothe her. The boys looked rather embarrassed, and Hermione appeared torn between disbelief that it could be worth such a fuss, and feeling sorry for her. Neville was staring at his plate.

Dinner finished up awkwardly, Parvati so clearly miserable throughout and nobody able to console her, though Lavender kept up the attempt even as they left the table. Harriet supposed she wasn’t a complete cow, at least not to her best friend.

Harriet made more of an effort to talk to Neville in the next couple of days. Neville always turned bright red as soon as she looked at him, and his replies to her were so heavily stammered that she had trouble following him. Harriet felt sorry for him, and she did try to be patient, but she was also rather exasperated. He’d been shy at their dance practice, but he’d at least been coherent.

“He’s embarrassed,” Hermione said, when Harriet complained to her.

“Obviously,” Harriet grumbled.

“I mean he’s embarrassed by more than just you. Everyone’s been. . . rather cruel, even those people who should be kind. Neville doesn’t really have any friends among the boys—or the girls. There's no one to be happy for him.” She sighed. “Just keep being as kind to him as you’ve been. And keep talking to him. Let him get used to having your attention, I’m sure he’ll open up a little.”

Trying to coax Neville out of his shyness reminded Harriet of trying to do the same with Asteria. But Asteria, though silent for so long, had radiated a kind of rapt attentiveness that made Harriet feel she was getting somewhere, even if it wasn’t to a conversation. Sometimes she wondered if she didn’t make Neville feel worse when she tried talking to him.

She told herself it wasn't so bad, because at least she had a partner and they would be able to pull off a dance in front of the school. It was better than it had been. She would keep being kind to Neville, as Hermione suggested, and. . . it would be fine. She was worrying for no reason. There was nothing really  _to_ worry about. She'd never really been looking forward to the ball in the first place, and at least this way, the worst thing would be some dull and difficult conversation.

And then, as it happened, she never got to find out how it might have been with Neville after all.

* * *

Hannah Abbot came rushing up to her after dinner, as she was leaving the Great Hall. She was white-faced and clutching at her side. For a wild moment, Harriet thought she had been attacked and was concealing a wound.

“H-harriet, come quick," she gasped, "Neville’s hurt himself!”

Bewildered, Harriet left Ron and Hermione staring after them, and followed her at a run up the stairs and along the corridors. . ..

To the infirmary.

“Miss Potter,” said Madam Pomfrey when Harriet and Hannah burst into the hospital wing. She raised her eyebrows high. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to. . . see Neville,” Hannah panted, clutching at a stitch in her side. “How. . . how is. . . he?”

“He’ll be fine, Miss Abbot,” said Madam Pomfrey, and Harriet breathed easier, “as long as he stays off the foot for a day or two.”

“Off the what?” Harriet asked, as her heart sank fast fast fast.

“He’s sustained a bite from a Venomous Tentactula,” Madam Pomfrey said. “He’ll be quite all right, but he mustn’t put pressure on the foot. Swelling is the main problem.” She seemed to notice Harriet’s expression. “Was he to be your partner for the ball?”

“Yeah,” Harriet said, as her heart settled in her gut like a rock.

Madam Pomfrey paused. “Why don’t you say hello,” she said then, almost kindly. “He’s in the last bed, behind the curtain.”

While Hannah hung back, catching her breath, Harriet approached the mint-green curtain around the last bed. She cleared her throat and heard a sad, quiet, “Come in,” in response.

Neville was propped up on the bed, his foot wrapped in bandages and elevated in a sling. He flinched when she came in, and Harriet knew that she had to make him feel better. It wasn’t his fault a vicious, man-eating plant had bitten him. Herbology was his best subject, too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, at the same moment she asked, “How’re you feeling?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, at the same time he said, “Please don’t worry about me.”

They were each silent then, staring at one another. Harriet tried to smile. Neville did the same. They both rather failed.

“Madam Pomfrey says I’ll have to stay off the foot,” he said. “For . . . for a couple of days.”

Harriet nodded, to show she’d heard the same.

“I’ll miss the ball,” Neville said, and looked so sad that Harriet could tell he really had wanted to go with her, in spite of everyone behaving like utter gits and his being too embarrassed to speak to her without stuttering madly.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

They were silent again, then, Neville staring at his bandaged foot and Harriet at a loss for how to make him feel better. Should she say she’d really wanted to go with him? Would that make it better, or worse, since he couldn't?

“I was getting this for you,” he said. “When I. . . got bit. I—I still want you to have it.”

He handed her a little box, about as deep as her hand. Inside was a single flower, its petals perfectly white, its center a cluster of silver bells that trembled, shimmering almost like diamonds, when she moved the box.

“Hermione told me it would go with your dress,” Neville said.

Harriet had a strange lump in her throat. “It will.” She closed the box. “Thank you. I really wanted us to go together.”

For a moment, Neville’s face lit in a way it hadn’t even when she’d said yes. Then the light faded, until he was quiet and sad once again.

Harriet left him not long after that, carrying the box like it had something breakable inside. She passed dark panes of glass fluttering with falling snow and looked out into the night. The Beauxbatons’ carriage glowed next to Hagrid’s hut, where the windows were warm, and she could see the lights of the Durmstrang ship gleaming far out on the lake, like several stars brought down from the sky.

It was Christmas Eve. The ball was tomorrow.

And once again, she was without a date.

But at least this time, she knew what she had to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a lot of work to decide what dress I was going to give Harriet for the ball. I browsed through evening dresses online, I looked at fashion photography and runway shows; I even kept an eagle eye peeled in the movies I was watching for a dress I thought would fit her. (Anna's ballgown in _Frozen_ was a top contender for the past month or so.) 
> 
> But it wasn't until I was watching a movie that came out in the summer of 2012 that I realized I'd scoped it out for one, too. In the summer of 2012. 
> 
> THAT'S HOW LONG I'VE BEEN PLANNING THE FREAKING YULE BALL. Since I started writing this fic!
> 
> I’ve been working on this fic since June 2012 and posting since October 2012. While 20 months might not seem like a long time (some fics have been going on for YEARS and I am in awe), for me this is mind-boggling. My other fics I each finished within 2 months. TNER is on a muuuch slower boil - probably because it is literally never-freaking-ending at this point - and sometimes I just get exhausted. I know how the fic ends, I have each book roughly mapped out, but getting there can be a grueling business. Though I never want to give up, sometimes I just can’t bear to go on, and I have to retire for a bit and piece my inspiration back together.
> 
> So I want to give all my appreciation to anyone who has enjoyed, loved, been enthusiastic about it, and told me so. Truly, you breathe life back into the project when I am feeling burnt out, or am hearing only the echoes of my passion and creativity. Even if you aren’t interested anymore - and believe me, I understand; this is, after all, my own admission that I am not always interested in it - I thank you for showing me that you were at one time. And for those who continue to have patience and cheer me along, you are invaluable, and I owe you so much. So does everyone who still reads and will ever read it - the price of your encouragement and love is beyond measure.
> 
> Thank you, dear ones, forever and ever.
> 
> See you soon with another chapter! In the meantime, here's a post I put together of the girls' Yule Ball dresses, which you'll get to "see" (read about, really; far less exciting!) next time when the Ball actually hits:
> 
> http://laventadorn.tumblr.com/post/77443156507/i-thought-id-put-together-a-post-with-images-of
> 
> ♥


	71. The Yule Ball: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part One of the Yule Ball... yes, that's right; even after waiting so long, you don't get the whole thing at once! I... don't know how that happened, but it did. Sorrysorrysorry But here's a nice long chapter for you, with more to follow sooooon.

"Cheer up, dear," said the Fat Lady as Harriet trudged up to her portrait holding the box Neville had given her. "It's Christmas!"

"Fiddlesticks," Harriet said flatly. The Fat Lady looked affronted until she remembered that was the password, and swung out to let Harriet pass.

"Harriet!"

Harriet turned, one leg in the portrait hole, to see Parvati pelting up the corridor toward her.

"He asked me!" she shrieked, barreling into Harriet and swinging her around like they were at dancing practice. "He asked me, he asked me!"

"Who asked you?"

"Donatien!"

"Who's he?" Harriet asked, bewildered and dizzy.

"He's from _Beauxbatons_." Parvati sighed rapturously, clutching Harriet to her. "He's _gorgeous_ —I think it was a bit prattish of him to wait till the last minute, but good Hecate, wait till you _see_ him."

"Oh." Harriet grimaced. "Good for you, then."

Parvati released her, looking offended. "That's all you have to say? You might try being a bit happy for me!"

Harriet groaned as Parvati whirled toward the portrait hole, which was still open (the Fat Lady glared at them from where she hung, swung out from the wall). "I'm sorry, I'm happy for you, I swear—" And it was true. . . sort of. She definitely would have been, an hour ago.

But Parvati slammed the portrait shut without another word.

"Well!" said the Fat Lady indignantly, pulling herself upright in her chair.

Harriet smacked her hand to her face. Bloody hell, now she was going to have to apologize to Parvati _and_ find a date.

She'd always known she was going to hate this stupid fucking ball.

* * *

The common room was packed. So many people had opted to stay for the holidays this year that the school seemed scarcely less crowded than during term. Fred and George were being so exuberant that any space they occupied felt half the size of normal. At least the Gryffindors had learnt through hard experience not to trust food offered to them by any source other than trusted friends and people no longer burst into canaries every five minutes.

Judging by the crowd and its howls of mirth, the twins seemed to be in the middle of winning a bet against Lee Jordan. Harriet was grateful for the noise. It meant less chance of her being overheard.

She spotted Ron and Hermione sitting in a corner, as far from the mayhem as Hermione could get them. They were talking intently about something, and for the four hundredth time Harriet wondered why they didn't just confess how dreadfully keen they were on each other.

Something twisted in her gut when she thought about what she needed to do.

They looked up as she sat down with them, Ron looking relieved to see her, and Hermione almost guilty. She drew herself in, arms tightening close to her body and knees pressing together.

"What's going on with Neville?" Ron asked.

"He's hurt his foot," Harriet said tonelessly. "Venomous Tentacula bit him."

"Will he be all right?" Hermione asked, alarmed.

"In a couple of days."

"A couple of—" Ron and Hermione said at the same time, talking over each other.

"Does this mean—"

"Yeah," Harriet said, dropping her head against the back of her chair.

"What are you going to do about the ball?" Ron asked.

Harriet hesitated. She glanced at Hermione, who met her eyes. . . and understood. She went very still, like she'd been transfigured inexpertly to stone. Harriet opened her mouth to ask to talk to her.

Hermione stood abruptly. "Excuse me," she said stonily, and walked quickly toward the girls staircase.

"Be right back," Harriet said to a bewildered Ron.

She caught up to Hermione on the stairs. "Look, I wouldn't ask if—"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Hermione said in a jerky voice. She kept climbing the stairs, not looking at Harriet.

"Would you—would you _stop_?" Harriet grabbed Hermione's arm. Hermione pulled, like she wanted to keep walking, but then made herself hold still.

"Look," Harriet said, her heart feeling like it was twisting up and sinking at the same time. "If you don't want me to ask him—"

"I don't know what you mean," Hermione repeated, still not looking at her. Harriet couldn't read her expression in the poor lighting, but she could feel the rigidity of her arm.

Harriet  wanted to say two very different things. One of them was:

"You fancy him! You've fancied him for ages, and I know it, _you_ know it, so why won't you just _do_ something about it?"

But she said the other thing.

"Fine." She let go of Hermione's arm. "'Scuse me. I need to find myself a date, then."

She turned and walked back down the stairs.

She did not hear Hermione start climbing them before she left. She did not hear any sound from Hermione at all.

* * *

"What's up with Hermione?" Ron asked when Harriet sat down again.

"Nothing," she said shortly.

Ron watched her for a few moments, looking worried. Then he nodded at her hands. "What's in the box?"

"Something Neville gave me to wear to the ball."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I need a new date, don't I?"

They stared at each other. Then the truth dawned on Ron, though much more slowly than on Hermione. "No. Harriet, Merlin, no—"

"Please," Harriet said desperately. "I can't go in front of all those people without someone to dance with, and I wouldn't ask you to do it if there were someone else, but there _isn't_."

Ron had been shaking his head throughout, staring at her in horror, but when she stopped talking he stopped shaking his head and just stared at her.

Harriet grabbed one of the sofa pillows and pulled it over her face.

"I hate this fucking ball," she mumbled into the musty old velvet.

There was a long silence—well, of a sort. Between her and Ron stretched a tense, uncomfortable, grimacing silence; across the common room, Fred and George did something that made the crowd roar with laughter.

"All right," Ron said at last, sounding like he was looking out his cell window at the gallows.

Harriet pulled the pillow down to peer at him over the top. "All right?"

"I'll go with you," he said, grimacing.

She sat up, torn between wanting both to hug him in deep, soul-wringing gratitude and to run from the room hiding her face. "I'll buy you a years' supply of whatever you want from Honeydukes."

"It's a start," Ron said gloomily, and then gave her a wan smile. "Don't think McGonagall would believe us if we said Fred and George gave us food poisoning, do you?"

"She might," Harriet sighed. "But I wouldn't put it past Madam Pomfrey to be able to cure that."

* * *

She avoided going up to the dorm. Now that she'd asked Ron, she was rather wishing she hadn't. . . but not enough to take it back, because what else would she do?

But she didn't want to see Hermione.

She and Ron stayed up with everyone else, late that Christmas Eve. After they'd made their pact to suffer together in front of the whole school, it was too awkward to sit together alone in the corner, so they joined Fred and George's crowd and counted the evening a success when they managed not to get turned into anything. But after midnight, everyone started trickling upstairs, and Harriet had no choice but to go too.

Parvati and Lavender sitting together, braiding each other's ahir, were the first sight that greeted her when she got up to the dorm. Harriet glanced at Hermione's bed, where the curtains were pulled tightly shut.

"If it isn't the Champion," Lavender said nastily. Parvati turned so that she was facing away from Harriet, wrapping a hair tie around the end of her plait.

"I'm sorry, Parvati," Harriet said heavily. She _was_ sorry—that she was going with Ron, that she and Hermione might be fighting—and it was easy to channel that into remorse for Parvati's sake.

"Just because you're stuck going with Neville," Lavender went on, "doesn't mean you can't be happy for—"

"Neville's hurt his foot and now he won't be going." Harriet tried so hard not to glance at Hermione's bed that her eyes burned with the effort of holding still. "I've had to ask Ron."

Lavender closed her mouth. Parvati's fell open. And then they did look at Hermione's bed, from which not a sound emerged.

"Oh _no_ ," Parvati said, horrified. "Harriet, that's _terrible_."

Harriet grimaced. She couldn't disagree.

"Well." Lavender shrugged her shoulders, like she was pulling herself together. "You see?" she said to Parvati. "All that agony of waiting paid off—you've got the best date of all of us."

Parvati tried not to look too pleased.

Harriet had trouble sleeping that night. Guilt sat like a rock in her gut, and she couldn't stop picturing her and Ron bumbling around on the dance floor next to Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang and Fleur Delacour. She wondered how Krum would dance—if he'd be as awkward a dancer as a walker, or if he'd somehow move gracefully, the way he flew—and if Hermione would step on his feet. . . or had that just been part of a scheme to get Harriet to dance with Neville, and Hermione would move gorgeously about in his arms?

Would Hermione be angry with her, or would she still be pretending she didn't care about Ron?

Harriet turned this way and that for what felt like hours, until she finally slipped into a jagged kind of sleep.

* * *

_The woods were close and dark and full of brambles and she struggled through the branches that snapped at her hair and scraped at her skin and clawed at her clothes. Icy blue light from her wand melted over the shadows and dripped off the trees and pooled on the ground but she couldn't see anything, just the thorns and the branches that bowed down overhead and pressed against her from all sides._

_But there, there was the house, rising up from the clearing where the trees twisted away with the graveyard ringed round, and she ran up the path and threw open the door and ran up the stairs and down the hall and into the room where the fire burned and the shadows reigned and he stood next to the window where the firelight broke on the glass._

_"What do you want?" he asked, his voice the coldness of uncaring._

_She was out of breath from running and she was scared, too, scared of the words in her mouth and the coldness in his voice and the shadows that cut into his face, that cut half of it away. "I had—I had to ask you—"_

_He turned to face her and in the shadows it looked like only pieces of him were there, his pale hands and his pale face, and the rest of him was somewhere else, even his eyes. "Ask, then, if you're going to."_

_Her heart felt like a bird trying to beat its way out of a cage. "Would—" Her wand slipped in her sweaty palm. "Would you go to the ball with me?"_

_He stared at her with those cold black eyes that had been left behind somewhere else and the minutes stretched into unending ages._

_"Come here, Miss Potter."_

_She went, terror pumping through her blood, and stood next to him at the window._

_He pointed and she could see a graveyard where the garden should have been and tombstones where flowers should be, and a ring of bodies in black gowns and masks like bone standing silent and waiting and watching._

_He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned down._

_"That was the last piece he needed," Snape said._

_And the earth split open and Voldemort rose from the ground as the sky turned to ash and the forest to fire._

* * *

Harriet woke with a jolt.

She stared into the dark space inside her four-poster with wide eyes and a hammering heart.

Had she just had a dream about asking Snape to the ball and it leading _to the rise of Voldemort_?

She groaned and stuffed her face into her pillow. Sticking her arm past her drapes, she pulled her clock into the bed and peered at the glowing numbers. Four in the morning.

Throwing the clock back on her bedside table, she dropped face-first into her pillow.

She really preferred the Horntail dream.

* * *

"Harriet, you look awful," Parvati said the next morning as they opened the presents that had piled up on their bed in the middle of the night.

Harriet grunted at her.

"I'll do your makeup for you tonight," Parvati said. "There's going to be everyone looking, you don't want bags under your eyes."

Harriet wished more than ever that she could give herself food poisoning. Maybe if she waited till right before the ball, Madam Pomfrey wouldn't have time to cure her?

Maybe Snape could give her something. . .

She shut that thought down in horror. Snape had been a lot nicer to her lately—in his Snape way—but her subconscious was clearly afraid that asking him for anything would lead to absolute catastrophe. She'd dreamt once about the school burning down and now about Voldemort rising from the grave. She could take a hint.

But her nightmare wasn't the only terrible thing filling up her head.

Hermione was avoiding her.

She was gone from the dorm when Harriet finally gave up on sleep and got up; she was not at breakfast; she was not in the library (nor was Krum); she was not anywhere that Harriet went. Harriet did think about using the Map. . . but then she thought, no, if Hermione wanted to avoid her, she could bloody well do as she bloody well liked. Harriet had tried talking about Ron with her several times, and each time Hermione had refused. If she was upset, it was her problem.

Strange how this line of reasoning didn't make her feel any better.

Ron watched her warily all through breakfast. Maybe he'd picked up on her mood, or maybe he was doubly regretting agreeing to go the ball with her.

"Fred and George are planning to have a snowball fight," he said as the plates cleared themselves away. "Want to join?"

"All right," she said. Pelting people viciously with snow sounded like a good thing today.

She, Ron, Ginny, Lee Jordan, the twins and Angelina spent most of the morning waging snow-war with each other, building elaborate forts to hide behind and then fleeing across the grounds as they besieged each other. It was really a lot of fun, and, stuffing snow down the back of Fred's jumper as he yelled curses that might've blistered her ears if she hadn't heard Sirius saying worse about Snape, Harriet even forgot how much she was dreading the evening.

But as it started to get dark, Parvati appeared on the slushy steps to drag her upstairs. "We've got to get ready!" she said; Ginny said, "Merlin's underpants, I forgot," and, chucking one last snowball at George for good measure, trailed them off the field.

"Who are you going with?" Parvati asked Ginny curiously as they mounted the stairs.

"Michael Corner," Ginny said, shrugging.

"Ooh, he's cute," Parvati said. A dreamy look floated over her face. "I'm going with Donatien Delauney, from Beauxbatons."

"I heard." Ginny arched her eyebrow at Harriet, probably because Parvati had talked about nothing else all through breakfast.

Parvati chivvied Harriet into the shower, instructing her to wash and condition her hair, which irritated Harriet since she always did that. Once she was done, Parvati hustled her to the dorm and brandished a jar of something called Sleekeazy's at her.

"I'm putting this in your hair," she said sternly. "No arguing."

"Fine," Harriet said, taking off her glasses so Parvati wouldn't knock them loose. She was going to wear her contacts to the ball, but it would take her a while to put them in since she hadn't practiced in ages.

Parvati spent the next fifteen minutes picking through the snarls that lived in Harriet's hair and massaging the clear, goopy stuff into her hair. The massaging actually felt rather nice. Harriet felt herself sort of falling asleep, until Parvati made a noise like a distressed kitten.

"It won't stay straight! This is supposed to work on _anyone's_ hair!"

"Remus told me my dad probably had a Devil's Snare for an ancestor," Harriet said sleepily.

"Who's Remus?"

Harriet woke up fully. "My godfather," she lied.

"Professor _Lupin_?" Parvati said, like she'd just remembered his name. "He's your godfather?"

"He was friends with my dad."

Parvati hummed with surprise, now attacking Harriet's hair with a comb.

"Well," she said grumpily some time later, "it's at least better than it was."

Harriet slipped her glasses on and looked in the mirror for the first time. Parvati was right: usually by now, the shorter hairs around her ears were beginning to twist up like horns and the tips of her hair would be curling in all different directions. The curls were looser now, more like lazy ringlets that, when all pointing downward, nearly brushed her shoulders.

Parvati then used a charm to dry out her hair, and fluffed her fingers through it. Harriet had to admit that it did look quite nice, curling gently around her face in a tastefully wild black mass. It looked like Parvati had designed it to that way, rather than given up because it was as close to submission as she could get it.

"Don't you like it?" Parvati said, frowning.

"Yeah. I do," Harriet said, glancing at Parvati's sheet of black hair braided perfectly, with golden threads woven through it. "It looks. . . really nice. Thank you," she added, trying to sound as sincere and grateful as she could.

"Now I'll do your makeup," Parvati said. Hers was already in place. Harriet wondered how long ago she'd started getting ready.

"That took an hour?" she squawked, glancing at the clock. And that wasn't even counting the shower!

"Beauty takes time," Parvati said primly.

And Parvati did this _every morning_?

While Harriet had been falling asleep, Lavender had shown up. She was just now putting the finishing touches on her hair, which she'd chosen to twist it into a low ponytail that cascaded over her right shoulder.

"Where's Hermione?" Harriet asked, glancing around the room as Parvati set out her makeup materials on Harriet's dresser. There were an awful lot of jars and pots and brushes and things.

"She's getting ready downstairs in the bathroom, I think," Lavender said absently as she brushed mascara onto her eyelashes. "Who's she going with?"

Harriet's gut twisted like it was Lavender's hairdo. "You'll find out soon enough."

"This stuff is brilliant," Parvati said, showing Harriet a jar of flesh-colored paste. "It's foundation that changes to your skin tone—good thing, because you didn't think to buy any makeup, did you?"

The beautifying process went on, and still Hermione didn't show. Harriet's mood fluctuated between hoping she went down to the ball without coming upstairs, because then she'd miss out on the gift Harriet was going to give her and it would serve her right, and a discomfiting blend of hurt and remorse.

"There!" Parvati said some interminable time later, after she'd had to take Harriet's eye makeup off four times because Harriet had blinked at exactly the wrong moment and smeared first the mascara, then the eyeliner. "Done."

She beamed at Harriet, who turned uneasily to face the mirror. . . and blinked.

Parvati was so good with makeup that Harriet couldn't tell exactly what she'd done, apart from the eyes. Parvati had outlined them with black stuff that made them seem a lot larger than Harriet was used to, and even greener. With her contacts in, they were more noticeable than ever.

The girl in the mirror did not look like her. Her features were familiar, and she was wearing the same dressing gown she'd put on after her shower. But the girl in the mirror did not look like her.

"You look beautiful," Parvati said, giving her a careful hug so as not to mess up their hair or makeup.

"Thanks," she said, because she supposed the girl in the mirror did look beautiful. Just. . . like someone else.

"Let's get dressed," Parvati said.

Lavender's dress was some pastel gauzy thing with flowers sewn down the bodice and skirt; she'd fixed tiny pink flowers into her hair and chosen jewelry to match. Parvati's dress was made of hot pink silk painted with intricate gold patterns, and she wore gold bracelets and elaborate earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders.

"Do you need help?" she asked Harriet.

"Please," Harriet said, remembering all the hook and eye closures that Hermione had so patiently fastened for her only days ago.

Lavender's eyes roved over Harriet's dress, but she didn't say anything.

"What jewelry are you wearing?" Parvati asked as she continued to hook Harriet's dress shut.

Harriet thought of the velvet covered box in her dresser drawer. "Just some things of my mother's."

Once Parvati had locked her into her dress, she pulled out the velvet box—well, one of two. She peeked into it, but it was the wrong one. The next one, though. . .

"Oh my God," Lavender said when Harriet lifted out the necklace.

"That belonged to your mum?" Parvati said faintly.

The diamonds and emeralds glittered like water falling through sunlight. She felt a funny sort of ache as she held them, cold and shining in her hands. "Yeah."

Parvati helped her fasten the necklace without asking. There had been earrings to go with it, but Harriet didn't have pierced ears, so she'd left them back in Gringott's. There was, however, a slender sort of tiara that she fixed in her hair to keep it back from her face.

She stood in front of the mirror to get everything adjusted, but as she stared into her reflection all she could really wonder was how her mother had looked when she'd worn this necklace and if they looked anything alike, she and her mum.

The dorm room door opened. In the mirror, she saw Hermione come in. She was wearing her navy blue dressing gown, but her hair had been made sleek and shiny, wound into an elegant knot that Harriet had helped her pick out, from a picture in one of Lavender's Witch Weekly magazines, and she'd already done her makeup. Harriet hadn't actually known that Hermione knew how to put on makeup.

Hermione's eyelids flickered, like she wanted to look at them but wouldn't let herself. Instead, she shut the door and went over to her side of the room without speaking to any of them.

Parvati and Lavender watched her open her wardrobe, and then stared at Harriet, who made her decision. She opened her dresser drawer and pulled out the other velvet-covered box.

Hermione's shoulders stiffened as Harriet stopped next to her dresser, and she didn't turn around from her wardrobe.

"Yes?" she said in a tense, nervous voice.

Harriet struggled with a hundred different replies, one for every shade of emotion twisting through her heart. _It's your fault for not being honest How can you talk to me about lying when you won't admit how you feel How dare you punish me I'm so sorry I asked him I know you like him but I didn't know what else to do I don't want to go to this ball I don't know what I want I don't want us to fight._

"Thought you might want to wear this with your dress," she said, and placed the box on the dresser.

Then she turned and left the room without another word.

* * *

The only problem was, downstairs she didn't know what to do with herself. Knots of people going to the ball had scattered themselves across the common room, boys waiting for their dates and girls giggling together in last-minute reinforcements, even a few surly people who'd never found a date and were watching everyone else resentfully. Ron wasn't there.

Harriet looked desperately through the crowd for someone to join, finally noticing Fred, George, and Angelina laughing near the fireplace. She headed for them, collecting stares as she went, and wondering if she'd somehow managed to smear her makeup on the way down.

"Hi," she said, once she'd made her way over to them.

"Harry old girl—" Fred said, starting to bow to her, when he got a good look at her. His eyebrows traveled up his forehead as his gaze went from the hem of her dress to her hairline. Angelina and George were both staring.

"What?" Harriet asked, torn between annoyance and worry. "Have I got something on my face?"

"That is you, Harriet, isn't it?" Fred asked, now shading his eyes and squinting, as if she stood far away.

"Of course it's me," she said, nettled.

"Where did you get that dress?" Angelina asked. "That necklace?"

"Those look like diamonds, mate," George said mildly, staring at the tiara in her hair.

"They are."

"And emeralds."

"Yeah." Harriet frowned. "They belonged to my mum."

Fred and George exchanged a look that she couldn't read.

"You look like a princess," Angelina said, shaking her head slowly. "Honest."

"Is it too much?" This had not occurred to her.

"Are you kidding?" Fred asked in the same mild tone as George. "With foreign dignitaries on hand? McGonagall ought to weep tears of joy."

"It's only a shame you're going with Ron, is all," said George. "It'll be wasted on him."

Harriet couldn't honestly tell if they were trying to make her feel better or not. She looked to Angelina for a clue. Her dress was a lot simpler, red, with a bit of a train, her jewelry a plain, thick gold chain round her neck. But she smiled at Harriet.

"It's your first ball," she said. "And you're Harriet Potter. Go big or go home."

A commotion at the stairwell, and Harriet heard Seamus' voice. Ron was with him. He was tall enough that she could see him across the sea of people, though she couldn't see what he was wearing until he'd broken through the crowd.

Her first reaction was one of mortification, and she wasn't quite sure on whose behalf it was: Ron's for having to wear. . . _that_ , or her own for being seen with him. It could even have been both. And the fact that she wasn't sure made her even more mortified. Was she really that terrible kind of person?

 _Seems so_ , whispered a sly voice in her heart.

What Ron was wearing looked more like a maroon dress than a wizard's robe. The cuffs were frayed and too short, so his wrists poked out, and the on the front of the robes was some sort of fussy bib that might have been meant for a cravat. He'd done nothing with his hair except brush it, and all in all he looked like the exact same Ron she'd always known, except greener in the face.

"At least he cut off the lace cuffs," Fred said under his breath.

Shame overcame all of Harriet's other emotions. Was she really going to be the sort of person who thought what she would look like, when she was wearing diamonds and emeralds and Ron had clearly been forced to buy those robes secondhand—when they were probably the only set that would accommodate his height—and shopkeepers handed her dresses that came straight from Paris? Was she going to be that shallow, that terrible of a friend?

Ron had seen her, now, and he stopped dead so that Seamus ran into him.

"Oy," Seamus said, and then caught sight of her too. "Godric's staff and stones."

" _Bow_ before her majesty," Fred said so sternly to the pair of them that they jumped, and Seamus was halfway into a bow before he realized what he was doing. He then told Fred to do something that Sirius would have given his wholehearted approval, if it had been directed at Snape.

"Shut up, Fred," Harriet said, blushing at the bowing, not the profanity.

Ron still hadn't said anything. She couldn't read the expression on his face at all, but it didn't look. . . happy.

"Where's Lavender?" Seamus asked, looking round.

"Still upstairs."

"Let's start going down," Angelina said, gathering up her train.

A host of frantic moths exploded in Harriet's stomach. She glanced at Ron, who was staring somewhere down in the direction of her feet—not _at_ her feet, since her skirt fell over them. She had absolutely no idea what he was feeling, or what to say to him.

As she followed Fred, George and Angelina out of the common room, she prayed to anything that might be listening that this evening wouldn't end in total disaster.

* * *

Severus was deeply disappointed when seven o'clock tolled on Christmas Day and no announcement came that the Great Hall had collapsed in fiery chaos, canceling the ball now and forever. Instead, he found himself accio-ing the parcel Narcissa had sent him some time ago, which he'd apparently stuffed inside the sofa and forgotten about.

Severus hated shopping and he hated clothes. Black was authoritarian, yes, but all his robes were black really because then he didn't have to labor over what to wear each day. When all the robes in your closet were the same color, you simply threw one on and got going.

And he hated going into stores and seeing himself and pretending, by the very fact of his being there, that there was any chance some mythical article of clothing would ever make him _look good_.

He had therefore enlisted Narcissa to procure his dress robes by proxy. Narcissa had good taste, she knew him, she liked him as well as anybody could; she wouldn't saddle him with something that would make him look ridiculous. She'd sent the dress robes his way over a month ago, but so great was his disinterest that they'd spent the whole time trapped under a sofa cushion.

Now he tore off the brown paper, shook them out—they must have got an anti-wrinkling charm on them, for they fell in unmarred folds to the floor—and swapped out his regular robes for the stupid things. He got in front of the mirror for only as long as he needed to check if they were hanging straight; for though he might not give a flaming damn how handsome his clothes were, he didn't want to look the part of a fool who couldn't dress himself.

Disdaining clothes though he did, even he could tell that these were dressier than his daily robes. The sleeves and shoulders were tighter—not constricting, but more form-fitting—and there was some sort of pattern worked into the cloth that swam in the light. The material was heavier, yet softer, and it draped well. Narcissa could certainly have done a lot worse. This outfit would do for chasing down hormonal teenagers—the only shadow of enjoyment this fucking ball was going to garner him.

He swiveled the mirror to face the wall, doused his lights, and left solitude and comfort for tedium and chaos.

* * *

Harriet and Ron followed his brothers and Angelina down the stairs. Ron still had not said anything, and Harriet had no attention to spare: she needed to concentrate on getting down the stairs in her dress. The skirt made it impossible to see her feet, so she had to gather it up like Angelina was doing. At least her shoes were flat—Angelina was wearing a pair of slender heels that would have broken Harriet's neck.

"Where are you meeting the Hufflepuff?" Angelina asked George.

"Downstairs with everyone else."

Harriet heard the noise first. It rose around them in a gradual tide, whispers climbing through the floors, twining into murmurs, swelling into laughter and joyous babble. There was just so _much_ of it, and when they reached the wide landing at the top of the grand staircase, she saw why. The entrance hall was packed with people, a riot of colors for the Hogwarts' students, Beauxbatons glimmering in pale satin and silk, the Durmstrang lot wearing dark wool edged with fur and billowing sleeves. Everyone looked excited; they were all greeting one another, dashing through the crowds and plowing into each other and bowing over each other's hands. Massive ice chandeliers, charmed not to melt, hung from the ceiling; garlands strung with fairy lights had been wound round the banisters; the Christmas trees were brightly lit, and everyone looked so fine that if Harriet hadn't been feeling a sense of free-floating terror, she would have been properly enchanted.

Professor McGonagall stood on the staircase below them, her back to Harriet and the others, watching over everyone like a stern eagle in tartan dress robes. George slipped around her and wove through the crowd until he located his Hufflepuff; Fred and Angelina strutted off with arms linked. Harriet and Ron, left alone together on the landing, hovered (Harriet hoped) out of sight. Harriet had not seen Fleur or Cedric, but that might have been because she was trying very hard not to look for them.

"Are those diamonds?" Ron said at last. He sounded subdued.

"They were my mother's," Harriet repeated, now wishing she'd worn something else.

Ron didn't reply to that. A group of Ravenclaws came trooping down the other arm of the staircase but didn't spare them a glance.

"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked then, looking over the balustrade down on the gleaming, glittering crowd below.

"Don't know," Harriet lied.

"Haven't seen her all day," Ron went on, frowning.

Harriet shrugged. She couldn't tell him the real reason. She didn't want to.

A commotion in the doorway to the dungeon stairwell caught her eye: the Slytherins had come up in a big bunch, Malfoy leading the way with Pansy Parkinson on his arm. She was wearing a frilly pink gown that reminded Harriet strongly of the one she'd tried on in Madam Malkin's, and was clutching Malfoy's arm with a look of such rapture that Harriet almost envied her. She'd have rather chewed her own arm off than have gone to the ball with Malfoy, but at least Pansy was enjoying herself.

Malfoy was wearing high-necked robes of black velvet that made him look like a smarmy vicar. He looked pleased with himself, at least.

Harriet did peruse the crowd then, her heart thumping a little heavily. _He_ 'd probably be wearing black, too. . . she couldn't really imagine him in a color. But she didn't see him. She had a feeling he would have stood out if he'd really been there. Snape just radiated a. . . Snape-ness that was impossible to overlook.

When familiar voices sounded behind them, she turned to find Lavender walking down on Seamus' arm, with Parvati on her other side.

"What are you two doing?" Lavender asked, torn between curiosity and scorn.

"Where's Donatien?" Parvati asked breathlessly. "Have you seen him?"

"I don't know what he looks like," Harriet said, nettled, but Parvati wasn't listening; she'd already honed in on him, and with a deep breath, she buried all her frantic excitement beneath a facade of calm, and regally descended the steps into the crowd.

Harriet was curious enough to watch. A tall, slender boy in pale gold, with artfully tousled blond hair, materialized in front of Parvati as if she'd summoned him. Radiating elegance, he took her hand and pressed the lightest of kisses to it, making Lavender squeal under her breath and hit Seamus in the arm.

"Oy!" he said. "Watch it!"

"It's so romantic," Lavender said fiercely. Seamus looked, for a moment, rather uncomfortable, as though contemplating for the first time that Lavender might expect him to kiss her hand. But then he whisked his discomfort away, saying, "We going to go down, then, or what? Unless you two are going to hover here on the stairs all night?"

"No," Harriet muttered, and they all started down. Although Lavender was clutching Seamus' arm, Harriet and Ron had a good six inches between them.

Harriet was hoping she'd get past Professor McGonagall without being spotted, but no such luck.

"There you are, Miss Potter."

 _Don't make me go near the other champions, don't make me go near the other champions_ —

"You'll need to join the other cham. . ."

She trailed off, staring at Harriet with her eyebrows slightly raised. Harriet grit her teeth and tried not to glare at her head of House. What was _with_ everyone?

"The other champions," Professor McGonagall said, recovering. "Wait over by the doors, if you please—you'll all proceed in together once everyone else has been seated."

"Come on," Harriet muttered to Ron, who'd said nothing, and they started fighting their way through the crowd. Ron was craning his neck, still looking for Hermione. For the first time since asking him, it occurred to Harriet that she was probably going to look a right idiot when Hermione did show up, since Ron fancied her down to the ground and wouldn't be any more subtle than he was being now.

For the quatrillionth time, Harriet wished she wasn't so short. It was hard to see where she was going, and Ron was being no help.

She shoved past a knot of Hufflepuffs, trod on the hem of her dress, and went staggering into someone.

"Sorr—" she said, pushing off their arm to right herself.

And then she let go like she'd been scalded because _she'd run into Snape_.

He looked over his shoulder at her, his expression incredulous, like he couldn't believe she'd have the gall to run into him. Then he turned to the nearest group of people and said in one cold, powerful syllable: "Move."

They shuffled fearfully out of the way, clearing a bit of a path. Snape looked at Harriet when she stood rooted to the spot, with an impatient glare that said, _Well? What are you waiting for?_

She stepped carefully forward, trying to ignore the way everyone was gawping at her. The further she went, the more people started shuffling out of her way, like she'd cast some spell that spread through the air before her, and she made it to the doors without any more fumbling or tripping. Cedric and Cho, Fleur and Roger Davies, captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, stood together, all looking extremely tall and fine.

Harriet realized she was now alone and Ron-less. She stared around for him as Snape strode past her into the Great Hall. Snape was wearing (black) robes that dragged on the ground behind him instead of billowing, and some pattern on the cloth gleamed darkly in the light. He did not look at her as he left, and it occurred to her, as a spark of irritation kindled in her heart, that unlike everyone else tonight he had not gawped at her like he didn't know who she was. Instead of making her feel better, it annoyed her—she knew she looked different, at least, and she'd gone to a lot of trouble. . . well, _Parvati_ had gone to a lot of trouble to make her up. He might have _noticed_.

When Ron edged out of a crowd of Ravenclaws and joined her, she found she'd forgot that quickly that he wasn't there.

"Krum's not here," Ron muttered, sizing up the others out the corner of his eye.

 _He's probably waiting for Hermione._ But of course she couldn't say it.

She sneaked a peek at the other champions. Fleur's sleek, dazzling silver gown looked like it was made from crystal, and her shimmering hair was bound beneath a crown of silver leaves. Roger Davies was staring slack-jawed at her, like he couldn't believe his good luck to be standing next to her. Cho had chosen a gown of jade silk with golden lace at the shoulders and throat; her hair was wound up elegantly and secured with pearlescent pins.

Cho smiled at her when Harriet made eye contact. "You look beautiful!" Cho said.

Harriet blushed. "You look beautifuller. I mean," she winced, "you don't look _fuller_ , you look—more beautiful."

Cho grinned.

Harriet suddenly felt some vibe from Ron, though he was completely silent—a kind of bewildered consternation, maybe—and even before she turned, she knew that Hermione had arrived.

She was coming down the stairs, her skirt trailing from both hands. Professor McGonagall had stepped down to lecture someone in the crowd, so Hermione came down the stairs alone. Everyone should be able to see how beautiful she looked; like a goddess. Harriet had helped her choose the gown she wore, a shimmering deep blue-grey dress embroidered with iridescent leaves, as if from a vine. They scrolled across the sweeping skirt, up her back, across her shoulders and down her arms on gauzy sleeves.

She was wearing the jewelry Harriet had brought for her.

The jewelry was gold, of course—nothing else would suit Hermione's coloring, Jean had said—and embedded with deep-tone gems: rubies and blue diamonds, topaz and pearls and emeralds. But the gems were small, so the main attraction of the pieces was the intricate gold-work. The earrings dangled low, and the hairpiece gleamed in her brown hair. She looked nervous, but she was holding herself differently, straighter; perhaps because she wasn't carrying twenty books on her back.

The crowd shifted to let someone through—it would be Krum, though Harriet couldn't see him. But Hermione could, and with a nervous smile she stepped off the last step to meet him, disappearing beneath the sea of people whom Harriet was too short to see over.

"Krum?" Ron said.

His voice was low. . . and angry. Harriet glanced at him, wary. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw rigid, and she'd seen Ron in a temper enough times to know he was really, truly angry.

"She's going with _Krum_? That's who she's been going with _this whole time_?"

"Yes," Harriet said.

Ron turned angry eyes on her. "You _knew_."

"Of course I knew," Harriet said quietly, because they were standing right next to Cho and Cedric.

His nostrils flared. "You. Knew."

Harriet didn't reply. She didn't know what to say. Something was dawning on her, something she did not like at all: a sense that she had helped Hermione make an awful, hurtful mistake. She'd laughed for ages over the thought of Pansy and the other girls' jealousy; she'd taken a great deal of mean-spirited pleasure in picturing their collective rage when they found out; but it had not once occurred to her that Ron would be finding out in the same way.

"She made me promise not to tell anyone," Harriet told him in a low voice, but he stared straight ahead, jaw set, breathing through his nose, and would not look at her. "Ron. . ."

He made no sign that he'd heard her.

Now the rest of the school was pouring past them, into the Great Hall. Harriet looked anxiously at Ron, but he might have been transfigured to stone.

Hermione and Krum reached them as the tide of ball-goers trickled its last into the Great Hall. Hermione's eyes sought out Harriet; she bit her lip and tightened her fingers on Krum's sleeve—they were arm-in-arm, like a gentleman and lady—but whether she was going to say something, Harriet never found out, for Professor McGonagall appeared and instructed them to get in a line in pairs and follow her.

The others stepped into formation, but Ron did not move: he only kept staring at Hermione through narrowed eyes. "Ron," Harriet hissed, but he made no sign that he'd heard her. She kicked him on the ankle, which at least got him to swear and glare at her.

"Mr. Weasley!" Professor McGonagall said, putting his glare to shame. "Ten points from Gryffindor for that uncultured display. Now _get in the line_."

Fleur glanced at them in regal disgust, then straightened her shoulders and led the march behind Professor McGonagall into the Hall. Harriet and Ron were at the very back, but at least Cedric and Cho stood between them and Hermione.

The others had linked arms, like Krum and Hermione, but Harriet and Ron walked still with a good half-foot of space between them. That was fine with Harriet; she was angry enough that she didn't want to touch him.

 _The girl he likes showed up as the date of the famous boy he admires_ , said a fair, cool voice. _Of course he's not handling it well._

 _He's going to make us both look like complete fucking prats_ , Harriet thought, feeling angry and guilty both.

The hall, at least, looked spectacular—the walls were covered in glittering frost that caught the light in a hundred shades of blue and white and gold and pink and purple, and massive boughs of mistletoe and ivy crossed the ceiling beneath the shimmering stars of the enchanted night sky. It was, in fact, so beautiful that for a moment everything drifted away except for the ice and the stars, each twinkling with such subtle life that she could imagine they were speaking to each other, throwing their light back and forth like whispers.

Professor McGonagall was leading them to a large, round table at the head of the room where the judges sat—Dumbledore, resplendent in kingly Christmastime red; Madam Maxime in foot after foot of lavender silk; Ludo Bagman in blinding purple and yellow; Karkaroff in fur-trimmed robes of a much darker red than Dumbledore's; and Percy, of all people, in navy blue, his hair more nicely coiffed than Harriet's would ever be.

"What's Percy doing here?" Harriet asked Ron, but he ignored her and sat down at the nearest chair, on the other side of the table from his brother. Harriet had no choice to sit next to him, though from Percy's expression he wasn't pleased with the arrangement at all. He'd just been in the middle of pulling out the chair next to him, with the clear intention that they would sit beside him.

Harriet wasn't too sorry not to be sitting next to Percy, but Ron's choice wasn't much better: it placed them next to Madam Maxime, who blocked the view of Krum and Hermione on her other side. Harriet knew they were there: Karkaroff was watching that part of the table with narrowed eyes, his expression very like Ron's. Harriet glared at him. He must have felt it, because his eyes flickered to her, and with a sour sneer he picked up his wine goblet and turned to Dumbledore, who was complimenting Cho on her gown.

Harriet looked around the Great Hall, noticing for the first time that the house tables had been removed and a hundred, smaller round tables, not quite as big as this one, sat in their place with seating for twelve. Candles glowed in elaborate holly-garland centerpieces on each, reflecting off golden plates and goblets. She had her own gold plate, though her goblet was made of crystal, frosted with the Hogwarts crest, and on her plate sat a menu finely etched with delicate shimmering letters. The food seemed to be a mix of the visitors' and local fare, but she had no idea how to get it; there did not seem to be any waiters.

Dumbledore set aside his menu and said clearly to his plate, "Pork chops," and food appeared. He sent her a subtle wink across the table as he shook back his long, trailing sleeves and took up his knife.

Harriet wondered how Hermione was reacting to this new, involved serving method—surely it meant more work for the house-elves?—but she couldn't bloody see her around Madam Maxime. She could hear Krum talking, however—it had to be him, though she'd never heard his voice before. His accent was much thicker than Karkaroff's, which was only detectable on some vowels, but he was talking quite animatedly:

"Well, we have a castle also, not as big as this, nor as comfortable, I am thinking. We have just four floors, and the fires are lit only for magical purposes. But we have grounds larger even than these—though in winter, we have very little daylight, so we are not enjoying them. But in summer we are flying every day, over the lakes and the mountains—"

"Now, now, Viktor!" said Karkaroff, with a very fake laugh. "Don't go giving away anything else or your charming friend will know exactly where to find us."

Harriet smirked, thinking he was righter than he knew: Hermione could figure out where Durmstrang was if she really wanted to.

She glanced at Ron to see how he was taking all this. He was still glaring straight ahead, at nothing. Percy sat in his line of sight, and he was looking deeply affronted and a bit confused as he tried to eat his goulash. Next to him, Fleur was criticizing the Hogwarts' decorations to a slack-jawed Roger Davies, who kept missing his mouth as he tried to put food in it.

Harriet looked farther afield to see who else she knew. The rest of the staff were interspersed across a couple of tables to either side of this one. As she watched, Hagrid gave a small wave to Madam Maxime, who returned it. Professor McGonagall was, of all things, talking with Snape—not in a light chit-chat way, but as if they were having a very involved conversation. Harriet had always rather thought they didn't get on too well, but they seemed to be doing fine tonight. Maybe they were complaining about the ball. Hating balls seemed a very Snape thing to do, and Professor McGonagall had seemed rather disapproving of the whole idea when she'd announced it to their class.

Harriet dearly wished she was at their table so she could know what they were saying. She was sure it would be a million times more interesting than sitting here stuck between an angry and resentful Ron and the stoic, silent Madam Maxime, who did not like her at all.

Since Ron was being the conversational equivalent of a dead opossum, Harriet watched the Hall instead. The Slytherins in her year had staked out a table for themselves, where Malfoy was trying to hold court (rather difficult, at a round table) while Pansy gazed at him with stars in her eyes. Harriet experienced a pang of envy that her hair would never fall in such a perfect cloud round her shoulders as Tracey Davis' did. She appeared to have come with reedy, quiet Theodore Nott; both of them had cynically amused expressions on their faces. Even dress robes couldn't do anything for Crabbe and Goyle, neither of whom had found dates. Millicent Bullstrode wasn't anywhere that Harriet could see, but she located Daphne Greengrass at a table not far away, sitting with Marcus Flint, eurgh. Like Harriet, she had chosen to wear white, and she looked very elegant, if faintly disgusted by Flint's table manners. Her hair was done up in elaborate curls that Harriet could never have coaxed hers into.

Parvati was sitting at a table with a number of Beauxbatons boys and their dates. Harriet had to admit that Donatien looked like he'd have made a fine model during the Renaissance, with that all that beautifully curling hair and perfect face. She could recognize that he was very good-looking, but she was beginning to suspect that she did not find blondes personally attractive.

As the main courses finished and dessert menus appeared, Harriet realized that she was actually enjoying checking out everyone's outfits. It was quite nice seeing them all so dressed up. It struck her that the girls looked much finer than any of the Hogwarts boys, though the lot from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang at least dressed with personality. But the Hogwarts boys looked mostly the same as ever, except with combed hair; their robes were very boring.

And then, all too soon, her decent mood came to an end as Dumbledore stood up and called, "If everyone will rise from their tables, we shall begin the dance."

The hall buzzed with excitement as he swept the tables to the walls and conjured a platform, onto which a set of instruments zoomed; but Harriet's stomach dropped into her shoes and stayed there, even as the Weird Sisters, a group of very hairy wizards in ripped robes, trooped onto the stage. The lights on the tables were snuffing out, drawing shadows around the walls and illuminating the dance floor, as her heart hammered at her ribs. She could not look at Ron to see if he was still angry, to see how badly this was going to go.

The other champions and their partners stood ready to begin the dance, as the Weird Sisters struck up a slow, mournful tune. To Harriet, it sounded like a melancholy version of _Once Upon a Dream_ , which struck her as wildly hilarious, or would have done if she hadn't wanted to run out of the Great Hall.

"We've got to dance," she hissed at Ron as the others moved out onto the shining dance floor. Hermione's eyes kept flitting back to Harriet as she passed, holding Krum's arm. Cho and Cedric had already clasped hands, and Roger Davies was fumbling with Fleur's waist as she took his hand with a smile that was both indulgent and scornful.

When Ron didn't move or say anything, something dark and hot flared bright in Harriet's heart.

 _Right,_ she thought. _That's enough._

She seized Ron's hand and dragged him out onto the dance floor, then spun and stuck that hand on her waist, before grabbing his other hard enough that she hoped it _hurt._ He glared down at her.

"You're supposed to lead," she ground out between her teeth.

"I don't know how," he ground back. "If you wanted someone who knew how to dance, maybe you should've asked Krum too."

"Fine," she snapped, and she was so bloody angry at how stupid he was being and how stupid he was making her look that she slapped his hand off her waist, dragged his other hand to her shoulder, and said, " _I'll_ lead, and _you_ can follow."

And she did—she pushed him backward, steering him as forcefully as she could, and he stumbled, looking astonished, and then furious, and he gripped her hand so hard the bones in her fingers ground together. In retaliation, she pivoted them sharply.

She could see people on the edge of the dance floor sniggering and pointing at them (especially Pansy Parkinson, who was practically beside herself with glee). She kept her eyes fixed on Ron, who was glaring back at her, and beneath his fury she caught a glint of something that looked like hurt. It stoked the flames of her rage to a powerful new height, even as its core hardened into something cold and shriveled and ashamed.

And then Ron decided  _he'd_ had enough.

He ripped his hand out of hers and pulled away and stormed off the dance floor as the song wound to a close. Harriet stood alone, breathing heavily with the urge to scream. She could hear laughter amidst the clapping for the band, and she wondered if _her_ face might melt off, hot as it felt.

Someone was approaching her from the side. "Harriet?" said Hermione's voice, trembling slightly, and Harriet's ire fanned itself toward her. She knew that if she stayed there a moment longer, she'd lose it completely.

"Don't," Harriet grit out, and stormed away, pushing past Cho and Cedric, who both looked at a loss. The dance floor was crowded with people who'd joined the champions during the song; they smirked and giggled and called, "Nice job dancing, Potter," as she fought her way past them. "Don't think I've seen worse in my life!"

"Fuck the lot of you," she hissed as she got off the floor and a different, faster song struck up, swallowing her words. Tears stood in her eyes, and she held them back with herculean effort, refusing to blink whether they were tears of anger or humiliation or self-loathing.

She'd always known she was going to hate this fucking ball.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know who will be more unpopular now, me or Ron :P But I REGRET NOTHING ~~especially the bit with her nightmare about asking Snape, that was my favorite part to write, now excuse me while I run far away and change my name and dye my hair~~
> 
> Credit for stuff I stole:
> 
> 1\. "And I saw it was filled with graves / And tombstones where flowers should be / And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds. . ." from William Blake.
> 
> 2\. The Beauxbatons boy's name comes from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel saga (though it's a mashup of two different characters' names).
> 
> 3\. "You look beautifuller. . ." from Frozen.
> 
> 4\. Canon stuff.
> 
> 5\. Although it makes no logistical sense whatsoever, I imagined the Weird Sisters playing Lana Del Rey's version of "Once Upon a Dream." In the book the song that kicks off the ball is described as a "slow, mournful tune."
> 
> Next Time: Find out what Snape and McGonagall were talking about at dinner - see Fred and George's exciting new product - discover something or other about Malfoy - and stumble upon things you'd rather not in the garden with Harriet. 
> 
> Till next time, you super awesome people (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧


	72. The Yule Ball: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was rescue-beta'd by the multi-talented and perspicacious acafanmom. Send her kind thoughts, for it is down to her that you didn't have to wait longer for me to get this chapter's act together ;)

Far too many students had stayed at the castle this holiday to attend this gods-be-damned ball.

This was Severus' one thought as he looked across the sea of hormone-addled miscreants that thronged the Entrance Hall. In fine robes and gowns, they assumed they were all grown up.

What they really were was a fucking headache.

He'd tried to time it so that he came up as everyone was going into the Hall, but no such luck. Minerva stood on the lower steps of the grand staircase, glaring sternly across the crowd. Flitwick was undetectable, and Severus didn't see Sprout's flyaway hair or the unbearable riot of whatever robes Dumbledore would be subjecting them to.

What was taking them so long to get this farce underway?

Seeing across the crowd was not too difficult. Two of the champions and their dates stood beside the Great Hall's doors, but the truly famous pair was missing. So, Viktor Krum and Miss Potter were holding everyone up? As little as he knew about the Viktor Krum, nothing in his attitude had given Severus to think that he possessed that fatheaded sense of self-importance which would have made him late because he knew everyone waited on him. It was certainly not in Miss Potter's nature; she tended to forget she was famous until reminded.

Dammit, Minerva had seen him. She was signaling for him to wade into the crowd and keep order. He glared at her, but she had turned to speak to a group of children who were trying to pass her on the stairs, including a girl who must have been from Beauxbatons (they were the only ones who'd have dressed as if they were attending a coronation).

Children scuttled out of his path, or tried to; the foyer was so crowded that the best they could manage was an anxious shuffle. It was amusing, at least, to watch them stumble on the hems of their robes.

It was less amusing when someone stumbled into _him_.

"Sorr—" said Miss Potter's voice, and she put her hand on his arm, then snatched it away.

He looked over his shoulder, and with an incredulous jolt realized she was the girl from the stairs. This Miss Potter and the one who hounded him daily were so different that he had not connected the two.

He felt extremely stupid. Rounding on the nearest pack of students crowding at his elbow, he barked, "Move."

They cleared a path, but Miss Potter did not step into it. He frowned at her—what was the matter?—and she walked forward, her shoulders tense, as if she did not want to be there. Everyone stared at her—at the dress, or at the emerald the size of a robin's egg hanging from a chain of diamonds round her neck; or perhaps, like himself, they were confused as to who this was. 

He stood back until Miss Potter had made her way to the doors, keeping the path open with the force of his displeasure. Then he strode into the hall, ignoring Miss Potter, because if he did not he was certain he would stare as stupidly as everyone else had done. Really, whose idea had it been to dress her in _diamonds_?

He remembered the trunk he and Lupin had helped her haul across the snowy slopes last year. Well, it was only her inheritance, after all.

He hadn't known that James Potter had come from such a good family until he'd seen that trunk. The pure-bloods of his acquaintance had lauded their scorn: the Potters had been marrying down for generations. Charlus Potter, some who-knew-what relation of James Potter, had widely been considered the only one to have made a decent match in centuries, and even wedding a Black had only got him admitted to some circles (Narcissa would never allow him to be worth more than common civility). And Severus really was low-class at heart: his world as a child had been divided into magic and not-magic, money and not-money, and even after two decades surrounded by pure-blood pomposity, he had never quite shaken the distinction. To them, class, worthiness, was a matter of nuance; to him it was something stark and clear. He'd known Potter had had money; he'd known he'd descended from an old family; but until he saw that trunk, those diamonds in Miss Potter's hair, he had not understood how far back the Potter prestige had been born.

 _Fucking James Potter_ , he thought, but the bitterness blew coldly through an empty hollow in his heart where hatred had once reigned. And here was another disquieting fluctuation of empathy: _Potter and Lily are dead, and the only one here to see their child wearing what their wealth and love have bought her, is me_.

"Severus!" Dumbledore greeted him. He was wearing nauseatingly red robes trimmed with gold—how predictably Gryffindor. "My dear boy, surely you aren't unhappy already?"

"I'm _always_ unhappy." But this only made Dumbledore twinkle more brightly.

Now the students were pouring into the hall. Yes, let it begin so it could be over.

Once the children had settled at the tables (Narcissa would be wishing for his view of Draco strutting along looking pleased with himself), Minerva led in the champions.

Dear God, Miss Potter had come with _Weasley_?

And appeared to be fighting with him already. They each had their fists clenched, as if any moment they'd turn and slug the other on the ear.

Still, even next to Weasley in his ancient robe that was too short on the bottom, Miss Potter looked ready to walk into any palace on earth. Narcissa might not have been ashamed to be seen with her in that dress.

He'd have thought she'd have worn green. The white with her black hair and the diamonds created a stark effect, and the emerald at her throat struck the eye across the glittering hall. It was difficult to decide whether she looked like a child playing dress up or like a young woman realizing for the first time that she was not quite a child anymore. It made him think of Draco practicing his parents' airs and graces and wrinkling his nose when Narcissa offered him caviar: the trick of adolescence, one moment showing you a glimpse of the person they'd become, the next reminding you of the person they were leaving behind. And Miss Potter . . . was going to be a very beautiful young woman.

He wanted to scrub that thought away as soon as it occurred. The fact that certain of his students were aesthetically pleasing was something he was aware of from time to time, on a distant plane; but he would rather admire Dumbledore's knees than one of the little sods under his care. The fact that Miss Potter was, objectively speaking, pretty, and that she would surely grow up to be prettier still, was unavoidable, and yet he did not like even that much occurring to him. He wished he could Obliviate it out of his head.

The champions took their seats at the table with the judges, freeing Minerva to join the staff table.

"Well," she said as she took the chair beside him, "shall we raise a glass in hopes of surviving this night?"

"We could sacrifice one of the students, to make sure it really takes," he said. 

Dinner proceeded apace. Severus ate little. Some slight mention of Minerva's about the Second Task drove him to start an actual conversation, to attempt prying out of her any details that he could plant so obviously on Miss Potter that she could not fail to miss them. Or at least, probably she couldn't.

Possibly.

But all too soon, the somewhat decent mood he'd cultivated shriveled and died as Dumbledore stood, calling, "If everyone will rise from their tables, we shall begin the dance."

The students chittered excitedly as Dumbledore swept the tables out of the way and conjured a platform for the band. Severus never listened to the wireless, but he'd taught teenagers for long enough to have seen every bit of paraphernalia with the Weird Sisters' name and faces on.

The song they struck up was slow and mournful, a fitting accompaniment to Severus' mood. Strangely, it sounded almost familiar, as if he'd heard it before—his students singing it, probably. And indeed, the ominous dirge seemed to set the stage for what was to come:

Miss Potter and Weasley were having a bit of a row.

"What are they doing?" Minerva asked with a sense of deep resignation.

Viktor Krum's date was watching Miss Potter and Weasley as they hissed at each other. But then Miss Potter, apparently deciding she could wait no longer, grabbed Weasley's hand and dragged him behind her as she marched out onto the floor.

"Severus, please tell me I'm not seeing this," Minerva said as Miss Potter smacked Weasley's hand onto her waist.

"How do I know what you're seeing?" Maybe he could move away from Minerva and secretly Imperio the boy. . .

Weasley's expression was tight with fury, Miss Potter's shoulders iron-rigid. The others had started dancing, but Viktor Krum's date stared at Miss Potter and Weasley with a desperately unhappy expression—Merlin and Salazar, it was Granger.

"Oh no," Minerva said, as Miss Potter suddenly switched the position of her and Weasley's hands and started leading their dance herself—possibly the worst thing she could have done.

"I can't watch," Minerva said.

"What price Gryffindor courage?" Severus said. _He_ could not look away; the sight was too grotesque.

"Is it over?" Minerva now had a hand over her eyes.

"Yes."

"You're lying, Severus. The song is still playing."

"Then why did you ask me if it was over?"

"I was hoping. . ."

Severus could not think of the last time he'd seen anything monstrous as Weasley and Miss Potter's dancing. He was certain that an equal crime had never been committed in a ballroom, in full view of a crowd. A lesser person, or someone with a proper sense of decency, would have looked away as Minerva was doing.

Miss Potter was steering Weasley in a vicious parody of a waltz. Severus had never seen her angry in quite that way before. He'd witnessed her frustrated enough to burst into tears in his office a year ago; watched her glare at him with helpless fury when he was going to extra lengths to be an arsehole; he'd even driven her to a burst of accidental magic that had resulted in his own injury not a month gone by; but he had never before seen that burning, purposeful spite in her face. This was a more grown up sort of anger, one that did not wail and stamp its foot, but crystallized into malice. Wealsey had infuriated and wounded her and she was taking her revenge.

It would have been a treat to watch, had she not also been humiliating herself in the process. 

Still, Weasley did look very stupid, stumbling about under the direction of a girl a foot shorter. It was gratifying to watch him be made a fool of. Severus wondered what he'd done to rile her. It had to be more than ignoring her all through dinner, or that display as they were all marching in. They hadn't been rowing when he'd seen them in the Entrance Hall. . .

He realized he was running his fingernails along the tip of his wand, as if in preparation for a curse, and made himself stop.

"Godric and Helga," Minerva sighed as Weasley tore himself free of Miss Potter and flounced off the dance floor.

Miss Potter stood alone as all the little shits laughed at her. Severus would be docking buckets of points tonight. . . A good portion of them from Weasley, if he ran into the foul little plonker again. Somehow he didn't think so, though—Weasley would likely retire to lick his wounds.

Granger tried to approach her, but Miss Potter shook her off and stormed away. Granger stared after her, with such an expression that Severus thought there might have been tears in her eyes had he been close enough to see them, but she did not go after her. Perhaps there was more to Granger's supposed cleverness than an anally retentive memory; in that state, Miss Potter would have made her regret it.

A second, much more obnoxious song started up, and Viktor Krum moved toward Granger, speaking to her. He took her hand and led her off the floor, close enough to the staff table that their conversation could have been heard were it not for the music. Severus would have pretended harder not to be trying to discern Granger's mood if Minerva hadn't clearly been doing the same. She looked like a girl trying to be cheerful and talk normally while she nursed a secret pain. So she and Miss Potter were fighting, too?

If it was a love triangle with Weasley, Severus was going to transfigure him into a squirrel.

Granger took Krum's hand, then left him. He stared after her, but very differently than Miss Potter had stared after Weasley.

"Well," said Minerva, as Krum moved toward the refreshments table, "I suppose that could have gone worse."

"Only if he'd shot her," Severus said.

Minerva sighed like she agreed. "One is rather glad not to be young again, on nights like these."

Severus thought the same. If he had to be at a ball, he'd rather be crotchety and old and hating everyone because he was going to have to dig them half-dressed out of corners all night, and not young and stupid and hating everyone because he was ugly and horrible and no one would wish to be his date if he lived a hundred thousand years.

"I wish to dance," Minerva said.

"Luckily you're at a ball," Severus said. "Your wish should be easy enough to grant."

Minerva stared at him with her eyebrow arched. It took him a moment, but—

"You can't be serious."

Her eyebrow maintained its dangerous slant. "I believe you owe me a favor."

"On what grounds?"

"The Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch final of 1987."

He glared at her because his memory was as good as hers and he knew she was right.

"Be thankful I'm not cashing it in on something worse," she said, with a meaner version of Dumbledore's twinkle in her eye.

"This is quite bad enough, thank you," he said coldly. "I hope you get some of the Weasleys' twins spiked punch."

"With those two about, I'm taking a cue from Alastor and drinking out of a hip flask tonight."

"Why can't you wait for Dumbledore?" he asked as she prodded him into standing up.

"He's dancing with Olympe, in case you somehow failed to notice."

As a third song warbled from the stage—one more suited to people over the age of thirty—Minerva steered him onto the floor, far more gracefully than Miss Potter had dealt with Weasley. It would not have been so bad, had he not hated every second of it. 

"Looking good, Professor," said Miss Davis as she twirled past him. Severus ignored her.

"She wasn't talking to me," Minerva said, amused.

"You wished for dancing. You didn't bargain for talking."

Minerva shook her head at him.

"Severus, good to see you," said Dumbledore, twinkling obnoxiously at him as he passed. (He was now dancing with Sprout.)

"No it isn't," Severus snapped.

The song ended, and Minerva clapped for the band. Severus did not.

"Thank you for the indulgence, Severus," she said, unfazed by his rudeness, and went to join Dumbledore and Sprout.

Severus grunted and exited the floor as quickly as he could. A slower, unmistakably romantic ballad began, and quite a few couples left the dance floor. Already, the crowd looked a bit thinner, as if more than a few people had already abandoned the ball.

He felt a razor thin smile curl onto his face. Perhaps it was time to blast a few rose bushes apart.

And should he find anyone laughing over Miss Potter's dance, well. . . it would be a good place to start.

* * *

Harriet shoved blindly through the crowd off the dance floor, making for—she hoped—the exit. She could hardly see where she was going, and people were not exactly rushing to clear out of her way.

And then her night got even better when she plowed into Daphne Greengrass.

She expected Daphne to shove her off and cut loose with an jab about Harriet's stellar performance,. She did not expect Daphne to say effusively, as if she was thrilled to see her, "Harriet! There you are, I'm so glad we've run into each other. I need the loo—won't you come?"

Then she grabbed Harriet by the arm and dragged her off, while Harriet was trying to figure out when she had walked through a portal into an alternate universe where Daphne Greengrass was happy to see her.

As Daphne towed her away, Harriet saw Marcus Flint through a gap in the crowd, scanning the room with narrowed eyes.

Daphne propelled Harriet out a side door, down the drafty corridor, past couples snogging in the shadows, and into the loo.

She released Harriet as if the skin on her arm had turned scalding hot. 

"I beg your pardon for that display," she said, coldly formal, as she turned to face the mirror.

Harriet peered around the loo, then walked over and banged on the cubicle doors. They opened to reveal empty toilets. A pipe dripped forlornly, echoing in the silence.

"If this is an ambush," she said, "I think it needs more people."

Daphne threw her a withering look in the mirror. "I do believe I have more interesting things to worry about at a ball than ambushing you."

"Then why am I here?" Harriet watched her take a compact out of a concealed pocket in her dress. Her gown was finely beaded, edged with the most intricate lace Harriet had ever seen, and were those pearls sewn onto the sleeves? 

"I desired an escort," said Daphne, now powdering her nose. "You were convenient."

"Are _you_ going to be ambushed in the girl's loo?" Harriet asked skeptically. But even though she'd said it to be smart, Daphne's hand paused.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, the scorn not quite as delicate as her lace, and resumed powdering.

"Fine." Harriet shrugged. "I'll be going, then."

Daphne stared straight at the mirror. "Do as you like."

Harriet cast her a dubious look as she reached for the door. . . and noticed Daphne's lipstick was smeared. She looked pale underneath her makeup, and there was something in her eyes. . .

Harriet thought of Flint's narrow, searching stare, and her arm prickled with the ghost of Daphne's fingers digging in. Her own eyes narrowed, as something settled low in her stomach, something she didn't like at all. She felt like she understood what it was and yet not, and though she didn't want to. . . she had to.

"Weren't you leaving?" Daphne asked, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

"Why am I really here?" Harriet repeated.

Daphne shut the compact with an echoing snap. She finally looked at Harriet, something sharp and dark in her face. "Maybe I just felt sorry for you. I heard you made an absolute idiot out of yourself in front of everyone. Maybe I thought you'd appreciate the chance to hole yourself up in here without everyone laughing at you. If Pansy had come across you, she'd have gone for your throat."

Harriet felt some of that rage from the dance floor flare to life again. "How considerate of you," she snarled. "Too bad I know you're a bloody liar. You'd never think of someone other than yourself, I know that, or you wouldn't be keeping your sister from seeing me."

She turned to leave, but Daphne said, "How dare you? Do you think you know what I wouldn't do for my family, for my sisters?" Her hand shook, but this time with fury. "You're _dangerous_ , Potter. The Dark Mark showed itself at the World Cup! You're the enemy of the Dark Lord. Do you think Asteria would be safe were she friends with you?"

Daphne stepped up to her, that dark and sharp thing piercing into Harriet's heart.

"You will stay away from my sister," she whispered venomously. "Or you will find out how far I will go for my family."

Then she pushed Harriet aside and strode out of the loo. Harriet stood stock still, alone once more, listening to the forlorn dripping of the pipe. Her heart was beating against her ribs and her face felt as cold as marble.

_You're the enemy of the Dark Lord. . ._

_The Dark Mark showed itself at the World Cup!_

_Why's it there?_ she'd asked Sirius.

_We don't know._

_Someone's hoping I'll get killed, then, I reckon_ , she'd said to Snape on Hallowe'en.

_Do you think Asteria would be safe were she friends with you?_

Harriet shivered. She suddenly didn't want to be in this bathroom another second.

Out in the corridor, the shadows were still snogging enthusiastically. She didn't mind; they were clearly too busy to be thinking about her.

But as she came into the Entrance Hall, she saw one person who was not occupied. 

"There you are, Harry," George said. He was sitting on the bottom step alone—Fred-less, but also Hufflepuff-less—and tossing some sort of capsule from hand to hand. "Hermione was looking for you."

Emotions fluctuated in Harriet's heart, but she was rather grateful she'd missed Hermione. "I don't really want to see anyone."

George made a noise of vague assent. "Well, she's gone upstairs anyhow."

A part of her wanted to find Hermione, while another, more vocal part of her did not even want to be talking to George. "If she comes back down, just tell her I wanted to be alone," she said, starting to move off—going where, she didn't know. Just away.

"Angelina, Fred and I drew straws to see who'd go after you," George said idly, still juggling his capsule. "I won. Thought maybe you'd be rowing with Ron, so I brought this to give you."

He tossed the capsule at her. It fit into her palm, smooth and white with brown spots. "What's this?"

"Our next venture. Not like Canary Creams, you don't have to trick someone into eating it. Just crack it open and throw it at your target and they'll turn into... something." He grinned, not entirely nicely.

"Something?"

"Each one's different. Frog, dog, piglet, tortoise—nothing too vicious, since they'll be pretty ticked off at you."

She didn't know whether to laugh or roll her eyes. "How long does it last?"

"Well." He grinned again, more charmingly. "Currently, it's till we give the antidote. Still working out a few bugs, y'see. In its test stages."

Oh dear. "Why are you giving it to me?"

"Said I reckoned you'd be rowing with Ron, didn't I? Thought I might give you a little treat." He got up. "Keep it in case you see him. Though. . ." The grin again, the first one. "If I see him first, can't promise I won't beat you to it."

Then he patted her on the head and sauntered back into the Great Hall.

She looked at the little capsule. She suspected that turning Ron into a dog or a piglet wasn't going to make her feel any better. She didn't know what would. Maybe going back in time and turning herself into a dog, so she wouldn't have to go to the ball, so none of this would have happened.

She could hear music thumping inside the Great Hall, but she wasn't going back in there. Instead, she slipped out the front doors into the ornamental rose garden.

Fairy lights hung in the trees, their light ghosting across the bushes through which gravel paths curled. Stone statues in a Greek style stood about in heroic poses, and she could hear water trickling. It would have been quite soothing, were it not for the people who were snogging on benches.

She meandered down the path, tossing the capsule from hand to hand like George had done. The garden had been enchanted to keep out the cold; though snow dusted down from the sky, her bare arms felt comfortable. The air smelled like frost and roses, cold and sweet.

She stopped next to a statue of a woman cradling a jar and wondered what would happen to it if she threw the capsule at it. Would it become a stone tortoise?

Footsteps crunched on the other side of a hedge. 

Not wanting to meet anyone, she ducked around the statue and down another path, rounding a bush, and almost stepped on—

Well, not the last person she wanted to see; that would be Voldemort risen from the grave, then Pansy Parkinson, then Ron. But he was the fourth-last person she wanted to see, with his slick blond hair and his smarmy vicar's robes. He was sitting on a bench and—plucking the petals off a rose? But the rose vanished so fast she couldn't be sure.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" Malfoy asked, standing slowly and brushing off his robes—where, sure enough, white petals had clung.

"Gardening," she snapped. Thank God he seemed to be alone, with no frilly pink monsters at his side. "What's it look like?"

"If I could tell, would I ask?" he sneered.

"If you were leading up to insulting someone, yeah," she said. "Go away."

"I was here first, Potter. What happened to you?"

"What d'you mean, what happened to me?" She looked down at herself, but her dress looked fine, her mum's emerald still gleamed above her collar, and the tiara was still digging into her skull.

"Something must've happened." Malfoy held up three fingers and started counting off them. "First, you agreed to a date with _Longbottom_. Then you agree to one with _Weasley_ , and now you blunder about telling people off for sitting around minding their own business. Did someone hex all your brains out your ears?"

"Breathing the same air as you in the dungeons must've done it. Now excuse me, I'm off before I kill any more brain cells."

"I hope you don't intend to forgive Weasley," Malfoy said as she turned away.

Her fingers tightened on the capsule. "What do you care?"

"I'd hate to see you make another poor decision, is all."

"Continuing this conversation is a poor decision." _You might get turned into a ferret again any moment now._

"Weasley made you look like a fool, you know. It was so obvious he was mooning over Granger."

When she turned round—very, slowly—Malfoy looked alarmed for just a moment. But it was gone, quick as the rose, and he smirked.

"Touched a nerve?" he said, gloatingly.

"Where's your girlfriend, Malfoy?" she asked in a low voice, trying not to imagine how good he'd look running round as a squealing piglet.

He blushed, suddenly looking a great deal less suave.

"Pansy isn't my girlfriend."

"Then you shouldn't let her drool all over you. She's making you look like a right idiot, too." She turned to stalk off, firing over her shoulder, "And only arseholes string people along!"

"Don't blame me because nobody except the two most pathetic boys in school asked you to the ball, Potter!" he called after her.

Her arm tensed, her grip on the capsule tightening, as she made to hurl it—

Into a bush. No matter how much she wanted to punch his smug, pointy git bastard face, she was not going to leave someone, anyone, stuck as a tortoise until Fred or George decided to undo it.

Especially because in Malfoy's case that would probably be never.

She wanted to blast the rose bushes to pieces or decapitate one of the Greek statues. She wanted the bloody hell out of here. She wanted to curl up in bed with the book Jean had sent her for Christmas wearing Mrs. Weasley's newest jumper and Dobby's gift of horrible, ugly socks and not talk to anyone for ten thousand years, or however long it took them to forget what happened.

How the hell did you get out of this damned bloody garden?

Rounding a curve in the path, she found herself face-to-snout with a huge stone reindeer. Over its back, a sparkling jet of water played in the night air. Just as she was about to cut around it, she heard a deep, rumbling voice that she knew belonged to Hagrid:

"Momen' I saw yeh, I knew," he said in an oddly husky voice.

She froze. Staring fixedly at a beetle clinging to the reindeer's hoof, she prayed that she wasn't about to hear what she thought. . .

"What did you know, 'Agrid?" Madam Maxime murmured—no, purred.

Oh no no NO.

"I'm 'Enery the eighth I am," she started chanting under her breath, to block out their voices as she crawled back the way she'd come. "'Enery the Eighth I am, I am, I got married to the window next door. . ."

Roger Davies and Fleur were snogging in the bush behind her. She hadn't noticed them earlier. Well, they'd clearly been too busy to notice her.

A few minutes later, she came to the conclusion that she was very nicely lost. No one else had bothered to wander this far into the garden, meaning she was extremely alone, except for a scantily clad stone warrior holding a spear and an endless line of bloody rose bushes. Hoping without much hope that the path would curve back to the entrance, she kept going. She knew she was lost if she went back the way she'd come.

As she rounded the next bush, she saw she'd been wrong: two people had thought to go this far. They were tangled up together, hands sliding over arms and hips and shoulders, pressed against each other, with the long, dark hair of the taller one falling around their faces.

Then she saw they were both wearing dresses: one smoky gray, the other familiarly beaded and edged with lace.  
It was Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, entwined against one of the bushes.

Harriet's first thought was, I _'d have thought the bush would be thorny_. And then she realized they had broken off and were staring at her with mingled horror and hatred.

Oh _shit._

Not stopping to think—which might have been a good idea—Harriet dived between two close-grown bushes, feeling her dress snag on the thorns that really were there after all. She tumbled free, lost her tiara, and snatched it up before pelting down the avenue between rows of high hedges as fast as her uncomfortable shoes could carry her.

And as she got to the end of the row, a hex exploded the bush next to her head. She ducked, throwing her arms over her head, and heard squealing from the next row over.

"Ten points from Hufflepuff, Fawcett!" snarled a _very_ familiar voice. "And ten points from Ravenclaw, too, Stebbins!"

Snape! Her heart leapt in her chest. Tracey and Daphne wouldn't dare murder her if she was with Snape! 

Just as she was about to scuttle out from behind the bush, a new voice floated through the destroyed gap in the hedge—one that was not as bad as Malfoy's or as mortifying as Hagrid's, but not one exactly welcome:

"So this is how you get your jollies, Snape."

Moody? She crouched down till her knees were resting on the grass, wishing now that she had chosen to wear green: better for skulking about in gardens at night, eavesdropping.

"Routing the kiddies from the bushes is the only pleasure you have left, eh? Now Dumbledore's banned you from Dark magic and so many of your mates are locked up in prison."

She heard his clawed foot dragging through the gravel and prayed they would not walk past the hedge.

"I don't need Dark magic to have fun," Snape replied in a voice through which a snarl drove like a spike. "You should know that much."

"Oh aye," Moody said softly. "I know you of old—you and Karkaroff." His clawed foot dragged closer; Snape was standing just out of sight at the end of her row, the hem of his robes pooled on the ground where she could see.

"Karkaroff's been awfully jumpy lately," Moody said. "Won't tell me why—seems to think I'm not friendly. You know why, Snape?"

"I fail to see why you're asking me." She knew Snape was baring his teeth without having to see it. "I am no coward like Igor Karkaroff. What concerns him does not concern me."

"Oh, I think it does. I think it concerns every Death Eater who walked free."

Harriet's heartbeat faltered. The malice in Moody's voice—she didn't want to listen to this anymore—him taunting Snape—

She worked her shoe off and chucked it as hard as she could over the hedge, praying it would hit the ground loud enough to distract them, and not get caught in the bush—

It made a soft _thump_ as it hit the ground

"Not a good place for a chat," Moody said, now mild. "I'll be seeing you, Snape. You get back to that good work you're doing."

Snape didn't say anything. Moody's foot dragged off, and no crunch of Snape's footsteps answered him.

Harriet waited till the sound of gravel grinding had faded into the stillness before peering out from behind her hedge. She almost had a heart attack, because Snape was staring straight at her, something bottomless in his eyes. His robes seemed to suck the light into them, the soft glow of the fairy lights splashing feebly off the dark whorls painted on the cloth, and the cut of the robes made his whole body seem sharp, like a blade.

"Miss Potter." His voice changed from snarling to flat mid-syllable. "What are you doing?" he asked, glaring up the row behind her.

"Taking a walk." She tucked her bare foot beneath her skirt. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"

"What happened to your dress?" With narrow eyes, he pointed his wand at her skirt.

She looked down, seeing, with a wrench, all the tiny rips and shreds in the white brocade.

"I got lost and I tried to cut through a rose bush." She couldn't help smoothing a hand down her dress. It had been so beautiful. . . 

Snape made a vague noise, rather like George had done. He jabbed his wand to the right, and a moment later her shoe sailed into his free hand. "Put on your shoe and go back inside."

She frowned. "I like it out here." Which was rather a big fat lie—if she hadn't run into Snape she'd have pelted straight up to Gryffindor Tower and locked herself in the dorm. But now. . . well. She didn't want to go in.

"Miss Potter," Snape said dangerously, "in case you have forgotten, you have something _at stake_ in this Tournament."

 _Your life_ , the wind whispered as it sighed through the bushes. For the first time since stepping outside, she shivered.

"You're out here," she pointed out. "Can't I stay with you?"

"No you can't," he said, like she was mad for even asking.

"Why not?"

"Miss Potter, how do you think everyone would react to us strolling about the gardens together at night?"

His tone made her ears burn. She remembered the expression on his face when Dumbledore had knocked on his door that night she'd barged into his rooms. Now her face felt hot too, as if her heartbeat were a bellows lighting it up.

"Oh," she muttered.

"Inside," he said. "Now."

She bit her lip, hard. She didn't want to go back. On the other side of the bush, she'd thought she wanted to be alone, to not see anyone, but she realized that wasn't true. She did not want to walk past people intertwined and think about the people dancing happily together in the hall, to curl up alone in her dorm and pretend she didn't feel like shit. She wanted to stay here, in the garden with the snow dusting down, and tell Snape what Daphne had said in the bathroom—not because he'd say something to make her feel better, because he hardly ever did, and not because he made bad things go away, but because he somehow made her feel safer and braver all at once. She wanted him to tell her what he'd been learning about Wolfsbane and werewolves, like Krum had talked to Hermione all through dinner, and she wanted to walk around the gardens with him watching him blast people out of rosebushes. It was so painfully unfair that Cho and Cedirc got to dance together at the ball, and Hermione had someone to talk to her, only to her, all through dinner, and everyone else could curl up on their benches and snog to their hearts' content, and she couldn't even. . .

Her heartbeat was getting louder, pounding in her ears, filling her head with the thumping sound of her pulsing blood. It was like she stood with her toes at the edge of a precipice, and the wind was pushing her from the front, keeping her standing, but at any moment it was going to change direction and. . .

_so who do you fancy_

She . . . couldn't. . .

_you act like you fancy someone_

He peered at her face, then over his shoulder, as if he wondered what she could be looking at.

_you're preoccupied and you have these mood swings that I think must be connected_

"What is it?" he asked warily, glancing back at her.

And the wind . . .

. . . changed.

She could not speak. She could barely breathe. Her heart had risen when all the blood had fled and was clogging her throat.

There was only one thing to do.

She fled.

_I—_

The garden swam around her. The scent of roses and frost filled her mouth, the gravel warped beneath her feet.

_I—_

Her head felt light and empty, except for one solitary thought, so powerful it had blasted all the rest away, like a rosebush splintering beneath a spell:

_I—fancy—Snape._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? See? The ~~torment~~ fun's not over just because the ball is over! 
> 
> I love you alllllllll you are SO AWESOME I CANNOT EXPRESS (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧ 
> 
> Stolen Thing: "That could have gone worse. He could have shot her." - from Friends S05E01


	73. I Left a Thorn Under Your Bed

Severus watched Miss Potter flee.

He had no idea what had just happened. She had stared at him with increasing alarm on her face, and then horror, until finally she had taken off running as if chased by a storm of hornets.

He looked down at the shoe she'd left him holding.

"Now what the hell am I supposed to do with this?" he said through grit teeth.

* * *

Harriet pelted up the stairs to the Entrance Hall. Her only thought was to hide—hide hide hide. Gryffindor Tower—her four poster—behind the curtains—somewhere she could die alone without anyone ever seeing her face, where they'd find her bleached bones lying in a sad little pile beneath the covers ten years later—

She might have made it, if she hadn't tripped in the Entrance Hall.

Her ankle collided with something low and solid and the momentum of her charge pitched her forward, like a felled tree.

She didn't get her hands up in time to stop her chin from banging against the flagstones, and stars erupted behind her eyes as pain exploded on her chin.

Groaning, she sat up to see what she'd tripped over. Something small was struggling beneath her skirt. She dragged the petticoats away to find—

A dog. A fluffy, reddish, floofy little dog. She thought it might be a Pomeranian. It looked dazed and cross-eyed—like it had just been torpedoed, funnily enough.

What was a dog doing at Hogwar. . .

 _Just crack it open and throw it at your target and they'll turn into... something_ , George had said about ten feet away from this very spot, grinning not-so-nicely. _Frog, dog, piglet, tortoise—nothing too vicious, since they'll be pretty ticked off at you. . . Keep it in case you see him. Though if I see him first, I can't promise I won't beat you to it._

She stared at the dog, which was shaking its head, as if to clear it. "Ron?"

The dog looked up at her, then released a torrent of yipping barks. It tried to jump to its feet but fell over.

"For the love of—" She reached to pick him up, and he tried to bite her. "You _arsehole_ ," she exploded, making him fall over again in surprise. "Fine! Fucking stay there, then, and see if I—"

Laughter came from the open doors to the Great Hall. She froze—but no, whoever-it-was had been laughing at something all on their own, inside.

The dog managed to stand on wobbly legs, but they folded under him when he tried to step forward. He looked very pitiful, really.

"Serves you right," she muttered, getting to her feet. Damn, she'd left her shoe with Sn—

Oh, _God._

She turned blindly toward the staircase. Running for her life and sanity, that's what she'd been doing. And she'd have gone on running, if it weren't for—

"Rrrar rar! Rrarr rar rar!" the dog squeaked behind her.

She looked down, pulling her skirt back so she could see him. He jumped, like he was trying to get on his hind legs, and toppled over again.

"I thought you didn't want my help."

His answering yip sounded panicked. He certainly looked it, as much as she could read his pointed little doggy face. She wavered, her bare foot on the bottom step, weighing her the ball of anger in her heart against the thought of being a small animal, relatively helpless, left alone in the castle, with no one but two or three people who knew what had happened to you. . .

Another burst of laughter came from the Great Hall, echoing through her memory. She clenched her fist in her skirt—

"Draco?" she heard Pansy Parkinson's voice echoing from down the corridor, out of sight around the staircase. "Draco, is that you?"

Harriet's heart jolted with horror. If _Pansy_ saw her like this—

She scooped up the dog and charged up the stairs. She didn't stop till she reached the Fat Lady's portrait, where she wheezed out, "Fairy lights!" to a drunken Fat Lady, and toppled into the common room.

Thank God it was mostly empty. A couple was snogging on the sofa, but they were much too busy to notice her.

The dog whimpered in her arms. Stiffening, she set him down.

"There," she whispered, so as not to bother the pair entwined on the couch. "You're back now, you don't need me."

But he jumped at her skirts the second she tried to walk away, whimpering and clinging and trying to bite the brocade.

"What?" she hissed, eyes darting toward the snogging couple, but they still didn't have any attention to spare her.  
The dog sat back on his haunches, raising his arms, like he wanted to be picked up again. He was trembling, shivering—clearly terrified.

Groaning, she picked him back up. "Fine, I'll get you up to the dorm. . ."

She opened the boys' stairwell and climbed the winding steps to Ron's dorm. There was no light under the door, nor any answer to her knock. The room was dark and empty, not even a fire lit in the grate.

"Well, it'll be boring, but too bad. I'll let Fred and George know where you are, if I see them."

But when she set him down on his bed and turned to leave, he tumbled off the bed with a squeak and a thump. He burrowed under her skirt, cowering against her ankles.

"This is your dorm, idiot!" She stepped over him, but he scampered after her, yipping so piteously that she had no choice but to pick him back up again. "What is your _problem_?" He buried his face against her arm.

"You can't come to my dorm. You have to stay in here. Look, we'll just put you on your bed and draw the curtains and they won't see you, they'll think you're sulking—"

But he fought so madly not to be put down that he scratched her arms. His heart was beating so hard and fast Harriet thought it might just run itself out, and his sides were fluttering at an alarming rate, his black eyes so wide she could see the whites around them.

"All right," she said, trying to sound soothing and not annoyed or bewildered. She stroked his fur. "All right. I won't leave you here. It's all right."

At last he stopped fighting, but his heart still beat too quickly against her hand. When she stepped out of the room and shut the door, his breathing began to slow, and by the time she'd reached the common room again he had relaxed into her arms. Sighing, Harriet climbed the girls' staircase, pausing outside her own door.

"If Lavender and Parvati are in here," she muttered, "I am giving you to them as a distraction and making my escape."  
He flattened his ears and huddled against her.

But the dorm was empty. A fire leapt to life in the hearth as she passed it by, but she—and the dog—was alone.  
Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

She dropped the dog in her shock. He fell onto her bed with a squeak, but she hardly noticed.

Her makeup. . . her hair. . . her _dress_. . .

The eye makeup had smeared badly, like she'd rubbed her fingers through it and streaked it across her temples. The Sleakeazy's had fought against her hair as best it could, but lost half the battle: it snarled around her head like a nest of snakes.

But the worst. . . the worst was the dress. The skirt was ripped and stained, from the thorns and grass and cobblestones, and the cut on her chin had dripped blood onto the bodice.

She looked like bloody _Medusa_. Who'd just done with killing some bloke who'd come to slice her head off.

She'd stood in front of Snape looking like this.

"Merlin fuck—something!" she cried, and threw herself on the bed, hauling her pillow over her face and pressing it down, hard, as if that could smother the memory out of her head.

Fuck balls, fuck Christmas, fuck _everything_.

She'd never felt so stupid in her entire life.

Snape, who was a grown-up. Snape, who was her teacher. Snape, who was barely nice to her, even by Snape standards; who ignored her and treated her like a child he barely had the patience for.

She threw off the pillow, almost sending the dog flying, and yelled, "BLOODY FUCKING HELL!"

He yipped, sounding almost admonishing, and huddled at the other end of the bed.

"I'm getting the fuck out of all of this," she muttered, tugging hard at her skirt. Half of her wanted to cry. The other half wanted to destroy everything in the tower, to curse the mirrors into dust, set the stone on fire, reduce the roof to powder, and bring down the walls.

She pushed herself up, looking down at her dress, and did want to cry. It had been so beautiful. . .

The door opened.

Her fingers curled into her palms as she fought the urge to throw her hands over her head and hide her hair. But it wasn't Lavender or Parvati, only someone both better and worse.

Hermione stood in the doorway, her hair a bit flyaway, but otherwise every inch as stunning as she'd looked on the stairs. She had clearly not been dragged to the bathroom by anyone and told she was a threat to their little sister's life, or run into Draco bloody Malfoy in the gardens, or escaped from deadly encounters with other people's garden trysts,

Her meeting with George swam back to her. _Hermione's looking for you,_ he'd said. But Hermione couldn't have been looking the whole time; she had to have spent most of the evening dancing with Krum, having a lovely ball.

They stared at each other, Hermione breathing a little heavily, like she'd just run up the stairs.

Then her face screwed up and she burst into tears.

Harriet gaped at her.

"Oh, _Harriet_ —" Hermione rushed forward and threw herself on her, clinging to Harriet's shoulders. "I'm so, so, so sorry!"

Harriet sat with her arms held out at odd angles, bewildered, as Hermione sobbed all over her. For a moment, Harriet's heart struggled—but the cruel laughter and the loneliness and her terrible realization echoed, aching, through her and she couldn't be anything except grateful Hermione was there. Then Harriet sagged against her, returning the hug, and Hermione's arms tightened around her for a few long, solid moments that Harriet did not want to end.

Hermione sat back, rubbing at her eyes—which widened as she got a proper look at Harriet.

"Oh, Harriet," she said again, despairing, "your dress! What—what happened?" And then, without waiting for an answer, "Your chin! Hang on—"

She jumped up and ran over to her side of the room, rummaging in her trunk, and hurried back with her first aid kit. She cleaned the cut on Harriet's chin very gently, without speaking, and Harriet was exhausted enough to be grateful for not needing to find things to say. Hermione's eyes were red from crying, but she'd got herself under control.

"Let's. . . take this off," she said, touching Harriet's cheek just below her eye.

Once the eye makeup had been rubbed off, Harriet felt a bit less like a terrifying harpy, but there was nothing to be done for the snarling mass on her head. The Sleakeazy's had caked into her hair, but she had no interest in washing it out—judging by Hermione's dismayed, "How much of this did she use?" it would have taken ages. She just wanted to change into her nightgown and crawl into bed and sleep until she forgot everything about tonight.

"Harriet?" Hermione said tentatively, as Harriet tried twisting her arms behind her to get the hooks undone.

"Yeah?" she said, not looking at her. She didn't know whether she felt angry a bit, still, or embarrassed; she just knew she was very, very tired.

"I—wanted to—to tell you." Hermione pressed her hands against her own stomach. "That—you were right."

Staring down at her feet, she didn't see Harriet's bewildered expression; she only kept going: "I don't know how I could press you to confide in me when I couldn't do the same. I—I owe it to you to tell you that I—I really do. . . fancy—"

And as the truth of what was coming dawned on Harriet, she remembered, with a clench of horror, the dog.

"NO!" she yelled.

Hermione took a step backward. She looked both astonished and slightly hurt. "What?"

 _Shit, shit, SHIT._ "I—I know." Harriet's knees felt weak; she tried not to look terrified. "You—you don't have to say anything. I know."

"But. . ." Now Hermione looked confused. "I wanted to tell you. . ."

"You don't have to. It's fine." Harriet couldn't see him on the bed—had he crawled away? Hidden somewhere? Clever move, first one of the evening. "Just wanting to tell me is enough."

Hermione didn't seem to know whether to feel relieved, or as if the wind had been sucked from her sails. Then she hugged Harriet from behind, and pressed her face into Harriet's shoulder. Seeing as Harriet was the shorter one by quite a bit, it must have pained her neck.

Harriet raised her hand and awkwardly patted Hermione on the head. Hermione's hair felt stiff and sticky-sandpapery, like it was also coated in Sleakeazy's. It still looked a trillion times better than Harriet's, though.

Standing there with Hermione leaning on her shoulder, she realized it had been true, what she'd said. It didn't matter. The fact that Hermione had been going to say it was enough.

For now, at least.

"I wrote you a letter," Hermione said in a muffled voice, not raising her head.

"Oh. Thanks?"

Hermione sighed, her breath traveling down Harriet's back. "That's where I've been all day. I was trying to get right. . . what I wanted to say."

Straightening, she turned away, brushing furtively at her eyes. Harriet pretended she hadn't seen.

Hermione went over to her dresser and returned with a fat scroll. Harriet wondered how many feet long it was.

"Oh. Thanks," she said weakly.

"You don't have to read it now, of course." Blushing a little, Hermione set it on Harriet's bedside table. "I. . . got a bit carried away. Once I got started, there seemed to be so much to. . ." She took in a deep, fortifying breath. "Anyway. Let's get you out of this dress."

"Yeah." Harriet raised her voice slightly. "It's lucky it's just you and me here. If anyone _else_ saw me getting changed, I'd have to kill them."

There was a bewildered silence which, Harriet fancied, was tinged with doggy panic.

"All right," Hermione said, clearly unwilling to ask.

"Let's hurry," Harriet said, "before Lavender and Parvati come back."

Hermione cringed. ". . . Good point."

* * *

"Ah, Severus," Dumbledore said, "good evening."

He was standing in the Entrance Hall, apparently enjoying the solitude afforded by loitering alone, staring at nothing. Several of the torches had burned down, raising the shadows, and slow strands of music filtered out from the Great Hall. Severus didn't know the hour, but he could feel the lateness behind his eyes.

"How is the night?" Dumbledore asked, as a pair of students—that Veela girl, to judge by the long, silvery hair, and her date—bumbled past them, giggling and not even noticing two old men standing within a pace of them.

"Tiresome," Severus said. "As in, I'm tired of it."

"Perhaps if you took a night off? No," he said when Severus stared at him incredulously. "Perhaps not, then. What is that?"

Severus looked down at his own hand, remembering, as he did so, what he was holding. "Miss Potter dropped her shoe," he said sourly, annoyed by the irony. "She was wandering round the garden by herself, the little fool. I drove her indoors again." At least, he assumed he had, though he could not, for once, recall what he'd said to get that reaction out of her.

"Did you notice anything, on your tour of the garden?"

 _Just Moody, the peg-legged troll-fucker._ "No."

Dumbledore nodded, looking thoughtful. "Igor seemed quite. . . discontent, all through supper."

"Probably because his pet project was so happily fraternizing with the enemy."

"You haven't noticed something more persistent, in his air?"

"He generally avoids me." _Ever since I tortured him._

Dumbledore glanced at him. Severus thought it was only his knowledge of his own deeds that made him imagine the old man's eyes glowed so strongly blue. They couldn't, in that light. And Dumbledore could not see inside _his_ mind.

"Do keep a sharp eye out, Severus," Dumbledore said. "And have a good night."

Severus grunted and swept out of sight, down the dungeon staircase.

In front of his wardrobe mirror, he peeled back the sleeve of his robes till he could see the Mark. It had steadily darkened these last weeks, until now it had the look of an old tattoo. It didn't hurt, but he felt _something_ when he looked at it, some phantom touch on his soul.

He knew that before too long it would be as black as fresh ink, and the pain would shoot straight to his heart like a binding rope of fire.

He looked at the shoe in his hand and knew that, in some infinitely more terrifying way, that the first of those days had already come and gone.

* * *

Harriet was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. In the velvet darkness, her mind flickered like a lightning storm.

Bloody fucking hell, she didn't _want_ to fancy Snape.

Even _thinking_ it made her feel queasy.

Snape. If she'd dreamt that asking him to the ball would lead to the rise of Voldemort, him finding out she—that she—well, it'd mean the apocalypse, at least. And maybe a black hole would randomly appear and absorb the sun and suck the whole solar system inside it.

Why the bloody, bollocksing hell did she like him anyway? It wasn't as if he was nice, or handsome, or anything anybody seemed to like people for.

 _Viktor Krum isn't nice or handsome_ , she couldn't help thinking—dark, broody, awkward, sullen, duck-footed Viktor Krum.

But Viktor Krum wasn't the meanest teacher in the world. (How had those Ravenclaws' study turned out, anyway? The one they'd been doing at the end of first year. She'd like to see the results; she bet they'd be a scream.) Viktor Krum wasn't Neville's boggart. Viktor Krum didn't make her so angry she exploded jars in his hand.

Maybe she didn't really like him. Maybe. . . maybe this feeling was something else?

 _No._ She knew it, even as she hoped.

She pulled her pillow over her face and moaned into it. Maybe she could just smother herself.

Her blankets shook, then—rather like a small dog was trying to climb up them. Tossing off the pillow, she batted her hand over the side of the bed. "Quit!" she hissed. "You aren't sleeping up here!"

He gave a little whine, but stopped when Parvati (who'd finally come back, giggling and exuberant, long after Harriet and Hermione had crawled into their four-posters) let out a particularly ripping snore. Harriet heard him shuffle back under the bed, and she flopped back down.

 _He's not even good-looking_ , she thought, echoing what Parvati had said on Hallowe'en.

 _He doesn't have to be_ , she, herself, had replied.

She pictured Snape in the garden, his greasy hair—which hadn't looked any different, as if washing it was more than he was willing to do, even on the night of a ball—hanging in ropy strands over one glittering black eye. . .

She stuffed her face back into her pillow.

* * *

Severus rang in the morning with a leisurely repast that consisted of two pots of coffee, as strong as he could brew it. He was meeting with Lupin today, to try and wring werewolf details out of him, and he'd need all the fortification he could get. Secretive bastard.

Severus had no patience for secretive bastards. He was one, and he knew full well the frustration of talking to such a person. People were secretive because they had something to hide. And everything about Lupin was a secret. He'd boxed up every sincere part of himself and hidden it where no one could find, perhaps not even he.

"Let's get this dreary fucking business over with," Severus muttered. Draining his last cup, he wound himself in his winter-weight traveling cloak, grabbed his bag, and left the comfortable solitude of his empty rooms all too soon.

* * *

_She ran through the silver-lit black trees, the frost in the night air spiking in her chest. She needed to get to the lake. She could hear the centaurs' pounding hoof-beatsechoing through the forest, and put on an extra burst of speed. Her breath was heaving, her heart about to burst out of her, because when she got to the lake, she would finally be—  
_

The silvery forest shattered into fading shards of memory when Lavender started screaming.

"HERMIONE!" she shrieked. "Your CAT PEED ON MY SHOES!"

 _Good,_ Harriet thought. _Serves you right for waking me up._

Then her eyes widened as her shocked, sleepy brain caught up. Oh no. Ohhh no—

"Crookshanks would never!" Hermione snapped. "He _hasn't_ ever since he got here!"

"No one _else_ has a pet in here!"

Harriet discretely rolled over so that her upper body was hanging off the bed and peeled back her blankets so she could see beneath the bed. She couldn't see the dog. Maybe he'd got out, somehow, and gone to harass Fred and George to fix him? God, she hoped so.

But when she leaned all the way down till she was practically standing on her head, she saw him cowering behind the pillow she'd loaned him, and looking—as far as she could tell by the way he had his paws clapped over his little doggy eyes—as mortified as he was scared for his life.

Shit. He probably hadn't been able to hold it.

Harriet sighed. She was still royally pissed off about the ball, but she couldn't help feeling sorry for him. It had to have been humiliating, needing to do your doggy business and with no voice to ask for help or hands to let yourself out. And at least he hadn't peed on any of _her_ things. Maybe it was his weird way of saying sorry? He knew that she and Lavender didn't get on.

"Good job aiming for Lavender's stuff," she whispered. "We'll find Fred and George when they leave."

He peeped at her past one of his paws, but he didn't look reassured. Maybe he just didn't believe her.

Lavender and Hermione were now rowing at the top of their lungs, Lavender threatening to turn Crookshanks into a rug, and Hermione shouting that she'd have to learn which way to hold her wand first. Harriet smirked, but she decided that was probably enough.

She threw open her curtains. "MORNING," she said as loudly as she could.

Lavender and Hermione had, as far she knew, never regarded each other with that much fury and loathing before. In fact, they seemed on the verge of jumping at each other and seizing handfuls of hair.

"MORNING," Parvati said hurriedly, at the same volume. Her hair was already perfectly braided, her makeup flawless. For the first time, Harriet appreciated the effort she put into that every single morning. She was also wearing a frenzied sort of smile, which she turned desperately toward Harriet. "How'd you sleep?" she added quickly.

"Fine," Harriet lied, trying to eye Hermione without looking to obvious about it. But she was already reining herself in, turning away from Lavender and striding behind her bed. Lavender still looked primed to kill, though. _Keep talking normally till she cools down._ "I meant to ask you—I sent your mum a letter a couple of weeks ago, but I never got anything back? Is she. . ."

"Oh!" Parvati looked surprised. "She's in Hyderabad, visiting my auntie. She just had twins, Mummy's helping out."

"Oh." _Shit._ "How long will she be there?"

"Till the spring." Parvati shrugged apologetically. "Sorry." Then she turned to Lavender, to begin stage two. "D'you still want to borrow my lilac sweater? Only I think Baudoin would think you looked _amazing_ in it. . ."

 _Well,_ Harriet frowned. _Crap._ Now she had something else to worry about. . .

She pulled clothes at random from her wardrobe and was going to just throw them on, when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She shut her eyes. If she'd thought her hair was bad before. . . well, that'd been before it mashed itself into Sonic the Hedgehog spikes.

"I need a bath," she hissed, crouching down to peer under her bed. "I'll try to be quick. _You_ are staying here—unless you think you can get past Lavender."

 _That_ expression had to be doggy horror.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked. Harriet jumped, banged her head on the underside of her bed, and swore.

"Dropped my wand under the bed," she muttered as she pulled out, rubbing the knot on her skull.

"Sorry," Hermione said, cringing.

"Don't worry about it." Harriet stood, hugging her clothes against her chest. "I'm showering."

To her great credit, Hermione managed not to stare at Harriet's hair. She'd already washed hers, but not too long ago; her curls hadn't yet regained their full strength. "I'll wait for you."

Harriet nodded, feeling awkward, and slipped out of the dorm. She wasn't angry at Hermione, really—just—

Yeah, awkward was a good word for it: that space between the moment you stopped fighting and the moment you made up.

She avoided looking in the bathroom mirror as she turned on the hot water. Soon the steam was thickening the air, and the hot water was stinging her scalp. It felt good. She wanted to wash everything about last night out of her head, but she'd settle for scrubbing it out of her hair.

As she shampoo'd all the Sleakeazy's out—three times—she tried very, very hard not to wonder yet again how it was possible to fancy Snape. It was like a scab in a place that was difficult to reach, but that you felt every time you bumped it against something. And you just wanted to pick at it until blood oozed under your nails and dribbled out as you peeled the scab back, and in the end you pulled too much and it stung as you ripped an extra bit of skin with it. . .

Yeah. About that pleasant.

Snape. Looking at her with cold, glittering loathing the first day of class. Snape. Making her disembowel horned toads. _Snape._ Ignoring her except when something threatened her life, because of the promise he'd made to her mum, who—

Who he loved.

She felt sick.

She turned off the water. Her mouth tasted like shampoo. Or maybe this feeling did.

Wiping her hand across the mirror, she leaned in and stared at her face up close.

"Why?" she whispered.

Her reflection didn't answer, because she didn't know.

* * *

When she returned to the dorm, Lavender and Parvati were gone, and Hermione was sitting at her dresser with the scroll she'd given Harriet spread open before her—editing it. It would have been all too funny if Harriet hadn't felt the creeping sting of misery settling in for a good, long haul.

Not wanting Hermione seeing her face before she got it under control, she hurried behind her bed and bent down to check on the dog. He was curled so miserably on his pillow, his nose tucked into his tail, that she felt the remnants of her anger fraying like a spiderweb knocked apart by a broom. How could she be angry at someone who was as unhappy as herself?

"Come on," she sighed. "Let's go find Fred and George."

She didn't expect him to squirm away from her and try to run.

"Oy!" she said, as he scrabbled farther beneath the bed.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked. "Harriet?"

Well, the cat was out of the bag—or the dog. "Help me get him, would you?" She flopped down on her stomach and crawled after him. He yipped and tried to dart out the other side, but past the flapping edge of her blanket she saw him collide with Hermione's ankles.

She gasped. "Lavender's shoes! It was—this dog? Ow!" she cried a second later. "He bit me!"

"Ron!" Harriet snapped, and then cringed.

" _What_?"

 _SHIT._ Harriet crawled out from under the bed. Hermione, gone completely white, looked like she'd been transfigured to stone. It was on the tip of Harriet's tongue to reassure her that she hadn't said anything incriminating last night—that Harriet hadn't let her—but even saying that much would call attention to it, wouldn't it?

"Fred and George turned him into a dog," she said instead. "It's a new thing they're working on. I couldn't find them last night to reverse it and he didn't want to be left alone in the boys' dorm."

Hermione was still staring at the dog in abject horror—or so Harriet assumed. Hermione was actually staring at the space beneath Harriet's dresser, where Harriet assumed he was cowering.

"So I'm going to take him now," she said, "and find them."

She couldn't say if Hermione had heard any of that. Stepping around her, Harriet hauled the dog out by his tail. But once she'd got him, he huddled against her chest.

"See you in a bit," she said to the stone-like Hermione, and left the dorm.

"What did you try to bite her for?" she fumed at him. "It's not her fault you didn't ask her to the ball before someone else did—"

Too late it occurred to her that this was not the wisest thing to say to him on the brink of this uneasy truce that had only begun because he was helpless and frightened and she was sort of protecting him. But a moment later, it didn't matter.

Because when she opened the door to the common room, she walked straight into Ron.

They stared at each other. They'd both come out of their separate stairwells at the same time. Ron's expression fluctuated through a range of emotions—none of them good—and while Harriet was still trapped, motionless, in her complete astonishment, he walked away without a word, slamming the door to the portrait hole behind him.

Harriet registered a few people giggling, but she was still too dumbstruck to feel anything.

That. . . was Ron. So who. . . was she holding?

Who had she let _sleep_ under her bed?

She stared down at the dog in her arms, who looked like he was trying to shrink himself to be as small as possible.

"Damn," said Fred or George's voice mildly, from close at hand. "Wasn't paying attention. Little oik got right by me. . . Harry? You all right?"

She looked up, distantly registering the freckled face in front of her as Fred's.

"Who'd you turn into a dog?" she asked.

His gaze fell on the shivering ball of fur in her arms, and his eyebrows went up. "Who's this?"

"That's what I'm asking you!"

"We didn't turn anyone into anything, Harry," Fred said, looking at her curiously. "What about you?"

"I didn't—"

And then she remembered.

The capsule. She'd hurled it into the bushes as she'd left—

_MALFOY._

From the way the he'd done a Hermione and turned to stone in her arms, she knew that he knew she'd figured it out.

"How'd you turn someone without meaning to?" Fred asked shrewdly.

 _That's what I'd like to know._ "Counter-spell?" she said roughly.

He eyed her a moment longer, then shrugged. "It's more an antidote, truth be told." He fished in one of his pockets and pulled out a smaller, red capsule with a black skull and crossbones on it.

"Is it poison?" she asked, glaring at the dog. "Hopefully?"

"Just our little joke," Fred said easily. He picked up her hand and clapped the antidote in it. "Have fun, Harry old girl."

Then to her relief, he sauntered away. Harriet hadn't wanted to explain that she'd brought Draco Malfoy into Gryffindor tower.

Gripping the antidote so hard her hand hurt, she climbed through the portrait hole and headed for the closest disused classroom. Shutting the door behind her, she set the dog roughly on the floor, then tossed the capsule at him.

It bounced off his head, but nothing happened except that he yipped and darted beneath a desk.

Harriet swore. "That's how he told me it should work!" Well, he'd said that's how the first one, the one that turned people into helpless little animals, worked—why would this one be any different? They were both capsules!

A thin line bisected the middle—a groove. So it unscrewed? She twisted the top and bottom in opposite directions, and they came apart at once, pouring out a cloud of red smoke. Flinging the capsule away from her, trying not to breathe, she ran out of the room and slammed the door after her.

Braced against the door by her palms, she leaned into it, listening for any yipping or scrabbling claws. But there was no sound of any movement in the room at all.

She wavered—to just leave, hoping he'd changed back, or to look in there?

God, what if his clothes hadn't changed with him?

She shuddered, and almost took off at light-speed.

But was she a bloody Gryffindor or wasn't she?

She pulled the door open just enough to peek in—and saw Malfoy, his hair and fancy robes disheveled, as he crawled out from under the desk. At least he still had his clothes on, thank all four Founders.

Then their eyes met.

Harriet slammed the door and walked away as quickly as she could without being said to be running, because she _was_ a Gryffindor. She told her feet this very sternly as they tried to bolt.

In a dim corner of her mind, she registered that Malfoy had looked as mortified as she felt.

 _I let him sleep under my bed._ She shuddered again.

 _He peed on Lavender's shoes!_ she thought hysterically.

_No wonder he was so scared to be in Gryffindor tower._

She frowned, slowing to a stop in front of the Fat Lady.

"If you're going in, dear," the Fat Lady said, cradling her head, "whisper the password."

"Fairy lights," Harriet whispered, shaking herself back to the present.

It was very odd, to have that sympathy she'd felt for Ron—just enough that she hadn't wanted to hex his ears off—transferred to Malfoy.

But he'd still been in her dorm.

Bastard.

* * *

"Severus will be coming first, Sirius," Remus said wearily. "And then Madam Pomfrey."

"I don't want that fucking traitor anywhere near you," Sirius said, yet again.

"Well, too bad. He's the only one who could possibly solve what's gone wrong with the Wolfsbane."

"I still think he's the reason it fucking went wrong in the first place." And, again.

Remus closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of his chair. He had debated with himself, in the endless hours when he was so weak he could barely move, when Sirius had paced and raved, as if the long months since he'd escaped Azkaban had never happened—as if his return to something like normalcy had only been a veil over a deeper disturbance—whether he should tell Sirius that he and Snape had read the same reports and both come to the same conclusion: the Wolfsbane sounded like a poison.

But then Sirius would be angry with him. Sirius would feel betrayed by him. And as exhausting as it was to endure his anger towards Snape, Remus didn't know how to face Sirius' anger toward himself. So he'd said nothing beyond maintaining that the potion was to blame, not Snape. Over and over, he'd said it.

It made no difference to Sirus, of course, and now Remus didn't bother to say even that.

He did not particularly want to see Snape today, but Dumbledore had reminded him, very gently, how much Harriet would grieve for him, should anything irreversible befall him; how she'd asked for a visit, and he had granted her one for today, Boxing Day. It was manipulation of the cruelest, most loving kind: it was a request he could not deny and yet hated to grant; that made him feel both terribly selfish and deeply resentful. He would have to be cheerful for Harriet, when he did not feel cheerful at all; he would have to face her worry and her pain, when he wanted to be left alone; he would have to be comforting, when there was no comfort to be had.

So he kept his eyes closed, as Sirius muttered and prowled about the room. Remus was almost looking forward to Snape coming. At least he would not have to pretend with Snape the same way he would with Harriet.

* * *

Hermione looked up, hands twisted together, when Harriet came in the dorm. She looked pale, and her hair frizzier than it had been earlier, as if she'd been pulling at it.

"You were gone longer than I thought you'd be," she said.

For a second, Harriet considered playing along with their earlier assumption that the dog had been Ron. But if Hermione talked to him, she'd be bound to figure out it wasn't.

"I was wrong. It wasn't Ron."

Hermione looked like she might faint. "It. . . wasn't?"

"No. Not that you'd said anything the night before. That would mean he knew."

Hermione put her hands over her face. "Thank _God_. . ." Then it occurred to her, as Harriet knew it would. Dropping her hands with a confused frown, she said, "Then who was it?"

Harriet did _not_ want to tell her the truth. At least she knew Malfoy wouldn't, either. She didn't know much more about him than"Mudblood" and "my father" being some of his favorite words, but she was certain of that.

"No one important," she said instead.

Hermione studied her. She didn't look reassured. Bloody hell, Harriet hoped Hermione wouldn't hound her for a straight answer. She'd had just about enough of that—particularly, as Hermione had pointed out last night, seeing as _she_ was just as evasive.

But Hermione let it go. "I've been making some changes to the letter I wrote you."

Harriet couldn't help it; she groaned. "Hermione. . ."

"I—I really think you should read it," Hermione's voice jumped in pitch, the way it always did when she was nervous. "Or—or I could read it to you?"

Harriet was going to say _maybe later_ , but with Hermione looking at her like that, biting her lip, she couldn't.

"All right," she said tiredly. "If I can lie down, though."

"Of course," Hermione said hurriedly. She even sounded a bit relieved.

As Harriet stretched out on her own bed, it occurred to her that Hermione was probably thankful not to have Harriet looking at her as she read it. . . and that maybe she was a bit thankful, too, to have to listen to this, because then at least she wouldn't be thinking about how bloody awful it was to fancy someone who would never, ever feel the same way, even if all the stars in the sky melted and the sea boiled itself to ash—and who you might not even want to.

"Dear Harriet," Hermione said, in the same tone she would read from any book, "I'm so very, very sorry. I feel so very stupid right now, and silly. . ."

Harriet did almost look at her then, because she knew Hermione saw stupidity in herself as a sign of failure, which scared her more than anything else in the world.

Her memory flashed back to the staff room last year, as the wardrobe opened and Snape-the-boggart stepped out, eyes glittering with cunning malice, looking so much like the real thing that her stomach flipped. . .

She stomped that thought down and tried to focus on Hermione's voice:

". . . and I don't know why it's so hard to tell you the truth about the way I feel, only that it is. I want to be brave, but sometimes I'm afraid that the Sorting Hat put me into Gryffindor because I wanted it so badly. I wanted us to be in the same House, because I wanted to be with someone who seemed to want to be my friend."

Harriet did glance over at her, then. Hermione had raised the scroll so that it was screening her face. She had never told Harriet this before.

She remembered seeing Hermione in Ollivander's, but not talking to her; they'd only met properly on the train, Hermione already in her school robes and talking a hundred miles an hour. Harriet had been so desperately relieved that someone wanted to talk to her, because she'd been afraid she'd be just alone at Hogwarts as she'd always been at Muggle school. Hermione had never really talked about her days before Hogwarts, but Harriet had always wondered if they hadn't been like her own.

"And you're right, you've been right all along," Hermione read on, her voice wavering. "I do f-fancy R-ron. And I know it should be such a little thing, to tell your best friend when you like a boy, but for some reason it's not. I keep wondering if I really do fancy him, or if it's only in a bad way—I feel so horridly jealous when he stares starstruck at Fleur, but isn't that a terrible reason to think you like someone, because you hate them looking at other people? And sometimes I get so angry and impatient with him, and I wonder if it can be honest liking if I feel so horrid like this. . ."

Okay, maybe this hadn't been such a good thing to be hearing.

". . . but when I knew you had to ask him to the ball I felt so very small because a part of me knew he was going to take one look at you in your dress and fall in love with you—"

"What?" Harriet blurted, sitting halfway up.

Hermione actually cringed. " _Please_ don't make me stop or I won't be able to get through it."

Harriet lay back down, and after a moment, her reading-tone now tinged with mortification, Hermione read on:

"—and I found myself wondering if Ron was the boy you fancied—"

" _What_?" Harriet said, sitting all the way up.

Hermione dropped the scroll into her lap, looking defeated. "I don't think he is _now_ —"

Harriet struggled to find words to address her profound horror. If anything could have been worse than fancying Snape— "God, no!"

Hermione slumped, as if for the first time in days she could finally relax. "I didn't think so," she said weakly. "Not really. You never acted self-conscious around him. . . but I figured it had to be someone you wouldn't tell me about. . ."

Harriet said nothing. She hadn't told Hermione because she hadn't known, but admitting that would only send Hermione into a tailspin of curiosity as she tried to figure out how and why Harriet had been enlightened, and who about. She couldn't truthfully say that Hermione was the last person she wanted to know, because _that_ was most certainly Snape—but she didn't want _anyone_ to know. The fact that _she_ knew was enough to make her want to Obliviate herself.

"It isn't Ron," was all she said.

Hermione nodded, a bit timidly. "I know that now, I do. I'm sorry—"

"You like him. Liking someone makes you think weird things." She wondered how that worked in her case. Liking Snape in the first place seemed like the weirdest thing she could possibly do. How the hell had it even happened?

"Should I go on?" Hermione asked tentatively.

"No." Harriet could pretty well guess. "I thought you were mad at me for asking him."

Hermione swallowed. "I—can you believe I didn't think of that, at first? Not until I saw you at the ball, and you and Ron were clearly fighting—" She was wringing the letter now, ruining it. "I just felt so embarrassed that I hid away, and I convinced myself when you gave me the jewelry that you understood. I was so—but when you and Ron. . . fell out at the dance, I knew I'd, I'd been wrong. . ."

Except she apparently hadn't guessed part of that falling out had happened because Ron was jealous that she'd gone with Krum. Should Harriet tell her? Was that her place?

"I really am so sorry," Hermione said wretchedly. "I ruined the dance for you."

 _Not in the way you think._ _And it wasn't really your fault._ "Why didn't you ask Ron to the ball in the first place?"

Hermione dropped her eyes to the ruined letter in her hands. "I wasn't brave enough."

And Harriet decided not to tell her, at least not for now. She didn't know what good it would do, or what bad. . . but it didn't seem right to tell other people's feelings for them. Or was it right, when you were the only one who knew both sides?

 _I'll ask Remus when I see him_ , she thought—and then she remembered.

"Shit!" She scrambled up from the bed. "I'm supposed to go see Remus and Sirius today! I completely forgot—"

"Oh, no. I did, too!" Hermione looked more aghast at this failure of her memory than anything they'd said so far. "Oh no, you should already have been downstairs!"

"Shit, shit, shit!" Harriet dashed about, looking for her coat and mittens and scarf—

"I've got the mittens and the scarf," Hermione said, as if reading her mind, "where are your Wellies? Go, run, I'll find them and bring them to you—"

In a whirlwind of winter gear, Harriet tore down the stairs, through the common room, out the portrait hole, and down the seven flights of stairs to the main floor. Madam Pomfrey stood beside the double doors, swathed in a thick grey traveling cloak and looking none too pleased.

"At last, Miss Potter. I was beginning to despair of your ever joining me."

"Suh. . . sorry," Harriet wheezed. It was hard to put on a scarf when you could barely breathe.

Hermione clattered down the stairs behind her, huffing and clutching at a stitch in her side, the Wellies tucked under one arm. "Huh-here," she panted, dropping them.

Madam Pomfrey waited with a fair imitation of patience as Harriet got wrapped up. Hermione had also thought to bring her hat.

"Tell Professor Lupin I said hi," Hermione whispered.

Harriet nodded, and waved as she followed Madam Pomfrey out the door. Hermione waved back, giving a tentative smile.

 _Not fighting_ , Harriet thought. _Not angry. Still awkward._

She trudged after Madam Pomfrey down the icy path, toward the gates. It felt good, to be walking away from Hogwarts after last night. The cold wind seemed to cut straight through her, cleansing some of that icky darkness out of her.

And at least she was leaving Snape behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry if Wellies aren't the shoes to wear to trek through snow. Are they just rain boots, and not cover-your-shoes-in-all-weather boots? /lives where "winter" means "it was below 60F for three days straight."
> 
> -Credit: the chapter title is a line from Tarja's song, "I Walk Alone."
> 
> -YOU ARE ALL SO AWESOME I CANNOT do anything except flail in caps and fling glitter  
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧


	74. Ineffectual Remedies

The tension in the little sitting-room was of the sullen variety that formed when two people who disliked each other intensely, but who'd been forced to meet each other enough to dull the edge if not the feeling, had to sit around in each other's company. Snape hadn't been there long, so the unpleasantness formed only a film between them so far, but before long—judging by the look on his face—it would congeal into a substance that even Harriet's future arrival probably wouldn't be able to budge.

"Where's your mongrel lover?" Snape asked with a well-practiced sneer.

"Albus took him off somewhere." Remus supposed he could make a comment toward the way they acted like a pair of five-year-olds who wanted the same toy broomstick, but that would have required some effort. "For a walk, I think."

Snape's sneer changed subtly, to one probably intended to communicate that Dumbledore had some sense after all; or maybe it was heartfelt disappointment that he and Sirius wouldn't get to bait each other.

"Excellent weather for it," Snape said with heavy scorn. The weather obliged by hurling a gust of wind down the chimney, making the fire hiss and spit.

Snape set his bag, the black, battered leather one that reminded Remus of doctors in historical dramas, down on the counter

"You know why I'm here, I dare to hope."

"To see what can be done about the Wolfsbane," Remus said.

"Yes." Snape looked at him in a way that surely would have made poor Neville faint behind his cauldron. "So you will cooperate."

"I believe I always cooperate."

Snape's sneer perfectly communicated what he thought about that. "So you may believe, Lupin. Just don't waste my time if you expect to get any results."

"I'm not sure what you're saying, Severus." Remus tried not to show his irritation, if only because it would make Snape even more irritating.

Snape looked at him like he was stupid. Snape was better at that look than anyone Remus had ever known. He did How Can You Be So Incredibly Stupid the way the Malfoys did How Can You Be So Incredibly Underbred.

"It's exactly what you are doing now." Snape snapped open his bag. "It's exactly what you are always doing." He started extracting things from the bag, but Remus was too exhausted to pay attention to what they were. From the sound of glass and metal tinking against the counter top, it was vials and things.

"Existing?" he couldn't help saying.

"If you want to keep on existing, you'll be honest with me." Snape's stare was cold. "You will tell me every wretched little detail that you usually withhold from thinking—like the self-deluding fool you are—that it will protect what's left of your werewolf pride. You can have as much pride in yourself as Lucius Malfoy and I wouldn't give you a corroded knut for it. No one can possibly think less of you than I, so you might as well stop lying."

Remus didn't know whether to be confused or furious. Perhaps both. "I'm not ly—"

"You always lie," Snape said. "This entire, polite, fussy persona you project is a lie. You lie with everything you say and do."

Remus stared at him. Was Snape seriously saying that controlling your worst impulses around people was akin to twisting your fundamental self? That would explain why he acted like an utter dick all the time, but it would almost explain it too well. Surely no one could be that naive. Snape couldn't think he was the only person who thought in the privacy of their minds what he said and did with every human interaction.

"So. . ." Snape's stare bored into him, like a human drill. "How do you feel?"

 _Like throwing you headfirst out in the snow_. "Exhausted."

"You thought something just now that you didn't say," Snape said, narrowing his eyes.

Remus sighed. Snape wanted a fight; he always wanted a fight. The difference between him and Sirius was that Sirius only wanted to fight his enemies, whereas with Snape, everyone was an enemy. Whether you were polite or rude, he found a way to make you sorry you were talking to him. It was exhausting. "Yes, Severus, because it was sarcastic. I feel lethargic, too. I can't muster the energy to do anything, nor do I particularly want to."

Snape frowned at him, as if he was working out the exact amount of honesty in this reply, before scratching something in a little notebook. "All other physical symptoms, if you'd be so kind."

Despite the effort it took, Remus did not groan. "Pain."

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

"Helpful," Snape said caustically.

"I'm not being glib, Severus. I ache all over. I have trouble breathing."

Snape frowned as he jotted this down. "That's consistent with aconite poisoning, if more drawn out. Anyone else would be dead by now."

"It's lasted since I stopped taking the potion."

"But you didn't notice it before?"

"It was taking me longer to recover from the transformation, but that was. . . different. The pain is. . . more intense. This pain is chronic but more manageable. But I just. . . have no energy."

"You're probably depressed," Snape said, as if he couldn't care less. "The exact cause remains to be seen."

 _Depressed because I'm an uncontrollable monster again?_ Remus thought.

Sirius had been watching him like a hawk for a month. Under that fierce, desperate scrutiny, Remus had had two options available to him: go mad, or give up.

He'd given up. Speaking as little as necessary, staring out windows at the unremitting gray and white of winter, listening to the howl of the wind and the oppressive silence of the highland moors, he simply existed. He ate food if Sirius put it in front of him. He answered when asked questions. He relayed messages to Harriet through Sirius' letters to her.

He just didn't care about any of it. Even the parts that concerned Harriet seemed somehow far away from him. When, by the way, would she be coming? Lord, not for an hour or more. That meant an hour or more of Snape.

He almost cared about that.

"The full moon is in a few days," Snape observed, with an indifferent glance at his book. "Any symptoms from the impending transformation?"

"I told you," Remus said, and found that he did not care about Snape's persistent refusal not to cling to werewolf inaccuracies. "I don't 'feel the moon.'" Werewolf lore was rubbish—written by wizards and witches who were obsessed with werewolf mythology the way necromancers were obsessed with corpses. "I feel the post-transformation because every bone in my body has broken and re-set itself twice in a twelve hour period. It's hardly a mythical cause."

Most people would have flinched from hearing it put like that. Snape didn't even seem to care. "This could be why you aren't dead yet. The Wolfsbane might have failed to poison you fatally because your body is built to withstand things that would kill. . . others."

Remus blinked. "But aconite is fatal to werewolves."

"Have you ever known a werewolf who ingested any? You said yourself that the lore is rubbish. You've handled silver in my presence."

Remus opened and closed his mouth. "But—Wolfsbane, the potion, is poison. You said so yourself—"

"Aconite is poison whether it kills you or not. The same is true of the Wolfsbane. It's clearly done something to you." Snape spun his pencil round in his fingers, from pinky to index finger, without seeming to realize he was doing it. He was staring at Remus. "Werewolf physiology—"

"I know, Severus," Remus said. They'd gone over this a year and a half ago. Remus went over it again with every transformation.

"Even you don't know much of anything about werewolves," Snape went on. "You had no idea you'd doubled in size."

Despite not having any energy to move, Remus felt himself growing even more still.

"Did Black not tell you?" Snape was still watching him, like a cat observing a mouse that was playing dead. Snape knew Sirius hadn't said anything. He'd wanted to be the one to tell him.

"He mentioned it," Remus said.

Snape's face changed subtly—with, Remus realized, a very thin smile. He knew Remus was lying.

"At first I thought that solved the mystery of your harsher recovery after the recent full moons," Snape said, satisfaction clear in his voice, like a cloud of breath in the frigid morning air. "But that made little sense. Even if Black hadn't lost so many of his precious memories of running around with you and Potter and Pettigrew, nearly ripping out everyone's throats, you couldn't have suddenly grown so much in such a short period. The more logical explanation is that Black did forget exactly how big you should be, and something else was affecting you at the same time. Which brings us back to this."

He set a vial down on the table in front of the sofa. It was a bright, ruby red, like the jeweled eye of a Gryffindor lion.

"What's that?" Remus asked warily.

"My first attempt at an antidote. I've isolated the poisons affecting you as best I can. There are more than a few noxious substances in the Wolfsbane, but the three that seem to be affecting you the most are aconite, hellebore, and valerian. This is attempting to account for all of them."

The bright red color was somehow leering at him. "Aren't all three of those things poisonous?"

"Yes, Lupin. How many times do I have to tell you? The Wolfsbane is a poison. If any non-lycanthrope drank it, it should kill them on the spot. It should kill you on the spot," he added, turning a page in his notebook and scribbling, "but werewolves appear to be that different. I can only guess at what effect this will have."

"Thank you for making it," Remus said, even though he had no desire to take it. "I do appreciate your time, Severus—"

"Spare me," Snape said, looking annoyed now. "Just take the damn potion and don't _waste_ my time."

Remus did not roll his eyes. "Pass it to me, will you?"

* * *

Harriet was cold. Very cold. Extremely cold. She might possibly have never been colder.

"Come along, Miss Potter," Madam Pomfrey called for, Harriet thought, the sixty-first time. Maybe she thought it would make Harriet feel warmer.

They were only walking to the gates; Madam Pomfrey carving a trench in the snow with her wand, Harriet struggling duckling-style behind her. It was just the wind. And the driving snow. Harriet had Impervioused her glasses, but she could barely keep her head up because of the wind blasting snow in her face. The world was white, and had she mentioned the fucking cold?

Madam Pomfrey managed to get the gate open—it took a spell—and they staggered onto the road. The wind flung the gate shut. Then Madam Pomfrey took Harriet's arm and Apparated them to Remus and Sirius' croft.

The wind was even worse out on the open hill. Harriet couldn't see anything beyond the white.

Harriet stuck as close as she could to Madam Pomfrey's back as they fought their way to the back door. Madam Pomfrey knocked, waited a moment, then opened the door herself and pushed Harriet inside.

Harriet stumbled into the laundry room, shedding snow across the stone floor. She brushed more snow out of her hair and knocked it off her coat—and then felt a rippling surge of magic card across her skin and hair. Her glasses fogged as a puff of steam rise around her.

"A useful spell to master, Miss Potter," Madam Pomfrey said, as Harriet wiped at her steamed-up lenses.

"Remus?" Madam Pomfrey called as she stepped out of the laundry room. The sitting-room and kitchen, which were part of the same open room, were empty. A fire popped in the fireplace, though the room still felt like a meat locker.

"Are they upstairs?" Harriet asked as something scraped and thumped above their heads.

"Wait here, Miss Potter." Shedding her cloak, Madam Pomfrey strode through the kitchen, into the sitting-room, and started climbing the stars. Harriet waited till Madam Pomfrey was out of sight before edging toward the staircase to see what was going on.

"What's happened?" Harriet heard Madam Pomfrey ask.

"He drank my first attempt at an antidote," replied a voice that made all of Harriet's blood freeze like a blast of winter wind had just passed through her veins.

Snape

was

here.

Oh God. Snape was here. Oh God. Why, why, why was he here?!

 _Antidote, he said_ , piped up the only part of her brain that was not immobilized by sheer terror. Wolfsbane then.

Maybe she should pretend to catch a sudden, deadly illness that would require Madam Pomfrey to sweep her back to the castle immediately? She'd gladly stick herself in the hospital wing all night long if it meant that she wouldn't have to face—

"And he's throwing it all back up again?" Madam Pomfrey asked, her voice muffling as she made it all the way upstairs. "Are you sure you didn't give him a purgative?"

"The poison has been in his system for so long that that would hardly be effective," Snape replied, following her, while

Harriet stayed rooted to the floor, just feet from the staircase. So, this was what Hermione had felt like when she'd thought the dog was Ron.

She glanced frantically around the sitting-room to see where she could hide. The bedroom and bathroom were upstairs; down here, there was only the laundry, kitchen and sitting-room. The furniture was big enough to hide behind, but that was hardly going to fool anyone.

She heard the adults creaking around upstairs and ducked down behind the sofa. Just as a precaution.

Surely Snape wouldn't come looking for her. He never cared what she was doing; why should he start now?

Just to be contrary, and cause me trouble. Merlin and Godric, why did she fancy someone who was such a git?

She immediately tried to wipe all thoughts of fancying anyone from her brain. Snape had always given her the impression that he could read minds. He couldn't find out. If anyone found out, she'd have to smother herself in a snowbank. If he found out. . .

Hm, that was probably what it felt like when your body stopped pumping blood around.

She could hear the adults' voices filtering down the stairs. Nobody seemed really to care that she wasn't there.

It was starting to get boring, behind the sofa. Panic was only so interesting, and the ugly paisley pattern on the upholstery wasn't interesting at all.

At least there was stuff under her fingernails to pick at.

. . . How long were they going to murmur up there? When was Snape going to leave Remus, and the house altogether, without ever coming near the sofa and finding her crouched back there?

She hoped Remus was okay. If Snape hadn't been up there, she'd have gone to see how he was doing, to hell with Madam Pomfrey's scolding. But she couldn't face. . .

Someone was coming down the stairs.

The tread sounded heavier than Madam Pomfrey's.

Harriet pressed her back against the couch and hugged her knees. Her heart started beating more strongly with every beat that she was surprised the sofa wasn't ringing like a drum.

She didn't dare peer around the couch. She tried to stay perfectly still, hoping the dim light in the room would cloak her.

The windows were coated with frost, and the fire drew long shadows out of the furniture.

 _Get your things and leave_ , she prayed. _Just get your things and leave._

He stopped in the middle of the sitting room—just stopped. She held her breath. A sense of deja vu overtook her: curled up beneath the Invisibility Cloak behind Snape's armchair, while Dumbledore told him what had happened to Remus. . .  
She couldn't believe she'd gone to his bloody rooms and badgered him into letting her in in the middle of the night. Or maybe she could, because after all she bloody fancied him.

Snape strode past her hiding place and into the kitchen. She tried to edge behind the other end of the sofa without him seeing her.

She could hear his boots cracking on the kitchen floor. He seemed to be looking for something. . .

 _Not me. Please not me_ , she begged, and she meant it, she did, even at the same time her heart gave a little flutter at the thought of him caring enough where she was to look for her. She wanted to slap her heart silly.

"Miss Potter," said his voice from above her head, as her silly heart collapsed in on itself, "why are you crouched behind the sofa?"

Oh God oh God oh Godohgod. . .

Slowly, the bones in her neck creaking, she looked up.

He was scowling, his face settling into it so easily you might as well call it permanent; scowling down his beaky nose with his black eyes that were either glittering cold with indifference and scorn or searing hot with fury. His hair was so greasy it had separated into clumps, hanging around his face. It was the Christmas holiday and he was on his own time, yet he was still wearing those black robes that billowed everywhere, and really were rather a silly get-up when you got right down to it, and which he probably only wore because he was so skinny.

Her heart did a funny little flop, like it had back-flipped into a tub of warm water.

"Miss Potter?" he said, narrowing his eyes.

Even more slowly, as if she was being pulled to her feet by a drunken puppeteer, she got to her feet. She swayed for a moment, because all her blood was stuck in her hands and feet and not pumping through her body like it should.

Snape just kept staring at her, like he was waiting for her to start making sense. There was an annoyed edge to his stare, that was trying to pull some of her blood through her body to flood her face.

 _Hide hide hidehidehide_ —

Madam Pomfrey's voice was on the stairs. And Remus's.

They were out of the loo.

Harriet turned and charged for the staircase. She shoved between a bewildered Madam Pomfrey and pale-faced Remus (who was leaning on the stair-rail), and dived into the loo, where she slammed the door, locked it, and leaned against it.

"Someone kill me," she mumbled, sliding to the floor.

Voldemort would sign right up.

Funny how that didn't make her feel any better. It wasn't as if he was back yet, after all.

* * *

"Miss Potter," Severus said, "you will tell me what has got into you."

At least, he would have said that if Miss Potter hadn't bolted from the room in a very similar manner to last night. Identical, in truth. What was the matter with her?

Perhaps she'd contracted food poisoning? No, the house-elves would never have committed such a solecism. A flu?

_Or she's simply acting like a teenage girl. "More experience"—Dumbledore, you have no idea what you're on about._

Even a Leglimens would find it a challenge to fathom the inner-workings of Miss Potter's head. It held more snarls than her hair.

"What did you say to her?" Pomfrey demanded as she helped Lupin down the last stair. Lupin was accepting it, but with the screaming body language of a man who wanted to throw her hand off and insist that he was perfectly fine.

An urge to defend himself rose in Severus' throat; he strangled it. "Ask her yourself, if you're so concerned," he sneered. "Are you done with my notes, or do you mean to hog them further?"

Pomfrey was not impressed with this reply, but she wasn't the type to be easily bated. "I've made a copy of them, thank you. That's all I need from you."

He grabbed the notebook back from her and dropped it into his bag. Then he left without another word or backwards glance.

Irritation prickled at him. All that way he'd come, all the effort he'd gone to, and he hadn't even had the satisfaction of baiting Black. Wherever Dumbledore had taken him, he'd very effectively kept him out of the way.

And now he had a whole day ahead of him to be spent puzzling through Lupin's symptoms and tinkering with various potions and antidotes with little, if any, results. All for a man whose obituary he'd have framed and hung over the fireplace.

Well, it was better than teaching.

* * *

Remus answered all of Poppy's questions and endured her tests with increasing difficulty. It was easier to weather Snape's nastiness than Poppy's kindly fussing. But she meant well, he reminded himself every five seconds, so he would do everything in his power not to seem relieved when she began to pack up to go.

She frowned as she scanned the quiet sitting-room. "Where has that girl got to?"

Harriet still hadn't appeared. "Dumbledore is going to take her back later."

"Yes, he told me." She checked her watch, though it seemed to be for form's sake only. "Well, I've a school full of mischief-loving adolescents to supervise, and I've left them to their own devices long enough. I'm sure you'll excuse my letting myself out."

"Thank you for everything, Poppy." He should have said it to Severus, too, but he'd left in a huff.

Poppy patted his hand, wrapped herself in her cloak, and left him to the lonely sound of the wind beating against the croft and the fire popping in the hearth.

Alone. No Harriet.

He was just about to attempt heaving himself up, to go looking for her, when she came slinking into the room. That was the only word for it: she looked shifty, wary, and desperately hopeful.

"Has—have they gone?" she asked, the hope and wariness warring for dominance.

"Yes. It's just you and me."

She sighed, a sound as thick with relief as the wind outside with snow, and dropped into an armchair. She rubbed at her eyes beneath her glasses, a gesture James had made when he was particularly exhausted or fed up with something, while Remus tried very hard not to be too obvious about studying her. A concerned, affectionate look would be best, instead of a scrutinizing stare that tried to penetrate to the back of her skull.

She dropped her hands and peered at him. "You look really tired."

He couldn't help smiling at this James-like strength of observation. "I feel really tired."

"Sn—that potion," she said, coloring while she made a clear attempt to keep her face straight. "It made you sick?"

"I don't think it had the effect Severus intended, no." Her color fluctuated still further, though she only nodded. "I feel rather worn out as a result."

"You could take a nap," Harriet said. "Or I could make tea."

"If I napped, I'd miss your company," he said, and now that she was here, he didn't want that.

"Tea, then," she said, pushing herself out of the armchair. "You want toast?"

"Please." He considered protesting that he should make it, and then simply gave it up. He felt worn straight through, past bone to the gossamer scraps that made up his soul; and Harriet, unlike Sirius, wouldn't understand the significance of letting himself be waited upon.

As she clattered about the kitchen, he watched her. That reaction to Snape begged to be understood. As Sirius had noted that summer at the World Cup, Harriet was not afraid of Snape; if anything, she acted almost comfortable with him. No one in the world aside from Dumbledore would have dared observe to Snape's face that he and Sirius enjoyed fighting with each other; and there was an endless difference between a venerable old wizard of whom even Voldemort was wary and a skinny fourteen-year-old girl.

And now she was running from him and hiding in the bathroom for a half hour.

A dark thought touched the back of Remus' mind. No, he thought, surely. . .

Harriet did not look frightened as she took the whistling kettle off the stove. She didn't look like she'd been through a terrible ordeal. She did look pale, and puffy-eyed, and none too happy, though. . .

It couldn't be. It surely wasn't.

But it could. It might be.

Remus did his best to sit up properly when Harriet returned bearing a tray with several thick slices of buttered toast and a teapot. "Thank you, dear," he said, accepting a cup and trying not to let his hands shake. Setting the saucer aside helped. "I can't help noticing you look almost as tired as me."

"The ball was last night," she muttered. "It fucking blew."

Sirius and Snape really were terrible role models. He should probably say something about her language. Well, he was a terrible role model, too. Lily would have strung the lot of them up by their toes.

"What happened?" he asked, with sympathy.

She peeped at him over the rim of her cup, hunched down in her chair. Then she poured out the whole sorry tale, from the venomous bite on Neville's foot, to Hermione avoiding her and Ron storming off the dance floor, to the gauntlet she'd run in the garden.

"And my dress got completely ruined," she finished, looking as if this was honestly the worst part of what sounded like a truly dreadful evening. "The skirt's all torn and there's blood on it."

"The house-elves might be able to do something with it," he said thoughtfully. "They managed to keep James and Sirius in clean robes for seven years, and I couldn't even list all the things they managed to get on themselves."

Her aggrieved expression lightened, hope shining in. "House-elves. . . yeah. . . thanks," she said, looking at him like he was the cleverest person she knew. Sweet girl.

"You're more than welcome. I'd hate never to have seen this famous dress properly."

"It was gorgeous," she said, a dreamy expression flitting across her face.

"I'm sure you looked very beautiful."

She blushed the way people did when they weren't used to compliments, and then slowly turned bright red, like a kettle filling with hot water. "Not toward the end, I didn't," she muttered, and buried her face in her tea cup.

They sat sipping tea in the silence that edged in to fill the space. It was an awkward silence. Remus munched toast and tried to think of an unobtrusive way to ask a very obtrusive question, while Harriet—fidgeted. She was not normally a fidgety child. Unease flowed through him.

"Harriet," he started, then stopped. She blinked at him, waiting. "I. . ." There was no good way to ask. "Earlier, you. . . did Professor Snape say something to upset you?"

Harriet colored, but shook her head. She gulped at her tea. Her clear anxiety did not assuage Remus' unease.

"Did he say something to upset you last night?" (Head shake, practically raising the teacup to hide her face.) "At any time?"

She tipped the cup all the way up, clearly draining it, then lowered it and reached for the tea pot. "No," she mumbled, her face pointed at the floor.

Bugger it all; he was going to have to be direct. "Harriet, has Professor Snape done anything—inappropriate? Towards you?"

"What? No." Harriet looked up for the first time, her expression horrified, even mortified. "He'd never in a million—and he's such a git, it's not like he thinks I'm—I mean, he—I—did you know some Ravenclaws did a study to find out if he was the meanest teacher in the world? And—he's a git—I said that, right? Er. . ."

She'd gone so red that it was possible all the blood in her body was currently residing in her head. Remus tried not to let his astonishment show. Since Snape had such a high opinion of his aptitude as a liar, this shouldn't be difficult. . . except that Remus couldn't ever remember being this astonished.

Snape hadn't done anything to Harriet. He didn't have any designs on her.

It was the other way around.

 _Harriet_ had a crush on _Snape_.

"Sounds like an interesting study," he said, and managed to sound extremely normal. "I don't suppose you've read it? Those are results I'd be interested in seeing. . ."

"I don't know any Ravenclaws," she said, looking like someone who had just managed to scrape past a near-death experience.

"A pity," Remus said lightly.

She jerked her head in something that was probably supposed to have been a nod. "Tea's gone cold. I'll make more tea. You want more tea? I'll make more tea."

She jumped up and ran to the kitchen, where, from the sound of things, she tried to dive headlong into a cabinet. Remus put a hand to his forehead, then scraped it down his face.

Harriet had a crush on Snape.

Next he was going to find out that—well, he couldn't think of anything else as unlikely.

It would have boggled the mind to find out that _anyone_ was attracted to Snape. The man was unpleasant inside and out. But that Harriet would find something appealing in a bitter, repressed, mean-spirited bully of children. . .

He reminded himself how adolescent hormones rewired the brain. Although still, that would require being attracted to _Snape_ , of all people. . . erugh.

Maybe this was what defeating a powerful Dark wizard as a baby did to you. Harriet had gone up against Voldemort as an eleven-year-old to save a _rock_ , for the love of Merlin. She'd battled a Basilisk at twelve, faced off against a convicted murderer at thirteen, and recently out-flown a fire-breathing dragon. Yes, that had to be it—when you were inured to deadly situations from childhood, normal crushes simply didn't cut it.

Thank God Sirius wasn't here. Unfortunately, when it came to matters of the heart, he _wasn't_ as dense as a brick. That had been James' department.

Remus stretched his arm across his face. What a predicament. . .

At least Snape wasn't likely to encourage her. Snape wasn't likely to encourage anyone at anything.

* * *

Harriet splashed icy water on her cheeks in the hopes that that would cool it off. She was sure she could've cracked a couple of eggs on her face and fried them.

"Bugger, bugger, _bugger_ ," she hissed.

First Molly about Remus, and now Remus about Snape. . .

It turned out that conversation never got any less awkward. Who were they going to suspect next? Maybe Snape would interrogate her about Sirius.

She was tempted to stick her whole head under the faucet.

"Bloody _fucking_ hell," she muttered. It didn't feel obscene enough to properly express her feelings. "Motherfucking _shit_."

At any other time, she wouldn't have minded talking about Snape. Before last night, Snape had been a puzzle she'd wanted to sort. Maybe three puzzles in one.

Well, now she had a good idea of what at least part of that curiosity was about.

The kettle whistled. For a blessed minute or so, she focused intently on making tea and aggressively thought about what she and Remus could talk about that wasn't Snape. How about the deadly side-effects of the Wolfsbane (decidedly not thinking about where the Wolfsbane or the cure would come from)? That should do it.

Except when she carried the tea back into the sitting-room, she found that Remus had fallen sound asleep.

He'd slumped against the sofa's arm-rest, his own arm laid across his face. She'd always heard that people looked peaceful when they were asleep, though she'd never seen it herself—Hermione scrunched up her face; Parvati snored; Lavender drooled. Remus only looked more tired.

She set the tea very carefully down on the table, trying not to let the teapot clink. Remus turned his head, his arm slipping down, but he didn't really stir. She pulled the afghan off the armchair and draped it over him, and then felt a bit silly, because Remus gave off twice as much body heat as anyone else.

She, however, felt like a slightly thawed block of ice.

Rubbing her arms, she frowned at the fire. It had crept down low, the wood eaten away to ash. She didn't know the first thing about building it up; the Dursleys' fireplace was electric. She knew Incendio, but she wasn't old enough to use magic. She wasn't about to wake Remus up and ask him to light it for her.

Maybe she'd need the afghan after all.

She eyed Remus where he was slumped on the couch.

She curled up carefully on the couch next to him, tucking the blanket around them both. He still didn't stir. It was nice and warm next to him. He was as good as a heater.

She'd rest her eyes a bit. She hadn't got good sleep last night. . . and it wasn't as if there was anything else to do until Sirius got back, and lit the fire again. . .

Just a little rest. . .

* * *

Harriet awoke to a heaviness on her legs, surrounded by warmth. Light played behind her lids. Oh. . . so someone had re-lit the fire. . .

She opened her eyes. Yes, the fire had been stoked in the grate, and the heavy thing on her legs was Padfoot. He was curled up mostly on Remus, but his hind legs were stretched across Harriet's legs. She'd wound up lying lengthwise on the sofa, facing across the room, with Remus curled around her, his arm draped over hers.

She felt suddenly, intensely embarrassed, and started trying to squirm free. Of course, that made Remus stir. With one extra burst of strength she pulled away, and landed with a thump on the floor.

"Wha?" Remus said groggily. "Pa'foot? Where. . . where's Harry?"

"Right here," she said, slithering up into an armchair and trying to make it look as if she'd been there the whole time.  
Remus propped himself up on his elbow, squinting at her. Padfoot yawned, showing rows of doggy teeth, and licked his chops.

"What time is it?" Remus muttered, scrubbing at his face.

Harriet cast a swift look round for the clock.

"Er. . . four thirty." They'd slept all afternoon. The world beyond the windows was black as night, flecked with white swirls that blew against the glass.

"Oh, for—darling, why didn't you wake me up? Your entire visit wasted—Dumbledore will be here in half an hour."

"You looked like you needed the sleep," she said truthfully. She just didn't mention that she had as well.

In the shadows cutting across his face, Remus looked unhappy. "That's as may be, but I hardly ever get to see you. Give me a moment, I'll be right back. . ."

He pulled himself up from the couch and slowly ascended the staircase. Harriet tried not to look guilty, but Padfoot was staring straight at her.

Then he turned into Sirius. "Have a nice nap, then, Holly-berry?"

She turned bright red, but he was grinning.

"Can't believe you two would've taken a nap without me." He reached out to ruffle her hair. "What's the matter, did Moony forget how to light a fire, so you had to bundle together for warmth?"

"Shut up," Harriet muttered, not really meaning it. Sirius just laughed again. "The fire died. Remus had just fallen asleep."

"I'm sure it'll do him good," Sirius said. "He's always been too worried about werewolf cooties."

"Don't tell him!" Harriet said, panicked. "He'll freak out."

Remus' tread on the staircase stopped Sirius from replying. They looked up as he made his careful way down the stairs, then, upon realizing they were staring at him, both looked away.

"Have a snack before you go," said Sirius, his voice casual but his eyes something else.

In the kitchen, he cheerfully banged pots and pans around, but his eyes kept swiveling back to Remus, who was sitting upright in one of the armchairs rather than half-collapsing on the couch.

"At first, when I came back to a dark house, I thought that greasy shit had poisoned you, Moony," said Sirius in that fake-casual voice as he cut uneven slices of cheese onto some toast.

Harriet's heart beat faster, like it was pumping something unpleasant into her stomach.

"It was very kind of Severus to come all this way," Remus said in a funny voice. "But Harriet's got a lot to say about the ball last night."

Harriet didn't, but she'd rather talk about the shitty ball than listen to Sirius go off on Snape. "It was a disaster," she said. "From start to finish. I don't think I told you, did I, how I was supposed to go with Neville? Well, a Venemous Tentacula bit his foot. . ."

She told the story of the ball with a lot more humor than she felt, to at least try and make it sound entertaining. She left out the parts with Daphne and Tracey, Moody and Snape, altogether. Sirius called Ron some rather unflattering names, but not like he was really surprised, and blackened four slices of toast and scorched the cheese when he forgot to take them out of the oven on time.

"Boys are idiots, Holly Berry," he said sagely, dumping the ruined cheesy toast into the rubbish with one hand and trying to vanish the blackened smell with the other. "That's the long and short of it. He'll be nursing his pride for a while. Best to let him."

"I don't particularly feel like doing anything else," Harriet said. "Nothing that involves talking to him, at any rate."

"Nor should you." Sirius got some eggs out of the fridge, presumably to ruin them.

"But you don't want to leave it for too long," Remus said from his armchair. "Otherwise you'll reach a point where you don't know how to make it up."

"Give it a few days," Sirius advised, as Harriet frowned this over. "Then have Hermione talk to him. No, wait, he fancies her, never mind. His sister, then, what's her name."

Harriet had not directly explained that Ron fancied Hermione, but she supposed saying, "And when Hermione showed up with Krum, he got so angry," was proof enough.

"I'll try," she said, not knowing if she really would or not.

"All you can do," Sirius said philosophically.

He was just clearing the smoke from the burnt eggs out of the air when someone knocked at the back door.

Harriet felt a mixture of relief and disappointment as Sirius spelled the door open and Dumbledore ducked beneath the too-low lintel. She'd have like to have stayed longer, but she was glad to have got away without hearing anything else Sirius had to say about Snape.

"Good afternoon," said Dumbledore, vanishing the snow from his dark green robes before the flakes could melt on the floor. "How are you feeling, Remus?"

"As ever," Remus said, from his seat.

Standing at Sirius' side, Harriet saw him roll his eyes as he guided an enchanted brush to scrub out the blackened eggy bits in the pan. Remus, talking to Dumbledore, didn't see.

* * *

Dumbledore escorted Harriet away not long after. Sirius enveloped her in a smothering hug which she didn't seem to mind, but she only gave Remus an awkward wave as she zipped herself into her parka. Then, in a flurry of white snow against a black sky, they were gone, and it was only he, Sirius, the popping fire and the moaning wind.

"She fell asleep on the couch too, didn't she?" Remus asked.

"The fire went out," Sirius said as he smashed some bread onto a cold sandwich. "You're as good as a furnace."

"She shouldn't—"

Sirius gave him a look so exasperated that he gave up and sighed instead. "She should have just woken me up."

"You look like death warmed over," Sirius said flatly. "I'm not going to bother pretending you don't." Then he peered at him. "You look maybe a bit fresher, though, than you did before I left."

"Maybe Snape's potion worked. He did give me something."

Sirius grunted. "You keep it down?"

"Some of it," was as far as Remus could lie.

"So, probably that had jack-all to do with it, and you look better because you actually had human contact for a while." Sirius tore off a corner of his sandwich with his teeth, like a, well, a dog. "After being completely without it for twelve years, I can tell you it really does work."

* * *

Back at Hogwarts, an air of lazy self-satisfaction hung over the castle. Everyone seemed so smug about whatever triumphs they'd achieved last night that they couldn't be bothered to care about normal things like getting dinner at a regular time. Harriet found Hermione sitting in the Great Hall, which was sparsely peppered with a few other people who, like her, felt that no matter what balls may come and go, dinner should be eaten at exactly 5:30 in the evening.

Hermione looked up from her book, gave a pleased, if somewhat uncertain, smile, and tucked a bookmark between her pages.

"How was your visit with Professor Lupin?" she asked.

"We fell asleep instead." Harriet frowned as she slung her legs over the bench. "He's been really ill. We didn't really get to talk about why. The Wolfsbane, I guess."

Before last night, she'd have pestered Snape to tell her. Now, her insides lurched over each other.

Hermione's forehead wrinkled with worry. "Not much is known about werewolves," she said, as her forehead wrinkles gradually changed to the creases of discontent. "Wizards are much _happier_ , it would seem, to simply believe whatever horrible things they hear."

What had Snape said about Remus? _People who consider themselves good witches and wizards would spit on Lupin if they knew what he was._ She'd felt angry and sick when he'd said it, while at the same time. . . she'd remembered the way the neighbors on Privet Drive looked at her as they walked their dogs and watered their lawns and pushed their prams along the sidewalk.

"With people's _lives_ at stake," Hermione said, her voice tensing as it rose in pitch, "you'd think they'd look past their own prejudice, wouldn't you? But of course, it never occurs to them to treat _other_ kids of magical people _decently_. . ."

"I've read the books," Harriet muttered. _The potion was not created to help werewolves, Miss Potter, it was created to help the rest of us by keeping them controlled_. "I think the fact that their 'cure' was a poison says enough."

Hermione's eyes flashed with righteous anger, but faded to sadness. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah." Snape was going to help. He was helping. Even if it wasn't working yet, he was going to do something.

Her heart pumped a surge of blood through her whole body, making it feel a bit too hot.

She struggled to focus on Hermione, who was watching her anxiously now, as if waiting for her to sprout bat bogeys.

"What did you do today?" Harriet asked, and thought, _Not thinking about Snape, not thinking about Snape, having normal conversations with my best friend and not. Thinking. About. Snape shit I AM thinking about him how do I STOP_ —

"Oh." Hermione turned a fetching shade of maroon. "Er. I. Er."

Harriet managed to not think about Snape for long enough to reach a conclusion. "Did you do something with Krum?"

"He, er, asked me to take a sleigh ride," Hermione said, her face now matching the shade of her Gryffindor duvet upstairs.

Harriet was impressed. "Please tell me you went."

"I, er, well, yes, I did."

She looked like she wanted to crawl under the table and never come out. Harriet felt like grinning, so she did.

Hermione hid her scarlet face in her hands. "Shut up," she squeaked. "I swear I'm not half so embarrassed when he asks me as I am telling you about it."

Harriet's grin slowly faded. "What about Ron?"

Hermione's shoulders hunched forward. Her voice was muffled by her hands. "What about him?"

"You still. . . feel that way, don't you?"

Hermione didn't answer right away. Then she nodded the tiniest bit, and sagged forward, the curve of her shoulders spelling defeat. "I do. I'm. . . very angry with him, though. He treated you horribly in front of all those. . . he shouldn't have done that."

Harriet remembered the letter Hermione had stuttered out, confessing that she'd felt jealous of Harriet in all her finery, and recalled how Ron had stopped and stared at her, not like he was impressed, but like he'd received a shock. She thought of the subdued way he'd asked, _Are those diamonds?_ Maybe he hadn't been jealous just of Krum.

Not that she still wasn't royally ticked off at him. No matter what Remus said, she'd need more than just a few days.

"But you don't stop fancying someone just because they've made you mad," she said slowly. _Because if that was the case, I'd never have fancied Snape in a million years, because that's how much time it would take you to forget what a git he is._

"No." Hermione pulled her hands away from her face and raked her fingers through her hair, pushing it away. Her cheeks were red but her expression was striving for calm. "I—it's just so _complicated_ , isn't it? He's my friend. After you, he's my best friend. And I—I do—f-feel that way, but I'm not honestly sure I want to. . . date him or anything. I fancy him, but when I think of dating him, it just feels weird. Doesn't that seem strange?"

"No," Harriet said emphatically. Dating Sn—Sna—she couldn't even think it. She sure as hell couldn't picture them taking a bloody sleigh ride together.

Hermione blinked at her. "No? But. . . why?"

"You. . . can fancy someone and. . ." Hermione was right: talking about this was bloody fucking hard. "Realize they're all wrong for you."

She and Hermione stared at each other, Harriet's face slowly heating up till it was on a boil. Was Hermione going to ask her? What was she going to say? That she was right, but she didn't want to talk about it? That—

"Ye-es," Hermione said, drawing the word out. Her eyelids flickered. "Or that things would be. . . terribly messy if you acted on your feelings."

Like the destruction of the entire universe. "Right."

"Exactly."

They sat in silence, drinking of this wisdom.

"So how do you stop fancying them?" Harriet asked.

"I don't know," Hermione said, her voice heavy, as if her heart bore the weight of this lack of knowledge. "I've been wondering that for some time. Can you believe there's nothing in the library about it?"

She twitched a smile as she said it, like she was joking, but Harriet would bet her Firebolt that Hermione really had looked it up. She didn't blame her one bit. If there had been a book about how to stop feeling like someone had shoved a hand into her stomach every time she thought of Snape, she'd have read it from cover to cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing about the story, just ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* \\(◕ω◕✿)/ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ for you for being so awesome and amazing and dear to me and aaaaah 
> 
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ~ ♥ ･ﾟall: *♥･ﾟmy: * ♥･ﾟlove! * ♥･ﾟ: *


	75. Tricks of the Heart

In the days following Christmas, Harriet settled into a nest of panic.

First—or maybe second—or maybe it was just a mix of equally panic-inducing things, neither one lesser than the other—was the Second Task. February twenty-fourth looked a lot closer from this side of the Ball, and although she'd been dutifully paging through books in the library alongside Hermione for weeks now, they'd still not turned anything up.

And she really wasn't surprised. Turning pages endlessly was what she'd done for the First Task, without getting anything except a headache.

She wondered, yet again, why Snape had thought books would be at all effective.

And there was the other simultaneous problem: Snape. Her. . . _feelings_.

Thinking back to her probings into his past in September, Harriet had suggested to Hermione that they make lists. "Why didn't I think of that?" Hermione cried, flinging her Transfiguration homework away and ripping a blank roll of parchment out of her bag. Harriet hadn't known there was anything that could stop Hermione in the middle of homework.

One of the perks to being awkward about your. . . _feelings_ when your best friend was Hermione—especially when you could make it almost like homework—was that Hermione got so caught up in her own business that she forgot to probe into yours. As soon as the ink was dripping from her quill, the gears in her head started turning; her eyebrows drew together in that Thinky Frown, and you disappeared.

Harriet breathed easy as Hermione scribbled at her list. Another perk to being awkward about boys when your best friend was Hermione was how they were both awkward about it. They wanted to talk vaguely about how awkward it was without getting into any of the awkward details. There was a lot of best-friendly cringing nowadays.

Thank God Ron was avoiding both of them. If he came into the room when they were there, he'd walk as quickly past them as he could, finding a reason to turn his face away. He ate at different meal times, or possibly hit up the kitchen rather than risk running into them in the Great Hall. Hermione would glance at him, freeze, and break off all conversation; then watch his retreating back with a kind of sad relief. And then she'd start babbling about something wildly off-topic once he'd gone. It was as if she couldn't make up her mind about how to feel.

Gloomily, Harriet felt the exact same. She was glad not to have to be around Snape, though she wanted to see him. She wanted to thank heaven on her knees every mealtime she went to the Great Hall only to find his seat vacant, yet she spent the entire time at Gryffindor Table over-tuned to the emptiness of his chair at the High Table. It was a horrible, infuriating, miserable state of never being comfortable or happy no matter whether he was there or not.

 _And if he was here, he'd probably just find some way to piss me off_ , she told herself.

Of course, this only made everything so much the bloody worse.

Her list was a simple pro-con sort, and the cons—the only side she'd been working on so far—were the main reason she'd kept the parchment on the roll rather than tear off a piece. Snape had a lot of cons to offer. _He's a git_ didn't quite cover it, so she'd gone into exacting detail of his git-ness. He bullied Neville. He hated Remus. He and Sirius rowed like their lives depended on it. He had a House bias the size of the Great Wall of China, snatching points from the Gryffindors every chance he got and piling them on his pet Slytherins. He turned such a blind eye to anything his Slytherins did, it was a wonder he wasn't permanently cross-eyed. You couldn't trust him not to say something that cut or stung each time you talked to him. He was simply _mean_.

He'd been a Death Eater. He loved her mum.

She really hated this list.

She hadn't written anything under _pros_. This was supposed to be a way to stop feeling like this. The list of cons made her feel a bit sick, and that was surely progress, wasn't it? It made sense that if she read that list enough times, if it got long enough, these feelings would burn away till only natural resentment and dislike remained. And when she stared at the empty _pros_ column, listening to the furious _s_ _critchscritchscribblescratch_ of Hermione's quill, her own part of the table was silent. The ink didn't make any sound as it dropped onto the parchment from the motionless nub of her quill.

When she stared at the pros, she thought about the Patronus.

It was a stupid reason to fancy someone. You _didn't_ fancy someone because they had a nice Patronus. You certainly didn't fancy someone like Snape (whose Patronus looked like your mum's because he'd loved your mum) because of it.

But. . . it was supposed to say something about your heart, wasn't it? The purer the heart, Remus had told her once, the stronger the Patronus.

Muggles had to wonder whether they had souls because they didn't know about Dementors. They had to wonder, too, about the purity of your heart, because they couldn't cast Patronuses. But the first time she'd seen Snape's Patronus, she'd felt safe, awed by its beauty, suddenly in the presence of something that filled her with both joy and grief. She still thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

And once you'd seen that . . . you didn't just forget it.

* * *

At least fifteen times a day, Severus considered sending Miss Potter a note demanding a record of her progress on her egg clue. With time stamps. But all hundred and five times, he let the impulse slip away again. She could make do this time. He'd monitored her so closely during the First Task to make sure she wasn't getting any Gryffindorian ideas like jumping on a fucking broom and flitting around a dragon's head, and see how well that had turned out. Constant vigilance—he was going to shove Moody's head into the lake one day and hold him there till he drowned.

If Miss Potter hadn't figured out by the evening of 23 February that the Second Task meant swimming to the bottom of a lake, he'd send her a canister full of gillyweed. With explicit instructions. He'd been brewing a batch in a tank for three months now. It lasted longer when fresh.

Besides, she was acting so oddly that a note from him might prompt a nervous breakdown. Yes, it was better that he and Miss Potter put as much castle between them as possible. He did not have the mental space to spare for her forays into adolescent incomprehensibility; he had his brain full of Lupin's problem and the darkening shade on his arm.

And then Narcissa Malfoy threw an even more tedious complication into the pot.

 _"Severus,"_ read the note, scented with lavender and carried by a supercilious eagle owl that had been bred to exquisite snobbery by generations of Malfoy patriarchs, " _Draco is acting very oddly, and you are the only one in a position to give me any intelligence as to why. His reply to my last letter was very scattered; I have enclosed it, as well as the letter he wrote me before that. You will be able to see the difference for yourself. I do hope it's nothing to do with that Potter girl. But if it should be, you are the best one to dissuade him. I don't believe any son has ever listened to his mother on the subject of females without an influence which I shan't even venture to name."_

Draco's adolescent incomprehensibility was even less interesting than Miss Potter's. He wished there were some spell or potion invented that would send them straight from fourteen to twenty-four; then, at least, they'd be a decade closer to coherence. But Narcissa could not be fobbed off with a curt "I'm busy"; she'd send him a nasty curse by post in retaliation.

He scanned the two letters. The longer one was inane in the extreme; the shorter one at least had the benefit of being short. Narcissa was right: something had clearly happened between the two letters. And since, looking at the dates, he knew the ball had fallen between them, he had a pretty good idea what the problem was.

He could have wrung Draco's neck. How dare he develop a pathetic little crush on Miss Potter? Did the stupid boy not realize that fancying her, out of all the girls on God's green earth, was nearly the stupidest thing a Malfoy, scion of a family who'd be back in the Dark Lord's pocket within an hour of his return, could undertake?

He penned a single line to Narcissa, stuffed her letters into the return envelope, and spent the next ten minutes trying to remember when the boy must have been dropped on his head as a baby. It hadn't been Severus' fault; he'd only held Draco perhaps three times at most, under Narcissa's strict supervision. Regulus might have done it, or Lucius, or possibly that stupid house-elf. Then there was the inbreeding. The Blacks had kept a strain of insanity alive by rigorously marrying first cousins; but they had very little concept of individual self-preservation. They were stupid, reckless, and foolish. (He'd always wondered, secretly, who Narcissa's father really was, a question shared at least by Reg, the only Black who'd ever stooped to have a serious conversation with him.) He'd thought Draco had bypassed that inheritance, quite frankly by being a very boring child. He had always reminded Severus very much of Reg—vain, silly, resentful, and spineless. And Reg had got in too deep and tried to back out and that had been the end of him.

The clock on his mantle chimed for dinner (Dumbledore had set it to do that, and Severus had never been able to figure out the counter-spell; even destroying the clocks didn't work, as the house-elves simply put in a new one) and shook him loose from this spiral of hyperbole. He was being ridiculous. Draco was at the mercy of adolescent hormone-fueled stupidity. Miss Potter had turned up to an over-hyped ball looking like a princess who'd arrived for her coronation. Of course it had turned the boy's head.

The fucking mark on his own arm and the silence of his chambers were getting to him.

He supposed he would go up to dinner after all.

* * *

"Severus," Dumbledore greeted him, with some surprise, as he slid into his seat at the staff table. The Headmaster had been staring up at the clouds churning over the House tables, as if he were really distracted, only noticing Severus at the last moment.

Severus grunted at him and spooned some beef stroganoff onto his plate. He searched the Gryffindor table and spotted Miss Potter's messy hair, predictably next to Granger's. Miss Potter was sliding some bean sprouts around on her plate while Granger ate squash with mechanical duty. Weasley was nowhere to be seen.

Annoyed by their adolescent drama, he glared at the Slytherin table. Draco's blond head was bent down, but he sat facing the Gryffindor table, and every now and then he sneaked a look across the aisle. And if Miss Potter wasn't sitting directly in his line of sight, then Severus was a puffskein. Draco did not look elated, smug, or self-satisfied; if anything, he looked as subdued as Granger and Miss Potter.

Miss Potter. . . was now hunched over her plate, as if looking anywhere else would turn her straight to stone. Granger had twisted in her seat to cast a suspicious look across the hall. . . and her gaze settled directly on Draco.

Severus gripped his spoon. Could this be the source of Miss Potter's strange outburst? He couldn't see how—she'd been talking directly to himself, and unless Draco had been lurking behind one of the hedges, they had been alone. It was possible for two events to be entirely unrelated—or for multiple incidents of bullshit to fan out from that fucking ball—but something was up with the girl, and he was going to find out what.

He'd start with Draco.

He dropped his spoon into his uneaten stew and stood.

"Is that all you're eating, dear boy?" Dumbledore asked, sounding almost resigned.

" _So_ glad you gave me that clock," Severus said, and left him.

He stalked over to Draco, who was stirring his carrot souffle into soupy mush, and looked up as Severus' shadow fell over him. His eyes widened. He might even have squeaked.

In a voice that was just shy of deadly, Severus said, "Come with me, Mr Malfoy."

* * *

When Harriet cast her customary glance at Snape's seat at the staff table, she wasn't prepared for him to actually be sitting in it. She whipped around to face her table so fast she might've pulled a muscle in her neck.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked.

"Fine," Harriet muttered, staring at her plate so fixedly that her eyes were beginning to water. Okay, she could do this. She'd eaten in the same room as Snape loads of times. There was about a hundred feet between them. He hadn't even been looking her way, but (she thought) staring at the Slytherin table. And all he could see from their positions was the back of her head. She was being stupid—really, really stupid.

After repeating "stupid" about a hundred more times, she felt calm enough to consider whether she wanted to leave the Great Hall and hide under her bed forever, or sit here trying to sneak looks at him.

Hermione wasn't asking her any more questions, at least. She was. . . looking at something? What?

Harriet peered over her shoulder to see Snape striding out of a side-door with Malfoy shuffling after him. Snape did not look back. She felt simultaneously relieved and cheated.

Hermione made a disapproving noise. Hoping she was controlling her expression, Harriet asked, "What?"

"Pansy," Hermione said under her breath. "Ignore her. She isn't worth it."

Harriet couldn't care less about Pansy, even if she did think Malfoy was a prick for leading her on. But sure enough, Pansy was giving her a look that could have melted copper. Harriet made a rude hand gesture and turned her back on her.

"Want to leave?" she asked Hermione.

"Please," said Hermione, and they got up and left.

The Entrance Hall and Grand Staircase were Snape-free. Harriet hated that she half wished it hadn't been.

* * *

Draco looked about ready to faint. It was possible that Severus was looming.

Miss Potter was the only student he had ever allowed to his personal quarters, for any reason; Draco was menaced along to his office and into a chair. The chair faced toward the fire and away from the door, so students could not see a way out. He stood with his back to the fire, so they couldn't make out his expressions, only his tone of voice.

Draco definitely looked ready to faint.

"Your mother," said Severus, "has written me a letter."

Whatever torments Draco had been expecting, this didn't seem to have been one of them. His expression went from cowering to bewildered.

"My mother?"

"Have you written to her recently?"

"Yeah, the other day—"

"What happened at the ball?" Severus asked without changing tone.

"I got—" But then Draco's eyes widened and he snapped his mouth shut. He looked supremely terrified.

"You got?" Severus asked in a dangerous voice. "Got what, Mr Malfoy?"

Draco shook his head frantically. Severus tilted his own chin so the light on his face would change. He'd calculated that this was the most menacing angle. As expected, Draco wheezed with fear. It took Severus a moment to realize he was actually saying "Weasley."

"Weasley twins!" he squeaked.

"Weasley twins?" Severus repeated.

"Th-they turned me into a dog!"

Severus said, "A dog?"

Draco looked mortified. "A—a small one."

"And did what to you?" Severus asked, thinking of all the tortures he'd deeply enjoy inflicting on those two carrot-topped menaces, with or without this incident.

"N-nothing." Draco swallowed and passed a trembling hand through his hair, patting a lose strand back into place. "P-potter found me. Sh-she thought I was Weasley. She ch-changed me back. . . later."

"How much later?"

Draco hunched down in the chair, as if he were desperate to sink through the bottom. "Th-the next morning. Well, I was a dog! It wouldn't wear off till Potter changed me back! I couldn't get out of the stupid Gryffindor tower, I had paws! And I didn't want to run into those Weasleys!"

Severus put his hand over his face. Of all the bloody, stupid. . .

"You foolish boy, why didn't you tell me?" he asked, and then wished he hadn't, because he knew well enough, didn't he? If he'd needed proof that Draco's. . . _feelings_ were genuine, as far as they went, here it was: he would rather let the Weasley twins get away with humiliating him than broach the fact that Miss Potter had sheltered him when he was helpless. When you'd been that much of a fool in front of the girl you fancied, you either wanted to bury it from all knowledge or blame her for it. And Draco had chosen the version that put Miss Potter in the best possible light.

Draco shrugged, his face turned toward his knees. "Dunno," he muttered.

Severus grunted. "I will speak with Professor McGonagall—"

"No!" Draco said in horror.

"Why _not_?"

"I—" Draco's mouth hung open a moment, his thoughts transparent as he struggled for a likely explanation. Merlin and Salazar, he was an even worse liar than Miss Potter. "I—I'm planning something. To get back at them, of course. McGonagall won't believe it anyway, or she'll let them off with just a detention. Everyone thinks they're so _funny_."

Minerva had admitted more than once that they reminded her of Black and Potter. "Very well," he said. "I shall find a reason to give them a detention of my own the next time they're in my class."

Draco looked a little more satisfied. "Can I go now?—sir?"

Severus waved his hand. Draco jumped up and scurried away, his childish half having taken over completely.

When he'd shut the door behind him, Severus sank into his chair and put his head in his hands.

He had never thought the first lies he would need to map out would be to Narcissa over the fate of her son's silly little adolescent heart.

"And so it begins," he muttered.

He rubbed his eyes, wishing for someone to talk to, someone on whom to unburden all this bullshit. What he wouldn't give, on crossroads like these, for a disinterested friend who would open their heart and sympathies to his.

The clock chimed the hour. He let his hand fall and watched the firelight reflect off its gilded face.

Well, he wasn't disinterested. He was only at times a friend. But he knew more than Narcissa did now, more than Lily had then.

And they'd been telling each other's lies for years.

Severus reached for the Floo powder and threw some into the grate. "Dumbledore," he said to the flames. "Are you there?"

* * *

"How's your list going?" Hermione asked tentatively once they were safely tucked into Gryffindor armchairs.

"Not very well," Harriet muttered.

"Well," Hermione said, a bit briskly, "I'm sure it will take some time. That's what my mum said. Oh, I didn't tell you, I wrote her—not with anything specific, just asking how you dealt with emotions that were. . . difficult, and she said you give it time and things become clearer." She shrugged, a bit apologetically, as if she realized this was hard advice to be grateful for.

Harriet nodded, agreeing with Hermione wholeheartedly. Waiting didn't seem like the perfect solution. She felt like crap _now_.

"How's the baby?" she asked, in an attempt to think about something else.

"It's due the day before your task, actually," Hermione said. "Mum asked if I wanted her to see about getting permission from Professor McGonagall for me to go visit her in hospital, but I don't want to miss your task. . ."

All the organs in Harriet's torso had gone _ping_ when Hermione mentioned the task.

"You should go, though," Harriet said. "It's your—sibling. Do they know if it's a boy or girl?"

"Mum said they're waiting to find out. They went ahead and decided to know with me, but the technician read the ultrasound wrong, so they thought I was going to be a boy."

Harriet laughed, a bit incredulous.

Hermione sighed. "Yes, I know. Everyone bought boy's outfits and toys for the shower and they'd decorated my room to match. In a lot of my early baby pictures, I'm wearing an awful lot of blue onesies with cars and giraffes on. So Mum and Dad decided not to tempt fate a second time and did everything in yellow, which is supposed to be gender-neutral. It's why my name's Hermione, actually," she added. "My name was going to be Richard but obviously that didn't work. I couldn't leave the hospital till I had a name, so they had to decide on the spot, and, well, Dad likes Shakespeare. . . _A Winter's Tale_ ," she explained, seeing the look on Harriet's face.

"I was supposed to be named Holly," Harriet said. "But Mum changed her mind at the last minute. Sirius said I was never going to get a date with a name like Harriet, so that made Dad go for it."

Hermione sighed again. "Maybe that was Dad's real reason."

Unfortunately, the subject of dates returned them both to thinking about the objects of their lists. They lapsed into brooding silence.

The portrait hole opened and Ron climbed in. He did not look around as he walked tensely to the boys' stairwell and disappeared inside. Several people watched him go, and then cast quick looks Harriet and Hermione's way. Hermione twisted the hem of her jumper, her face red as she stared at her lap.

"Go see the baby," Harriet said, so she wouldn't hex the third-year girl who was whispering to her friend and pointing at them. "Bring me back a picture."

"You sure?" Hermione asked, looking up. "I don't want to leave you when you need me—"

Harriet thought she was screwed either way. "It's a baby," she said instead. "I'm always going to be an only child. Might as well adopt your little brother or sister if I possibly can."

* * *

"Do you think it's as serious as all that?" Dumbledore asked. He'd been tense and alert when Severus first called on him; now he sat gazing pensively up at his own ceiling, where a model of the solar system whirred placidly in a dance of the ages. The hour had grown late, and though they sat far above the bustle of the castle, Severus could feel it, the slowing down of the day, the reign of the night settling in.

"I think it's as stupid as all that," Severus said. "With the potential for panic and more stupidity to make it even worse."

"You don't believe that the added danger, once it becomes apparent to Draco, will dissuade him?"

"I do, but as I said, it's Narcissa I worry about. She knows her son is a self-preserving coward with the moral fiber of a wet tissue, but she also knows that people can act wildly out of character when heart or desire is involved. It would shock me if Draco developed spine for any reason, let alone one that would demand as much of a spine as this. But she'll play it safe."

"And she already suspects," Dumbledore murmured. "And what we suspect, we find ways to prove."

"I believe I can talk Draco out of it," Severus repeated. "Narcissa is the problem."

Dumbledore looked away from his gently rotating model of the planets and focused on Severus across the sphere of the room. "Your idea?"

"Narcissa owes me. One very. . . profound favor."

Dumbledore didn't ask. He didn't look surprised, either; he simply waited.

"She will not agree to anything that would jeopardize Draco, but that is the only line she will draw." He rubbed his forefinger against his thumb, trying to reason his way to the answer. "There are . . . certain secrets I can trust her with."

"Not one, I trust," Dumbledore said, his gaze as clear as glass and straight as steel.

"No." Not yet. It may come to it one day, when she truly saw how poor a Death Eater Draco would prove to be. But Dumbledore would never trust Narcissa that far. He was right not to. "But one that I believe will hold her back from acting against Miss Potter preemptively. I don't believe I'll need to use it yet—I don't want to seem like I'm taking the matter too seriously, only her feelings at this point."

"You don't think you might consider hiding all evidence of Harriet's. . . involvement in the matter?"

"Draco has the subtlety of a sinking brick. He would let something slip." _He already has._

Dumbledore's face above the beard was pensive. Though Severus rowed with him constantly, he did appreciate that Dumbledore was clever enough not to need everything explained to him.

"You were right to bring this to my attention," Dumbledore said. "I know little of Narcissa Malfoy, but Harriet needs fewer direct enemies, not more."

"Narcissa prefers to let Lucius gain the public reputation." Narcissa had her renown in what Severus would call the drawing rooms of the pure-blood elite. But she possessed delicacy and subtlety that Lucius could never imitate. She had been instrumental in getting their family off charges back in 1981, playing the role of the delicate new mother to the hilt. No one who'd known differently had dared to speak up.

"Do what you feel is necessary," Dumbledore said. "I know you will protect them both."

Severus nodded curtly. He did not say that as Narcissa had her priorities, so did he. He hoped that he and Narcissa would not be long at cross-purposes, but if it came to it, he knew whom he would sacrifice, without hesitation.

Narcissa could never know.

* * *

He wrote to her, asking to meet in Hogsmeade. Narcissa would expect a direct report on her darling boy, and in person it would be easier to test the soil on which his secrets might need to fall.

He and Narcissa had the same aim: to protect from the Dark Lord a child for whom no one would sacrifice as much as they; and yet they could not work together. The irony did not escape him. He almost wished it had. It would be easier to blame Narcissa for making his life harder.

This empathy business really was bullshit. And people courted this frustration?

Her favorite restaurant only opened for evening business, so he joined her at her favorite tea shop, a cut far above the others, by invitation only. Narcissa had a standing invitation. It was warm inside, humming with leisurely conversation. Narcissa had wisely selected a table near the windows, whose glass was warped enough so the world looked like a swirling vortex of white and grey. On a day like this, most people wanted to be near the fire.

An enameled samovar with matching cups appeared on the table. Narcissa dispensed the tea, playing the part of gracious hostess. "What were you able to discover, Severus?"

"It's as you suspected," he said, accepting a plate of macarons. Narcissa hated sweets, but Draco loved them, and she ordered them even when he wasn't there. "Miss Potter cleaned up too well."

Narcissa picked up her teacup with a _snick_ that sounded like a knife sliding out of a sheathe. "How well?"

"I didn't recognize her."

"Hmm." She blew gently on her tea. No one had yet invented a spell for cooling tea that didn't sap all the warmth away in one sweep. "Because normally, she looks like she's wearing a hedgehog for a hat and a disgraced house-elf's family jumper."

Severus did not really want to talk about Miss Potter's glamorous transformation. But he wanted even less for Narcissa to be aware that Draco had been humiliated in front of the girl he somewhat fancied and did not write his mother a long, angry letter blaming her for everything that had gone wrong. She would grasp the significance like a lightning strike.

"She's certainly reverted to form," he said coolly. "I believe that if left alone, whatever he thinks he feels will die a natural death."

"And if it doesn't?" She reached for a macaron with razor-sharp nonchalance. "Is your old sign darkening, too, my friend?"

He only nodded. She let her eyes close in a slow blink. Around them, the tea-room babbled and chattered, a pleasant hum of distraction against curious ears.

"Then it's only a matter of time." She ate the macaron in clean, efficient bites, not letting her disgust show on her face. "Even if his feelings peter out before he's at risk of defiance, Severus—if it should become apparent he felt anything, and were to seem useful as a means of getting to her? What then?"

"Then his feelings must be eradicated."

"How?"

Narcissa hadn't been around many teenagers since she was one, and time warped perception. At sixteen, she'd had stars in her eyes for Lucius, like a hundred other girls; but if it hadn't been for that intoxicating rivalry, those stars might have gone out with a breath and there would have been no Draco to discuss. Thirteen years of breathing the same air as the little pustules had taught Severus that this tedious bullshit lived and died by the day. It was far more likely that Draco would cling to his feelings out of spite than from any genuine depth of feeling. His spinelessness had the greatest chance of being an asset now as it ever would.

"With teenagers," he said, "the greatest danger is that they will believe their fancies are the stuff of tragic romance."

"I should think Draco would be terrified of tragic romance," Narcissa said dryly.

"So should I."

"Though it easily _could_ become . . . tragic."

Which was the entire problem. "I will cast it in the most terrifying and least attractive light."

"I trust you shall." She lifted her teacup, though she did not drink from it. "This is a lonely period in a mother's life, Severus, I am finding. My influence matters the least, when it comes to any good. He changes daily and I cannot be with him. When he comes home, I find that whole periods of his life have come and gone, and I will never even know what I've missed."

* * *

They stayed a while longer at the tea shop, making it look as if they were simply friends catching up (people only left tables after ten minutes if they had met with an agenda). Narcissa Apparated away to Wiltshire, but he took one look at the speck of the castle on the white horizon and decided he'd rather be anywhere else.

Hogsmeade was pleasant enough when there were no students in it, principally _because_ there were no students in it. It was a welcome break from the castle.

The wind drove against him bearing flakes of snow as sharp and cold as razors, and the drifts in the street were shin-high; so as soon as he found a shop he could tolerate— a secondhand bookshop—he ducked inside. It was owned by an old wizard who was nearly deaf, and who during the winter sat in his office next to the fireplace listening to the wireless. He didn't hear Severus come in, which was why he liked the place. He could wander from shelf to shelf in the music-tinted silence without having to answer questions about how he was doing or what he was looking for. He idly touched the spines as he passed, books on Herbology and history, politics and astronomy, most of their gilded letters flaking off. There were so many books in the world. He remembered once telling Lily how much it galled him that he would never be able to read them all. She'd laughed. _"Or all the cities we'll never be able to visit—and the restaurants we'll never have time to eat at! And the different ways they mix coffee at every shop, we'll never get to taste it all. And all the paintings we'll never get to see, or the mountains we'll never all be able to climb. . ."_

And she had never got a chance to do even a little bit of that.

He dropped his hand. He'd been feeling maudlin since that fucking ball. These spells of empathy, these echoes into the past—the shadow blackening his arm, and Miss Potter not-quite-nearly grown up. What all would she not get to do?

The shop was dark, dusty and empty. It was doing him no good.

Buttoning his cloak up to the chin, he threw open the door and strode out into the falling snow.

And almost plowed into Rita Skeeter in the middle of the road. She dropped her bag at their feet in surprise.

"Blast and char Merlin's beard!" She straightened her glasses. "Why, if it isn't Severus Snape. Sorry— _Professor_ Snape."

She smiled, or bared her teeth, and made no move to pick up her bag. He stared at her, making no move to do it either, and drew his wand. Her eyebrows flew up, and she took a step backward. Good.

He pointed his wand at the snow and vanished himself a path to get the bloody hell away from her.

After less than a second's hesitation, she snatched up her bag and hurried after him. "I wonder if I might have a word or several, Professor?"

"No," he said, wishing he could vanish _her_. But someone might see. He cast a dirty look at the bright windows that glowed around them in the twilight.

"Not even a quote? Your perspective on the Hogwarts' champion's role in the Tournament— _both_ champions? The public would dearly love to know a professor's views on Miss Potter's involvement in the Tournament. Martyr complex? Delusions of grandeur? An orphan's sad plea for attention?"

"A quote, you say?" He stopped walking and turned to face her so abruptly that she nearly ran into him. Her dictating quill and notepad were hovering in the air behind her; she looked surprised but ready in a moment.

He stepped closer until he was uncomfortably in her space, repulsed by the stink of her perfume, and said softly, "A quote, then. Vicious bottom-feeders like yourself ought to be careful of what rancid shit streams from your mouths, lest you talk to the _wrong person_. Stop trawling for gossip about children and crawl back to your fucking gutter."

Enjoying the way her eyelids flickered and her mouth set, he Apparated away, through a tunnel of lashing snow and back to the gates of Hogwarts.

* * *

"But what are we going to _do_?" asked Daphne.

Tracey groaned, letting her head fall back against her pillow. "Why are you asking again? Do you think if you get on my tits enough I'll change my answer from what it was the last hundred times? We wait for Potter to contact us. Anything else will seem desperate."

"What if she doesn't contact us?" Daphne shot back. "It's been nearly a week and she hasn't said a thing."

Tracey shrugged. "Maybe she isn't going to. Not everyone is as clever as you. Potter certainly isn't."

Daphne tried not to feel too pleased. She had always liked the way Tracey dropped compliments into regular conversation, as dryly stated as anything. It made them feel like statements of fact, not sweet nothings.

"I'm not that clever," she said, however. "You're clever. Asteria is, too." When it came to books and art, at least. With people, she was hopelessly out of her element.

"You're clever enough," Tracey said. "Cleverer than Potter. She's an idiot."

"Just because she's repellant doesn't mean she's stupid."

"See? Clever," said Tracey, smiling in a way that made Daphne need to look away in case Pansy or Millicent walked in. Tracey shook her head, but since Daphne was staring at the wall, she couldn't tell if it was an exasperated or amused shake. "Well, allow she's Gryffindor stupid, at least, won't you? Otherwise she'd have come to us with her demands by now."

"She could be making us wait." But Daphne didn't think this was very likely. She pictured Potter's gormless expression as she stared around the bathroom the night of the ball, her surprise at being called a threat to Asteria. "Or she might not even realize. Surely you see that her ignorance is just as dangerous? What if she just blurts it out?"

"Why do you think I've snogged all those boys?" Tracey pushed her bangs out of her eyes. "All right, there were loads of reasons, but if I was working up to snogging you, I needed some backup evidence that it would be a load of shit, if it ever came up."

"You couldn't have been planning it since third year," Daphne said dismissively. But when Tracey smiled at her, she had to work to keep her expression skeptical as a tingling wave swept her from scalp to knees.

"I'm a long-range planner with nerves of steel. This is why you should let me deal with Potter. You'll jump the gun."

Daphne liked Tracey's Muggle phrases, even if she didn't understand what they meant; perhaps even because she didn't. They reminded her that Tracey was from a different world and unafraid of it. Plenty of half-bloods in Slytherin downplayed their Muggle roots or tried to cover them up altogether, but Tracey didn't care. Daphne admired that with ferocious intensity, though she would never, ever replicate it. She cared, absolutely, about her own reputation, about her sister's. Tracey did not care about her own but she would safeguard Daphne's.

Tracey was smiling again. "I like it when you look at me like that."

Daphne wasn't guarding herself, and blushed, probably down to her knees. Tracey laughed.

"Pansy might come in," Daphne hissed.

"Use your clever brain," Tracey said, swinging her legs over the side of her bed. "She's been stalking Draco since his eyes rolled out of his head and into Potter's pocket."

Daphne groaned. "He has _appalling_ taste."

"You're just affected by the fact that you hate her guts." Tracey leaned over Daphne's shoulder and adjusted her ponytail in Daphne's mirror. "There, now I'm presentable. Let's go for a walk, what do you say."

"It's freezing cold and snowing out, and people will guess we're up to something."

"Round the _castle_ , Lady Cleverly."

"Fine," Daphne sighed, though that tingling wave traveled across her again more slowly, and more thickly. A walk round the castle could take them past many secret places where two girls could hide without anyone knowing they were there.

Tracey trailed her fingers over Daphne's shoulder, catching strands of her hair. Daphne shivered. Composing her expression, she walked beside Tracey out of their dormitory, down the hall, and through the common room, where the green light shivered with the pulse of the lake around their walls.

"Do you think Potter's pretty?" she asked as the door to the Slytherin common room scraped shut behind them.

Tracey shrugged. "She's all right. It would be dumb of me to pretend she wasn't," she said when Daphne looked disgusted. "When she's all done up, mind. She looks like a bridge-person normally. I'd touch her if my life depended on it, but I'd sell her down the river for a kiss." She arched her eyebrows at Daphne, her mouth shadowed by a smirk.

"You have remarkably good sense," Daphne said primly, making Tracey laugh and a feeling like somersaulting take its place behind her heart.

They did not run into Potter. But when they slipped behind a tapestry in a silent corridor, dark enough to hide their shadows yet bright enough to show the outline of Tracey's face, she forgot to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a ridiculously long time :( I've been having creativity block, bleh!
> 
> Thank you, also, for all your stupendous, amazing, and uplifting comments, forever and always. They really put the life back into me when I'm feeling frustrated or stalled on the story, and I treasure them all - you have no idea how much ♥♥♥


	76. Shadow of the Threat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -There's a teensy bit of canon dialogue in this chapter, adapted from GoF's chapter 'The House-elf Liberation Front'
> 
> -The work your kindness and enthusiasm does toward keeping this story alive cannot be understated ♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥

By the time the full moon ascended to the horizon, Dumbledore had gone to wrap the stone croft in enchantment spells powerful enough to shake the ground when they sewed themselves shut. Severus did not go with him. He was done with repeating that he was no werewolf expert; however much Black's memory had eroded—however little common sense he'd had to begin with—he knew far more about werewolves than Severus ever would.

Severus had very little interest in Lupin's reaction to that full moon. His job was to keep the Wolfsbane poisoning from killing Lupin. If the full moon should kill him, well. . . that was hardly Severus' fault. It was the way werewolves were built.

But with the antidote, Severus had hit a wall. Unless he wanted to continue tinkering with vague theories, Lupin was simply going to be vomiting up good ingredients with no lasting result. All the books in the library were as useless now as they'd been last summer. As little as Severus wanted to agree with Lupin, he was right: aside from graphically accurate anatomical diagrams, werewolf lore seemed to be talking about a different creature entirely. Lupin didn't have any interest in the flesh of children; he didn't howl at the touch of silver; he ate potatoes with the best of them. In wolf form, he differed from a regular wolf in small ways. As a human, the only distinguishing features were the scars and the repressed self-loathing.

So, if the books were useless, they would have to find information from another source. Severus had no interest in interviewing real werewolves. Aside from the severe lack of free time, what if they should all be as self-deluding as Lupin?

Unfortunately, the person with the most potential to be useful was also the person with the potential not to be useful in the least.

Severus grimaced at the leaves carved into Dumbledore's mantel. Sirius Black and Draco Malfoy—two raging fatwits he needed to convince to a course of action that either would scorn simply because it was suggested to them. The blood of the Blacks was strong in its obstinacy.

Black would be fairly easy to manipulate, he was fairly sure—all he needed to do was make the suggestion in a way that would raise Black's hackles, and which did not appear to be a suggestion at all.

And for Draco, he also had a plan in mind.

The fire spat in the grate, then flared green and gold. Dumbledore evolved from the smoke, ducking his head to miss the mantel, and brushed ash off his robes as he stepped down to the rug.

"You're bleeding?" Severus asked sharply.

Dumbledore glanced at the long stain down his sleeve. His face was tired, even sad. "Ah. No, this belongs to Remus. That was. . . a dreadful transformation."

His phoenix fluttered to rest on his shoulder, nuzzling his ear. Dumbledore reached up to pet him, not looking any less sad.

"Phoenix tears cannot heal him," Dumbledore said. "Their magic doesn't work on werewolves or giants. They are too strong for the tears to have any effect. Isn't that a strange thought?"

Severus could tell that in this mood, Dumbledore would appreciate him not being callous. But since he wasn't any good at faking sympathy, he'd best say nothing.

Dumbledore was silent a while, stroking Fawkes' feathers and staring out the frosted window. Wind whistled around the tower; the fire popped. Dawn was yet several hours away. The house-elves would have been awake an hour or more, but the rest of the castle still slept.

"I know you are no expert on werewolves, Severus," Dumbledore said, watching snow dance against the window. "I am deeply grateful for what you have attempted to do for him. That it has not been enough is no one's fault."

His hand rested on Fawkes' back. The phoenix sat patiently in his lap, curled up like a chicken with its feet under it.

"I am afraid that Remus will die soon," Dumbledore said, as softly as he'd said the rest.

Still, Severus didn't speak. He could tell this admission pained Dumbledore, but Severus felt nothing aside from a tinge of satisfaction that Lupin might soon be out of Miss Potter's life.

"The transformation. . . he is enormous now, Severus. He must have been growing all this while. We never took measurements in his adolescence. . . we sent him to that shack and left him there, alone."

"That was for everyone's safety," Severus said.

"Yes. . ." Dumbledore looked suddenly very old. "Everyone's but his own."

Severus didn't reply. They'd fought (he objecting, even shouting, Dumbledore maintaining his compassionate and understanding persona) over this a hundred times before, over Potter and Black and their Animagi escapades. Everything they'd done had only proved what Severus had always believed, that a werewolf had no place at Hogwarts. The fact that no one (but himself) had been hurt was only down to sheer dumb luck—the kind that kept Miss Potter alive.

"Lupin survived the transformations on his own, without Black or Wolfsbane, for over a decade," he said.

"Yes." If anything, though, this only made Dumbledore look sadder. "And he was. . . less than I remembered, when I met him again. The Wolfsbane appears only to have exacerbated that. How long does he have, before it becomes too much? None of us knows."

Sighing, Dumbledore rose from his chair and carried Fawkes back to his perch. The phoenix hopped from his arm with a look rather more compassionate than Severus was capable of. He should probably feel inadequate, ashamed of himself, for that.

Perhaps this was the time to broach the subject, then. It might be something like. . . comforting.

"There is nothing more for me to do without further data," Severus said. "We don't know enough about that side of him. Lupin avoids his own kind, he's no help on the matter. But if someone could talk to other werewolves. . ."

Dumbledore looked at him at last. For a long moment, he didn't speak. Then he nodded.

"I will speak to Remus and Sirius."

"If Lupin resists," Severus said, "which I believe he will—I'll tell him to his face that the next time might well kill him."

The fact that Dumbledore did not object was even more telling than the blood marking his sleeve.

* * *

Despite its lack of helpful knowledge thus far, Hermione's faith in the library would not be shaken. She dragged Harriet there straight after breakfast. A few NEWT students, tearful or muttering to themselves, were hunched over books at the study tables or wandering aimlessly along the aisles, but the place was otherwise deserted. The windows were white from last night's snow and the solidly overcast sky.

"We're going to research translation spells," Hermione announced—in a whisper, so she didn't annoy Madam Pince.

Harriet waited till Hermione was attacking the card catalog before she groaned (very quietly, because Madam Pince was already glaring fixedly at them in case they made any noise). Forget the Second Task; she was going to die in the library of boredom.

Within ten minutes, Hermione had levitated onto her chosen study table a stack of books that made the prospect of dying of boredom in the next hour seem sixteen times more likely.

"We'll write down a list of promising spells to practice on the egg when we break for lunch," she said, heaving toward Harriet what was possibly the biggest, dullest book of the lot. "So write down the incantations and wand movements of everything you find that looks promising."

Harriet opened the book and stared at the endless rows of badly spelled words with a feeling of numbing despair. A dark-robed figure was approaching their table. . . was it a Dementor? It certainly felt like all the happiness was draining out of her. . .

It turned out to be Viktor Krum.

"Good day, Herm-own-ninny," he said.

Hermione, as was customary, went pink. He made a formal sort of half-bow toward Harriet and said more gruffly, "Good day, Harriet Potter."

"Hi," Harriet said. Hermione squeaked her agreement. She cleared her throat.

"Have you—have you come to research your egg clue, then?"

Harriet pulled her book up over her face so Hermione couldn't see her rolling her eyes.

"No," Krum said, "I have come to see if you would like to sled."

Hermione looked as blank as if she hadn't ever heard of it. "Sled?"

He gestured toward the frosted windows. "On the hills."

Harriet nearly groaned with envy, that time. Sledding sounded like such _fun_.

"Oh. . . I—"

"Sounds like fun," Harriet said brightly, lowering her book. "You go, I've got this."

"Would you like to sled, Harriet Potter?" Krum asked politely.

"Oh, thanks, but I've got all this reading." Sledding did sound like fun, but tagging along on Krum and Hermione's date appealed slightly less than these dusty books. She hadn't thought anything could, but you lived and learned.

"Can I talk to you?" Hermione said, and dragged her into the stacks without waiting for a response.

"I'm supposed to be helping you!" she whispered fretfully.

"Actually, you're not. It's against the rules, remember?"

"You know what I mean!"

Harriet patted her hand. "I'll be fine. It's only an afternoon. You've never been sledding before, have you?"

"Have you?" Hermione countered. "I'm going to make a complete fool of myself. You know I'm rubbish at anything. . . sporty."

"It'll be good for you."

Hermione groaned, but quietly enough that Madam Pince didn't hear. "Maybe it'll make him wake up from whatever he sees in me." But she squeezed Harriet's hand and left with Krum.

Harriet sat down at the books and stared at them. Then she dropped her forehead to the table banged her head on the wood several times.

"Quiet!" hissed Madam Prince.

* * *

With the Lupin business fobbed off on Dumbledore for the present, the talk with Draco had to come next. Severus would rather have started a tea club with Sprout and Longbottom, but he couldn't put it off.

He took a different approach than the last "talk" they'd had, when he'd dragged Draco to his office and loomed over him. Today, he dragged him outside.

The idea was that this open venue would make Draco feel more sure of himself, more grown-up, so that Severus could (falsely) appeal to his maturity (which he didn't possess). He hoped that by creating the impression that Draco's sense could be relied on, the boy might not behave like a complete fatwit.

"Why do we have to walk out _here_?" Draco whined. "It's cold."

 _So I can smother you in a snow bank_ , Severus thought. "Because I wish to speak to you on a. . . delicate matter. Requiring secrecy."

Draco looked surprised, then gratified. His shoulders pulled themselves back and his chin came up. It ought to have been an absurd performance, but he could command a certain, real poise. And, as it always seemed to go these days, with its appearance Severus felt that sadness, borne of losing some cherished impermanence.

"I can keep a secret," Draco said, rather childishly, and quashed the delicate impression.

"I certainly hope so," Severus said, "for it's your own skin on the line."

* * *

Harriet couldn't take it anymore. Her eyes were crossing. Her brain felt fuzzy. It was ready to slide out her ears. God, she'd been reading for. . .

Twenty minutes? Come the fuck _on._

There had to be a curse on these books to make time actually slow down as you read them.

She'd go for a walk. Clear her head. Then she'd come back and try these. . . two. . . spells she'd written down.

She hoped the sledding was fun, because Hermione wasn't going to need a second reason to kill her.

* * *

Draco looked very pale against the snow, but then, he always did. "I—what?"

Severus just stared at him, waiting.

Draco's eyes darted nervously across the fields of white. "I-I don't know what you mean—sir."

"Do you not?" asked Severus. "Perhaps I shouldn't have presumed. I imagined you to be paying more attention to Miss Potter since Yule."

Draco went white everywhere but the area directly around his eyes and nose, which turned scarlet as all his blood ran into it. The result made him look rather like a turnip.

"I—I'm not," he said in a tolerably steady voice. "I only—I'm only trying to get away from Pansy. She's become more annoying than ever, and she _clings._ I don't know how to get rid of her."

Severus could not be bothered with Draco's romantic troubles outside of their connection to Miss Potter. Draco could marry Pansy Parkinson tomorrow or crush her heart as fine as beetle-eye powder for all he cared.

"I certainly hope so," he repeated. "For your sake. In this climate, Miss Potter would be a . . . dangerous person to associate with."

He laid a hand on his own left arm for a moment, as if he couldn't help himself. Draco's eyes widened.

Severus dropped his hand and stopped in the snow. Draco stopped, too, and looked nervously around.

"Wh-what?"

Severus swept his gaze across the white expanse of the grounds, but the dark flicker, whatever it was, had disappeared.

"Nothing," he said. "Someone ducking into the greenhouse."

He resumed walking, plowing through the snow that piled up to his knees and dusted up the hem of his cloak. Draco moved gracefully along with him, not seeming much hampered by the snow or adolescent ungainliness. He might be a ludicrously poor liar, but he was Lucius and Narcissa's son in other ways.

"That. . . stuff at the World Cup," he said quietly. "With that. . . thing in the sky."

Severus waited, saying nothing.

"Was that—real?"

"What do you think?"

Draco looked down at the snow churning up as he walked. Then he shrugged, another childish motion. Severus didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

But he _was_ still a child. And the Dark Lord was coming. He wasn't coming for Draco the same way he'd come for Miss Potter, but he'd sweep Draco into his wake.

And the Dark Lord's greatest power was his ability to destroy far beyond what he actually touched.

"It was real," Severus said.

Draco's step faltered. He glanced up, his face now entirely pale.

"The Dark Lord will return," Severus went on, keeping his voice even and cool. "And we must each of us decide where we shall stand when he does."

Draco's face was almost as white as the snow.

"Back inside, Draco," Severus said.

Draco jerked his head in a nod and struggled to turn around in the snow. He didn't seem to notice Severus wasn't with him as he waded toward the castle without a backwards glance. Or perhaps he had noticed and was grateful that that terrifying conversation had stopped.

Severus closed his eyes. He remembered the excited exchanges, the whispered proclamations—Wilkes, Rosier, Mulciber, all of them desperate to join up, fumbling with ideologies they barely understood, because ideology didn't matter as much as the chance of greatness, of being feared and admired; when the world of Hogwarts, with its House points and Quidditch matches, and the world of their parents' drawing rooms (and his dingy Muggle town), had seemed too small and tedious to bear. And Reg had clung on with them, as ham-handed with the politics as any of the rest, because his parents had crammed all of their ancestral bigotry into his head and he'd never quite worked out whether he agreed or not. And Severus, at nineteen, had believed that if Reg were too stupid to figure out what he wanted for himself, he deserved to do what everyone told him to do. And then Reg had been dead and it was too late to change his mind about anything.

Reg and Draco were really not much alike, aside from being the pampered son in a bigoted family who'd protect at all costs their right to run the world as they saw fit. (And, too, from never really looking beyond their parents' assertions that they were better than everyone else, simply for being born in the right nursery.)

But all the same, the failure of his scornful indifference toward Reg's limited self-knowledge was a poor experiment to repeat with Draco.

* * *

Harriet peered around the edge of the greenhouse. Yes, things were exactly as they'd appeared when she'd stepped out of the castle and thought she'd inhaled some new experiment of Fred and George's: Snape and Malfoy were out having a stroll. In this weather?

She was out, but _she_ was mad. The thumppity-thump of her heart when she'd seen a pillar of black that reminded her of Snape, and the thump-flippity-thump when it had turned out to be him, was proof of that.

Now the blood that pumped through her heart burned like jealousy. Why did Malfoy get to chat with Snape when she didn't? Why didn't Snape run him off immediately? It wasn't like walking with Snape would even mean anything to that puffed-up Pomeranian-ferret.

Her breath misted the icy glass under her mittens. She glared at them and wished, like she'd never thought she'd ever wish, that she could be Draco Malfoy right now.

She really was losing her mind.

Which was probably why, when Malfoy split off from Snape, wading back through the snow toward the castle, she thought it would be a good idea to dart along behind the greenhouse to the entrance hall and waylay him.

Malfoy stopped just inside the doors to spell the snow off his robes and shoes. He glanced up when Harriet's arrival let in an icy draft, and for some reason, he paled. Surely it couldn't be that cold in here, draft or no, after he'd just come in from a stroll in the snow. But why should he look scared of her?

He put on a sneer to cover it up. "What do _you_ want, Potter?"

"What were you talking about with Snape?" Harriet demanded.

Malfoy dropped his sneer in astonishment. "What's that to you?"

Oops. That was suspicious, wasn't it? "Were you telling him about turning yourself into a dog?"

Malfoy flushed. "If I _did_ , those carrot-topped menaces deserve whatever they get."

"They didn't do anything to you! And don't call them carrot-topped menaces, you—" She struggled for a moment for a suitable insult. "—candy-floss ferret—"

"You're one to talk, hedgehog brain!"

"That's rich, since _you're_ the one who gets turned into small, helpless animals every five minutes—"

"No thanks to those misbegotten _weasels_ —"

"If you two are planning to run through the entire animal kingdom before lunchtime," said a cold voice that dropped down the back of Harriet's neck like a fistful of snow, "permit me to stop you. Ten points from Gryffindor. Mr. Malfoy, you may go."

Malfoy smirked at Harriet so wide she was surprised he didn't overbalance. She rounded on Snape furiously, then remembered, when she was glaring up at him, why she'd been keeping as far away from him as possible.

Snape stared down his not-inconsiderable nose at her. His eyes were so black you could spend a hundred years looking for the other side. And his expression reminded Harriet that he was a bleeding, blasted git.

"He was insulting me too! Why doesn't he get points off?"

"Because he doesn't question my judgment," said Snape. "Ten more points from Gryffindor."

Harriet had no words—except for the sort that no one but Sirius would have approved of.

Spinning on her heel, she stalked off, wishing that she looked dignified and righteous, since she couldn't kick Snape in the shins.

She hoped she remembered where she'd put her list, because she had a _lot_ to add to it.

* * *

Severus watched Miss Potter storm off, her hair crackling with anger. That had not been very politic of him. It annoyed him that he cared. But he needed to discourage her from having the slightest thing to do with Draco, even if it involved hurling insults at each other. Or perhaps especially because it involved insults—adolescence had the bewildering habit of making such a pastime seem positively romantic.

That his behavior would only serve to make Miss Potter equally, if not primarily, resentful of himself—well—she knew what he was like. She shouldn't be surprised when he acted like a biased tit. It wasn't as if he'd ever made a practice of being fair.

* * *

Hermione came into the dorm red-cheeked and wind-blown, with crystalline fragments of snow snagged in her hair. She looked like she'd just been dragged backwards through a snow drift and still hadn't recovered.

Harriet stopped fuming long enough to grin at her. "Have fun, then?"

"I'm probably going to kill you," Hermione said faintly. "Once my head's stopped spinning. I think I know what being a sock inside a dryer feels like." She dropped down onto her bed, groaning. "I didn't manage to _once_ stay on the sled—and every time but one I knocked him off, too! It isn't funny!" she said, aggrieved, when Harriet laughed.

"Are you sure it's not?"

"Yes! And he was so very nice about it I feel even worse. I'm sure he'll never ask me again."

Harriet wondered how she felt about that, but knew better than to ask. "I'd think it was loads of fun if you knocked me off a sled."

"Yes, well." Hermione smiled. "You're odd." Her eyes fell on Harriet's list, which she'd unrolled across the bed to accommodate all of the Sirius-level words she was applying to Snape. Her mouth fell open. "Are those all translation spells? Harriet! That's amazing!"

"Er. . . no." Harriet was embarrassed, even though she felt Hermione should know her better than that. "It's my list. For. . . you know. Stuff."

"Oh." Hermione gave her a look that said she did know Harriet after all. "Where are the spells you did look up?"

Sheepishly, Harriet pointed at the paper on her bedside table. Hermione got up and went over to it, and sighed.

"It's honestly two more than I was really expecting."

Harriet couldn't dispute this.

"Well, we'll get back on it after lunch. We really have to apply ourselves, Harry, the task is less than two months away, and soon we'll be back at school and we won't have all our time to devote to it. Are you. . ." She hesitated. "Are you getting. . . help this time?"

She was looking at Harriet's list. Harriet pushed the end of the scroll across the bed so the parchment snapped shut. _Please dear God let her not have been able to read any of it. . ._

"I—"

 _Thank you, God_ , she thought when the dorm-room door banged open and Parvati came storming in, face red and eyes flashing. Lavender followed her in, quietly shutting the door behind them.

"He was snogging her!" Parvati looked like an avenging goddess with her hand on a lightning bolt.

"You're too good for him," Lavender said.

"They're both a pair of tramps!"

"Absolute trash," Lavender agreed.

"I hate him! And I hate her!"

Lavender nodded approvingly.

"I hope they fall off the Astronomy Tower and land on a unicorn's horn!"

Then she burst into tears. Lavender looked like she'd been expecting this. While Hermione and Harriet stared helplessly, Lavender guided Parvati to lay down on her bed and sat next to her quietly, rubbing her shoulders and stroking her hair out of her face, while Parvati sobbed. Harriet saw her emotions reflected in Hermione's face: while she felt very bad for Parvati, she had no idea what to do for her. It was clear what had happened, though: Donatien had finally given her reason enough to chuck him.

Harriet shoved her list under her pillow.

She and Hermione sat on her bed, not saying anything, while Parvati had her cry out and Lavender murmured soothing nothing-phrases. Gradually Parvati's hiccups died down into sniffles, till the only sound left was the popping of the fire. They sat in complete silence, Lavender still smoothing Parvati's hair, Parvati curled up on her side, and Harriet and Hermione awkwardly sitting together and feeling dreadfully useless.

Harriet dared to say:

"I can have Dobby bring us some hot chocolate or something, if you want."

"Or," Hermione said, "we could go get it, rather than making someone wait on us."

Harriet stared at her, trying to convey, _Is this really the time?_ while Hermione stared back with a look that said, _Have you forgotten how I feel about this?_

"That'd be great," Lavender said, though perhaps less because she thought the hot chocolate was a good idea and more because it would make them go away. Parvati gave no indication that she'd heard.

So Harriet and Hermione tip-toed out.

"Was that really necessary?" Harriet asked once they'd slipped past the Fat Lady.

"It's not necessary to have anyone wait on us," Hermione said, her mouth a thin line. "We're perfectly capable of getting anything we want ourselves."

"'Course we are, but Parvati's upset right _now_."

"That's not reason enough. If we were Muggles, we'd be making the cocoa ourselves, and time wouldn't be a factor at all."

"If we were Muggles we wouldn't be going to school in a castle."

"Going to school in a castle isn't infringing on anyone's personal dignity!"

"It's their job, they like doing it—you remember what Hagrid said, if you don't let them do their job you're dishonoring them."

"Only because they've been brainwashed for centuries into believing they need to serve humans or they'll dishonor themselves," Hermione said, bright spots of color in her cheeks. "They need to be set free, not summoned to do everyone's bidding when it's convenient!"

Harriet gave up. Even Hagrid hadn't managed to change Hermione's mind, and he knew a lot more about magic and house-elves than she did. She just hoped Hermione wouldn't give the house-elves a speech about paid holidays and time off in the middle of the kitchen. She had a feeling they wouldn't appreciate it one bit.

She tickled the pear to let them into the kitchen. Harriet liked the Hogwarts kitchen—if the Dursleys had locked her in there, Cinderella-style, she didn't think she'd have minded too much. It was bright and warm and the air always smelled of rosemary and sugar.

Today, at least a hundred elves were busy with tasks—polishing the long tables (which were already spotless), washing pots and pans and plates and stacking them away, overseeing mops and sponges to scrub the floors—

—and serving lunch to Ron.

Harriet stopped dead on seeing him. Hermione, perhaps preoccupied with collecting damning evidence to further her cause, ran straight into her.

"Oof! Harry, what—" Then she saw him, and her voice swallowed itself up.

Ron glanced up at the sound of her voice, his expression open and curious. Then the curiosity swallowed itself up, too.

"Harriet Potter!" cried Dobby, pelting toward her and colliding with her midriff. (It was Harriet's turn to say "oof!") Beside her, Hermione felt like she was cringing.

"Thanks for the meal," Ron said gruffly to the house-elves clustered around him, and he got up and left his unfinished lunch behind him. He walked the long way round Harriet and Hermione, not looking at them. Then he stepped through the portrait and shut it behind him.

The house-elves' ears drooped as they cleared the uneaten food off the table. Their expressions suggested they didn't know what they'd done wrong. Harriet felt suddenly, horridly wretched—the looks on the house-elves' faces, the picture of Ron sitting at the Gryffindor table that mirrored the one in the Great Hall above, surrounded by house-elves instead of his house mates. It suddenly occurred to her to wonder who he'd been spending his time with—Fred and George and Ginny seemed to have taken the side that Ron was an irredeemable git. With Seamus and Dean? With Neville? Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Neville around much since Christmas. . . he'd been let out of the hospital, hadn't he? She was sure she'd seen him around. . . but she couldn't remember. . . she'd been so preoccupied with Sn—

Dobby was tugging at her hand. "Harriet Potter?" he said. "Is Harriet Potter all right?"

She focused on his enormous, worried eyes, peering up at her from her waist. "Fine, Dobby—how are you?"

He beamed at her. "Dobby is very well, miss!"

"Is that _Winky_?" Hermione said suddenly.

Harriet looked to where she was pointing. Sure enough, sitting on a little stool in front of the massive fireplace, was Winky, Mr. Crouch's old house-elf—before he'd sacked her (an event which Harriet hadn't seen). At least, this elf looked enough like Winky for Harriet to assume Hermione was right. This Winky was wearing a matching skirt, blouse and hat instead of whatever linen cast-off she'd worn before.

Hermione approached the fireplace. "Winky?" she said, tentative yet kind.

Winky did not look up. Following Hermione, Harriet saw that Winky's clothes were badly stained. She was staring into the fire as if she didn't really see it, clutching a bottle of butterbeer and rocking slowly back and forth. Closer to her, Harriet heard Winky humming under her breath. She didn't acknowledge them at all.

"What's the matter with her?" Harriet asked Dobby, taken aback.

Dobby's ears drooped at the tips. "Winky does not like being freed, Harriet Potter."

Hermione knelt next to her and tried talking to her, but the only sign Winky gave of noticing her presence was to clutch the bottle more tightly and hum a little louder. The other elves were going quickly and quietly about the business of cleaning up, but with an impression of trying to block out something shameful.

"She is missing her family," Dobby stage-whispered to Harriet.

"Missing Mr. Crouch?" Harriet asked, feeling stupid.

Winky's eyes filled with tears, which spilled down her face. "Poor Master Barty," she moaned. "What will he do without Winky to help him no more?"

Harriet's brain chose that moment to reflect (perhaps to struggle free of terrible guilt) that only a house-elf could think of dour, forbidding Mr. Crouch as "Master Barty." Did Snape have a house-elf that called him "Master Sevvy"?

"He is needing me," Winky whimpered, still quietly weeping. "He is needing my help. I is looking after the Crouches all my life, and my mother is doing it before me, and my grandmother is doing it before her. . . oh, what is they saying if they knew Winky was freed?"

She buried her face in her hands, slopping butterbeer all over herself and the floor, and sobbed as hard as Parvati upstairs.

"Winky," Hermione said desperately, "I'm sure Mr. Crouch is getting alone just fine. We've seen him, you know—he comes and judges in the Triwizard Tournament."

"You—you is seeing my master?" Winky raised her tear-streaked face from her hands. "You is seeing him here at Hogwarts?"

"Yes, and he's fine—isn't he, Harriet?"

Harriet honestly couldn't remember seeing Mr. Crouch during the First Task, she'd been too out of her head. But she had seen him on Hallowe'en, when he'd been pretty thoroughly unpleasant and adhering to the rules in a way that would have made Percy weep with devotion.

"Yeah, fine," she said, though something was niggling at her. . .

"There, so you see, Winky—"

Then Harriet remembered. "Though he had Percy come to the Yule Ball dinner in his place. Percy said he'd been so overworked—"

 _Shit_ , she thought as Hermione glared at her and Winky's eyes re-filled with tears.

"Poor master," she cried, "poor master, no Winky to help him no more! Winky would have done anything—master needs Winky—Master Barty—"

And that was that. She descended into a weeping spell so steady and heartfelt that nothing Hermione said even drew a response.

Harriet wished she was in the middle of the Second Task right now so that at least she wouldn't have to be here.

"Er," Harriet said feebly to Dobby, "can you. . . would you mind terribly. . . getting us some hot chocolate?"

* * *

Albus came to visit in the early twilight, as a sleety rain was falling. Remus lay on the sofa near the fire, with Padfoot lying curled up by his hip. He'd been there all day. Remus thought Sirius found it inactivity easier as a dog.

"Are you feeling any improved?" Albus asked, taking the armchair without bending over Remus or feeling his pulse.

Albus could always be counted on to be an excellent guest. He projected compassion without fussing; a willingness to listen without a need to dole out unwanted advice.

"A little," Remus lied. Padfood whuffed: his doggy version of snorting.

"We must do something," Albus said quietly. "And since we must, I hope you will permit me to offer an idea."

"Please." Remus did not wish for interference, but he knew that Albus would be giving it only from a desire to do him good, rather than from any self-importance of being the one to fix him.

Albus' face was grave in the fire's glow, in the shadows where the light did not touch. "There is no one at Hogwarts who can be of any further use to you. Severus' measures to produce an antidote have had no effect—he believes you're healing just as well, or not, from letting time take its course with the poisoning. What do you think?"

Sirius transformed before Remus could say anything. "I think that rotten bastard would love it if Remus keeled over tomorrow."

Remus laid a hand on his arm. "I'm not sure, Albus. I feel about the same."

"It does seem the Wolfsbane has weakened you," Albus said. "At the same time your wolf side has gradually grown larger and stronger. Does that seem an accurate assessment?"

Sirius turned his head to glance down at Remus from the corner of his eye. Remus shrugged.

"I've always been weak after the full moon, but it's definitely. . . more noticeable now." _It's worse, so much worse_. "But that could be from getting older."

"You started taking that poison a year and a half ago, you told me," Sirius said angrily. "There shouldn't be this big a difference after only that little time if this is just about getting older."

"I agree," said Albus, when Remus only looked away. "But it would be better, I think, to know for sure. We need to learn more about your condition, Remus, so we have more knowledge to put to use. Which is why I propose that Sirius introduce himself to other werewolves and learn what he can."

Remus' head swiveled back to face him. "Sirius can't. He's a wanted fugitive."

Sirius was quiet. Remus wouldn't have thought he'd be quiet.

"I remember," Albus said heavily. "But—distressing though it is—any werewolf who reported a sighting would be dismissed as telling tales to collect the reward. And the majority of them have no magical schooling. Sirius would have the advantage, even against numbers—and that's supposing they should recognize him, which I do not believe they will. Many of them live outside of society altogether."

"No," Remus said. His breath felt shallow in his throat. "It's too dangerous."

"Give us some time to talk about it," Sirius said abruptly to Albus.

"We're not talking about it," Remus said.

Albus looked between them, then nodded. "Please let me know what you decide."

 _It's decided he's not going_ , Remus thought, but he kept silent. Albus wouldn't listen, he'd only tell him to think on it.

Albus left in a swirl of freezing rain. The echo of the door closing faded into the silence.

"No," Remus said.

Sirius didn't bother to look up from the crackling fire. "It's me or you. One of us has got to go. And you're too weak."

"It's too dangerous. He's saying it to manipulate me into going in your place, because he knows I don't want to have anything to do with—they're monsters, Padfoot. I don't mean they're like Greyback, I mean they're uncontrolled and desperate and they could overpower you and _dump you on the shores of Azkaban_."

Sirius snorted. "Dumbledore's right, that's not going to happen. He wouldn't have brought it up if it would."

Remus' heartbeat felt loud in his ears. "I'm telling you. He wants me to go."

"You can't go on your own, you can barely stand up."

"Sirius—"

"I'm not coddling your pride this time." The shadows from the firelight cut across Sirius' face, drawing out harsh, gaunt echoes of last winter, when Remus had been afraid he was going to forgive him even though everything they said must have been true. "You know what Dumbledore didn't say? That the next time might kill you."

Remus looked away. He watched the sleet slide down the glass and didn't reply.

"You don't see it," Sirius said. "And maybe a part of you wants to die, because then you won't be dangerous anymore."

Remus still didn't say anything. He was afraid that if he spoke he'd say, _And how many times in Azkaban did you long to die?_

"So I'm going," said Sirius. "Fuck, I'll Polyjuice if I have to."

Remus closed his eyes. The trump card, then.

"And what about Harriet?" he whispered. "You're going to leave her here? With Voldemort coming back?"

Sirius didn't answer. Remus could feel his eyes boring into him.

"I can't look after her as well as you," he said, eyes still shut. "I'm too—I'm too weak. In every way."

Sirius was silent a few moments longer. Then he stood up and looked down at Remus from his full, not-inconsiderable height.

"I'm not letting a single other fucking person die," he said. "And I'm fucking starting with you."


	77. Obsessive Devotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -First of all, a huge, heartfelt, starry-eyed **thank you** to those of you, new and returning, who left me such wonderful comments on the last chapter and beyond. Know that you made my days and even weeks with your sweet words and kindness.
> 
> -An event in this chapter may, for those of you who've read it, bear close resemblance to a similar event in Telanu's stunning Tea series. I believe I conceived this idea independently of that story, but I've read her gorgeous work so many times over the years that I can't denounce the possibility that it sunk into my subconscious and at this point revived itself. (As we know, that happens.) Either way, I have no problem saying this can be taken as homage to that most brilliant series, which started me on the Snarry ship itself.
> 
> -The title for this chapter is pilfered from the title of Epica's song, "The Obsessive Devotion."

On the last, tedious night before classroom gaol commenced, Black's note—delivered long after sundown by his sopping wet and traumatized owl—got Severus nearly curious.

_"Come to the croft, would you. No backchat. I'm adding a PLEASE."_

Severus toyed with the parchment, wondering what to do. It wouldn't do to give Black the impression that he needed only to be polite to draw favors out of him, however slight. But ignoring Black's plea simply to make a point and rile him up would be unnecessarily cruel.

He must be getting old indeed if he paused at the chance to be unnecessarily cruel.

In the end, he went, taking the owl with him. (Really, Black and Lupin needed to get something bigger than a snowball packed by a Hufflepuff first year.) He stuffed it into a pocket of his cloak, where it huddled, shivering over his heart, as the wind and freezing rain battered at all his spells to keep them at bay.

Perhaps this was Black's joke, Severus thought as he slipped on the frozen hillside. Getting him out in this bloody fucking weather, hoping he'd fall and break his neck. . .

Black let him into the croft, blinking stupidly.

"What, you actually came?" he said, like he couldn't believe it. He didn't even look put out as Severus deliberately spelled the water off himself and onto Black's trousers.

Severus made a point of looking around for Lupin, who was sitting mostly upright on the sofa with a blanket on his lap. He looked similarly stunned.

"I thought Lupin must have kicked off," Severus said. "I wanted to see the happy sight for myself. What have you dragged me down here for, then?"

Black's expression, which in his confusion had remained mostly clear, now darkened with remembered hatred. Good. Severus might come, but he was going to make the dog regret asking.

"Thank you for coming, Severus," said Lupin, sounding tired. "May I offer you a seat, something to drink?"

"Just tell me why you needed me here so badly that Black was willing to be almost polite."

"Not like you'd ever fucking feel the same need," Black said with a flattering amount of loathing in his voice.

"Not likely, no."

"Please," Lupin said, and gestured at the arm chairs to either side of his sofa.

They sat down, eying each other. Severus thought he heard Lupin sigh.

"Well?" Severus said impatiently.

"Dumbledore says you've reached the end of your usefulness, Snape." Black must have decided to abandon even that little bit of amicability. He didn't try to hide how much Dumbledore's information evidently pleased him. "He thinks we need to talk to other people who might be more help. Always was the cleverest bloke I knew."

Severus knew that to say it had been his idea would have Black calling the whole thing off, just when it seemed he was about to get rid of him. Perhaps he could tell Black when/if he came back, supposing the werewolves didn't rip him to bits. He would enjoy the mutt's outrage almost as much as the news that he'd been mauled—or, better yet, caught.

"I still think—" Lupin said, but Black overrode him: "So I'm going to talk to some werewolves."

"You want a farewell party?" Severus asked. "A valiant send-off? Don't let the door hit your canine arsehole on your way out."

"We wanted to thank you for everything you've done," Lupin said.

Severus doubted it. "Don't thank me yet. Whatever Black discovers, you might still need my help."

"Let's bloody fucking hope not," Black said.

"Sirius," Lupin said, and then closed his eyes, as if that little sharpness had pained him. Black frowned. His eyes, roving over Lupin's pitifully wasted body, bore an emotion that would have made a lesser man look away in shame at witnessing such an intimate moment. For dragging him out here to listen to his woefully redundant barking and nauseating fawning over his werewolf, Severus wanted to hex Black's eyes to stick permanently backwards in his skull.

"You could have put all of this in a fucking note, Black."

Black stared at him, as if debating what to say next. That was peculiar. Severus hadn't believed Black possessed the capability of considered thought.

"You know I don't trust you," he said.

Severus was going to hex him in five seconds, he vowed as he started to get up. "This is a new level of wasting my time, even for you."

"I'm going to be leaving," Black went on when Lupin seemed like he was going to intervene. "Leaving Remus"—Lupin cut a sharp glance at him—"leaving Holly-berry." He nodded at Severus' arm. "How's that tattoo of yours looking?"

Severus looked at him without answering. Black's eyes crinkled in a smile, one like the edge of a knife.

"Dangerous times," he said. "They're calling for dangerous measures."

Severus felt a gentle weight settle on his mind, as if a phantom hand had gently tipped over a domino in the next room.

"And what danger are you looking to put me in, before you leave?" he asked softly.

Lupin looked at Black in alarm. So Black hadn't discussed this with him. More of their chronic communication fuck ups.

"I want to make sure Holly-berry's going to be safe with me gone."

"I suppose she'll be as safe as any time you've been in prison since she was an infant."

Something in Black's gaze flinched, though his expression, his posture, held perfectly steady. So that really did cut.

When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even.

"I want you to swear an Unbreakable Vow to protect her with your life."

Severus blinked.

Lupin sat all the way upright. "Sirius, no—"

Black ignored him.

"Dumbledore says we can trust you." His gaze tried to bore into Severus without success. "That Holly-berry can trust you. I've never believed him for a single fucking second. So, Snape. . . what's it going to be?"

Lupin was looking at Severus with a complicated expression that he couldn't interpret. Perhaps it was because he was smiling.

"Very well," he said.

Black's face went peculiarly blank.

"I'll swear to it. What will you give me in return?"

Black clearly hadn't expected he'd agree. His eyes narrowed. "You have to actually swear it, Snivellus. You can't just bloody well say you will."

"Yes, Black. My parents may not have been slapping me with Unbreakable Vows since childhood to ensure I didn't shit on the furniture, but I am familiar with the concept. What are you offering in exchange? Nothing? That's hardly politic."

Lupin sat in complete silence, as if he'd retreated to some place within himself where this was all a distant dream. Black was still frowning, eyes narrowed, considering Severus.

"What do you want?" he asked eventually.

"A vial of your blood."

"And what can you do with that?" Black asked with a curl of his lip, as if he could think of several unwelcome answers.

"A great many things."

The expression on Black's face as he considered it was almost forbidding. Then he nodded, once, grim. "Deal."

Lupin closed his eyes.

"Remus," Black said, starting to roll back his sleeve—his left one. "You're casting."

Lupin took out his wand without a word. As Severus peeled up his own left sleeve, he supposed he didn't have to imagine how much of your own being could be overwritten by devotion to another person.

But Lupin's devotion made him weak.

In the fire-tinted darkness of the croft, the Mark looked almost as black as it had the last time the Dark Lord had summoned him.

He and Black had to hold hands for this—by far the most distasteful thing Severus had done in a while. Black seemed to agree. Face hard and grim, he gripped Severus' hand like he wanted to grind his bones to dust. Severus made sure to wedge his nails into the tender spot between Black's knuckles. Black didn't even flinch.

"And what else are you planning to have me swear to?" Severus asked in a half-whisper.

"Like you said, Snape." Black's sneer was a bequest of his family. "I grew up knowing the consequences of this shit."

He ground the bones in Severus' hand until pain touched Severus' temples. In response, he dug his nails in all the harder, willing them to break the skin.

"Remus." Black did not break eye contact. "Closer."

Lupin stepped up and placed the tip of the wand across their cruel, entwined grip.

"Snape." Black's lips curled back from his teeth as he said his name, like he didn't want it touching his lips. "Will you promise to watch out for Harriet Lily Potter?"

"I will."

The first burning rope of his promise fell from Lupin's wand to drape around his and Black's wrists. If Lupin wore any expression now, Severus did not see: he stared into Black's face, into his eyes, into the grim, broken thing his soul had become, after living the nightmares of his own Hell had skinned his bravado away.

"And will you protect her from any harm, no matter who the fuck is bringing it?"

"I will."

The second rope looped around their wrists, burning hot and cold.

"And if it comes down to it," Black's grip, his gaze, tightened, "will you protect her with your miserable fucking life?"

Severus felt himself smiling again. "I will."

The third rope fell around them, pulling the others taut and igniting in a burst of light that threw the shadows back into Black's eyes and tore streaks of white across Severus' world.

* * *

Harriet crept down to the common room at half past two. It was dark save for the dying firelight. No one was up this late on the night before classes resumed, not even for a snog. Crumpled rubbish wrappers littered the floor; a liquid explosion from Fred and George's latest bit of mayhem gleamed on the wall, smelling like raspberry menthol; and Crookshanks was lashing his tail in front of a mouse hole.

Kneeling next to the fire, Harriet regarded the smoldering logs doubtfully. Sirius had warned her not to let them go out, but the last time she'd tried to do something about a fire, she'd killed it and had to curl up with Remus. With utmost care, she prodded the logs with the poker. The fire didn't snuff itself out, but it didn't get any livelier, either.

Well, she hoped this little bit would be enough. Tucking her sleeves over her hands, she curled up on the floor with her back pressed against the couch.

She was not looking forward to classes resuming, at _all_. The Triwizard panic that used to buzz at the back of her brain had returned as the new year turned over and the Second Task grew larger. That night, she'd had to stop herself from ramming Hermione's library book into the teeth of several people who had nothing more to worry about than her temper if they didn't bloody stop griping about classes picking up again. _Some_ people had _real_ things to worry about, like deadly Tasks to possibly not beat in less than two months.

But perhaps a panicked, class-induced haze and her upcoming demise would help drag her mind off that whole business with the Git Who Mustn't Be Named.

Or not, because in class tomorrow she'd have to see—him.

She definitely did not want classes to start.

Or maybe she did. . .

Absolutely not.

A log settled. When she looked up, Sirius' head was sitting in the fire.

She almost yelled, but she'd seen this sort of thing at the Weasleys before. It was still freaky.

"Holly-berry," he said, smoke puffing up from the fire when he spoke. The flames might have shifted in a smile, but she couldn't tell. Then he said nothing else. She peered at the fire, trying to make out his face through all those darts of flame.

"Sirius?"

"You're looking peaky." His voice was rough. "Shouldn't have let me keep you up so late."

"I'm always looking peaky these days." Parvati kept trying to cajole her into wearing makeup to 'stop her looking such a fright,' especially concealer under her eyes.

"Then I won't keep you up," he said, more roughly than before, like he was chewing sandpaper when he wasn't talking. "I only wanted—I'm saying, I've got to say, good-bye. For a bit."

Harriet sat up straighter. "What?"

"Moony needs me to talk to some werewolves. Snape's potions are doing shit for him." A dark underside slid beneath the scratch of his voice on Snape's name; her stomach knotted. "But the other werewolves are bound to know something."

"Something about the Wolfsbane?" Harriet bent over her knees again, crouching so her and Sirius' faces were on level. "I thought—"

"Nah, nothing like that. Something about. . . being a wolf. What we can do, now there's no Wolfsbane anymore."

Her memory swirled with the conversation in Snape's quarters that night when Dumbledore had come down—something about Remus being bigger, and about werewolves, and how they didn't know enough, Snape insisting he wasn't an expert. . . well, he'd said that over and over. His chair had scraped against the floor, nearly knocking her over, as he flung poisonous darts at Dumbledore, about Remus and Sirius and danger.

_People who consider themselves good witches and wizards would spit on Lupin if they knew what he was._

"It'll be fine," Sirius said. Maybe the roughness in his voice was just the fire. Hah, yeah, and maybe Snape was just worried.

She thought of her dream again, with the golden sand in the empty room no one could name.

"I just wanted to say good-bye," Sirius repeated. "I'm leaving before first light. I'll be back before the Second Task, don't worry—and when I see you again, I'll give you the rib-cracking hug to end all hugs."

"Oh, well, I'll look forward to that."

He grinned widely enough that she could see it in the parting flames. "See you soon, Holly-berry. Smother Moony in hugs when you see him. And—" A pause, then his voice harder, almost ferocious, "Stay safe, you hear?"

"Yeah." She hugged her knees, so tight the inside of her arms ached. "You stay safe too—you hear?"

His voice was the roughest yet as he said, "I promise."

The flames sank into the grate, dying in a puff of ash that took the light with it.

* * *

Severus rubbed at his wrist as he threw his snow-streaked cloak somewhere into the shadows. Now was not a time to give a fuck about cloaks and where they ended up.

He couldn't feel the bond, not on a physical level; but on some ineffable plane it was there, burning hot to his core. He wondered if the heat would fade in time, or if a threat to Miss Potter would bring it flaring to life, a compulsory reminder to the oath he'd sworn.

Flicking the hearth to light, he scanned his personal library for his book on common oaths. He had more familiarity with Dark bonds—his left arm felt heavier with the weight of a double binding—and Unbreakable Vows were more of a pure-blood measure. All he knew was that if you forfeited, you died.

He'd underestimated Black. Cruel, clever, and resourceful he'd proven to be tonight. Against his better judgment, Severus was impressed.

Black really should have included in the bond some preventative measure for Severus slitting his canine throat. That was the Gryffindor in him.

He'd also underestimated Lupin, in a way. It surprised him now, as it had not in the moment, but he'd have thought Lupin would draw a line at binding a man to his own death. Black had ensured that either way, Severus was going to die for Miss Potter: whether because he broke his oath to protect her or because he sacrificed himself to maintain it.

Dumbledore was going to be extremely cross with the both of them. Severus would wait till Black had returned from his werewolfing jaunt to tell him. It would do for the Headmaster's rage to cool in the interim.

There it was: _Common Oathes of the Pure-blood Elite._ Severus flipped to the chapter that included Unbreakable Vows, and grew rather favorably surprised. A Dark spell would have made its presence constantly felt, like the sound of your heartbeat in a quiet room; this spell, somewhere between Light and Dark, would signal that the Vow was about to be broken by a constricting weakness in the heart of the avowed. In other words, should Miss Potter be in mortal danger, he would know it to his detriment.

It could prove troublesome since Miss Potter put herself in mortal danger as something of a hobby, and was in the Tournament and all. But he could survive it. He'd survived worse. His intentions had never wavered. Between her life and his, Miss Potter's should always have won. . . but dying was a simple thing. It was courageous, grand and symbolic, but simple.

Living for someone was by far the harder.

* * *

The wind and rain beat at the croft all night. Remus lay in bed, in the grips of a consuming wakefulness that owed nothing to the weather.

Sirius-as-Padfoot curled up on the chest at the foot of the bed, letting Remus know he was there and trying to gain his sympathy. Sirius had always been good at doubling up his motives.

How could you? The words swirled through his mind, as if beaten back and forth by the storm outside. He had no idea if he was talking to Sirius or himself or both of them. Both would be fitting, at least.

And burning sun-bright in his memory was the chilling sight of Snape's peculiar smile, the iron sound of his unhesitating reply, the adamantine steadiness of his eyes. They should have soothed Remus' niggling doubts, which no amount of faith in Dumbledore had been able to lay to unbroken rest. And if they didn't, the spell should have. Snape could not break that vow without a fatal consequence; and was it not a vow that he'd already sworn to Dumbledore?

And yet. . .

Sirius had not spoken after Snape had left. He'd sat facing the door, hands on his knees—knuckles bleeding where Snape had gouged him—his face unfathomable. Remus had left him there and curled up on the bed to relive over and over the moment when he should have refused.

The knowledge that they had done something morally reprehensible was falling beneath the shadow that they had done something they'd regret for a reason he could not yet see.

Dawn had not yet cracked the stormy darkness when Sirius changed into a man and shuffled downstairs. He returned clomping in heavy winter boots to the bedroom, where Remus had not moved. He paused in the doorway, then clomped over to the fire and sent it blazing with a silent spell.

"I'd better be off," Sirius said gruffly. "Make sure you give Holly-berry lots of love, you self-denying wanker."

Remus nodded. Staring at the fire was pricking his eyes.

Sirius gripped him by the shoulder. "Don't—just don't. You know what I'm talking about. You're bloody-minded in a way no one but me understands. Use it to take care of yourself for once, would you?"

When Sirius didn't let go, Remus reached up and clasped his fingers around the strong bones of Sirius' hand.

"If wishes were fishes," he whispered hoarsely.

Sirius's fingers tightened hard enough to hurt. Long moments passed, measured in heartbeats.

"You know why I did it?" Sirius said, his voice gravel-rough.

 _I can't begin to guess,_ Remus did not say.

"I told you I wasn't letting anyone else down. I've got to leave to help you. I couldn't leave Holly-berry without—you know I've never trusted him. Someone's at the school, Remus. Someone's waiting to hurt her. Voldemort's. . ."

He trailed off, his grip not loosening. Remus imagined that if he looked over his shoulder, Sirius would be staring out the window, into a world where Voldemort waited for Harriet with death and hatred in his heart.

"You saw Snape's mark," Sirius said. "He's getting stronger. . . he's coming back."

Still Remus said nothing. He knew all of this. He also knew there were lines one should not cross.

He, James, Sirius, and Peter had never seen those lines.

Sirius bent down and swiftly kissed him on the temple, banging their cheekbones together.

"You'd better be here when I get back," he breathed in Remus' ear; and then he pulled away. His heavy footfalls echoed down the stairs, through the tiny house, and faded as the door banged shut.

Remus placed his hand over the ghost of warmth on his shoulder and lay watching the fire long after dawn breathed pale light into the world, setting the windows aglow.

* * *

Severus went to bed less because he thought he would sleep well, and more because he knew that if you lay down, you would at some point fall asleep. It might not be for long or worth much, but it was better than nothing.

The burning memory of the vow followed him into sleep.

_He wore a rope of fire, wrapped around his shoulders and torso. Miss Potter sat on a kind of throne, wearing her shimmering white ball-gown and crown of diamonds. She glittered like ice and frost, her face as white as bone, her hair curling and dark like loam. Her expression was remote and curiously self-satisfied._

_"Do you give me your devotion, Severus?" she asked. "Do you swear to me your loyalty? Do you offer me your soul?"_

_I have already offered everything, he thought, because the burning rope was wrapped around his throat, preventing him from speaking, Everything._

_She offered him something small and white: her shoe. When he wrapped his fingers around it, the sole branded itself into his palm._

_Miss Potter stared at him in horror. He looked behind him, but no one was there. High hedges stretched above them. In a whirl of silvery white Miss Potter was gone, running away, and bound by his ropes he could not follow, as the shoe burned and burned—_

He woke with a jolt and was half out of bed before he came to himself. Flexing his palm, he ran his fingers over the cool, dry skin in the dark. He waited to notice that feeling the book had described: a crippling pain in his heart, signaling that he was in danger of breaking his oath.

Nothing. Miss Potter was in no danger, and he wasn't on fire.

Just. . . a dream.

He wiped his hand down his face. The image of Miss Potter in the high-backed chair, smiling at him so cruelly, and the words she'd spoken. . . words the Dark Lord had said to him once, and the chair he'd said them from, the night he'd accepted Severus' loyalty.

He lit his wand to see the bedside clock. Far too early for decent people to be awake, but he wasn't going to sleep any more after all that.

He dressed listlessly, feeling heavy-limbed. The house-elves always sent coffee as soon as they detected his morning movements, at whatever hour they transpired. He drank until only drops issued from the spout and he smoked the ashtray nearly full, seeking some form of alertness, wakefulness. When the morning paper thumped against his door, delivered by a sleepy owl, he got up to get it just to have something to distract him.

When he unfolded it, he found more than a distraction.

 _Has Hogwarts Professor Seduced Young Triwizard Champion?_ read the headline.

The grim stab he felt when he saw the words _writes special correspondent Rita Skeeter_ did not come from surprise.

He skimmed the columns of text. There was nothing in them comprising anything factual; it was all speculation, and nothing even remotely convincing. . . except that he knew some of it to be real. Miss Potter haunting the dungeon corridors, the fact that he and she had run into each other in the garden at the. . .

At the ball. . .

 _I_ _n that accursed garden, where terrorizing syudents out of their lust had proved dry enjoyment, he'd ordered her inside; she'd responded, as ever, with mulish determination not to listen. He'd even stooped to reasoning with her, stubborn brat, an indulgence which he granted no one. . . and watched that look of horror bloom on her face as she stared up at him, for once at a loss to explain it. . ._

No

_He'd come downstairs in Lupin's borrowed croft to find her crouching behind the sofa, an expression of mortified terror locking into her face when she realized he'd seen her. She'd pelted away up the stairs, almost knocking Lupin and Pomfrey flying, and locked herself in the loo. Pomfrey asked what he'd said to her. . ._

it was impossible

_Haunting the corridor outside his rooms, pestering him at all hours, barging her way in, thirsting for his approval, frustrated to find it withheld, pained at his condemnation. . ._

that the wretchedly reckless girl

_The golden faith she nursed in his abilities to help Lupin. . . "You might not know everything about werewolves but you know almost everything about Potions, right? Why did anyone think it was okay to give it to werewolves? If you didn't know how it worked, then nobody could've. . ."_

surely she could not

_Naricssa's letter, his own mistaken observations, Miss Potter's moody lassitude, Miss Granger's searching looks across the hall. . ._

be such a harebrained little FOOL.

He realized that he was breathing hard and his hands were empty, his coffee cup lying in pieces by his feet and the remnants of the pot dripping across the rug, the table overturned. Something was smoldering in the grate—the paper.

She couldn't possibly _—_

 _—_ except that she did. He knew she did. It fit all the facts, it accounted for all the incongruities, it _explained everything_.

Miss Potter did not fancy Draco Malfoy. The idea was laughable, and the truth was more ludicrous and appalling than he ever would have guessed.

Miss Potter. . . fancied. . . Miss Potter _thought_ , in her abject stupidity, her backwards little brain, that she _—_ could possibly _—_

His breath constricted in his chest; he felt curses rising to his lips, energy boiling to his fingertips. Rage such as he hadn't felt in years crackled through his blood, as hot and binding as the rope of magic Black's spell had fused to his soul.

He was going to make that foolhardy child deeply regret this sickening impulse of a most foolish heart.

* * *

Harriet's sleep was broken by bad dreams; not all the way to nightmares, but enough to jerk her awake again and again. When she heard the clatter of Parvati and Lavender's ritual of morning beauty, she felt like she had only just closed her eyes.

Dragging herself out of bed, she stumbled into her clothes, then lay back down. Their voices drifted around her, including Hermione whispering her name. Harriet wanted to say something, but she didn't seem to be awake after all.

Then she woke alone in the silence. Groggy, she knocked things off her dresser grabbing for her clock. She still had fifteen minutes till class. Hermione must have left her to sleep through breakfast—but why hadn't she come back? Fifteen minutes would make it a rush to get all the way to Gryffindor Tower and back to Care of Magical Creatures. . . and Hermione never forgot anything. . .

Harriet pulled on an extra jumper over her uniform, then her winter-weight robes, and was fastening her cloak when the dorm-room door creaked open. Hermione stood in the doorway, white as a sheet.

"What's wrong?" Harriet asked, alarmed.

"I. . ." Hermioned looked anguished. "I—"

Harriet strode up to her to examine for hex-signs. "Did someone curse you? D'you need to go to Pomfrey?"

Hermione shook her head. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She was—trembling?

"Is it Ron?" Harriet asked sharply.

"No, no—"

The bottom dropped out of Harriet's heart. "Remus. Sirius. They're—"

"No!" Hermione wrung her hands. "They're—as far as I know, they're fine."

Relief lasted only a second before twisting into more panic. "The baby? Your—"

"No! Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm making such a terrible mess of this." Fumbling with her school bag, she pulled out—a newspaper? It was folded up, and she clutched it to her chest, folding her arms over it. "Rita Skeeter—you know, that rotten fungus who calls herself a reporter? She's written an, an article. . ."

"What?" Harriet was at a loss to understand why that should upset Hermione, but for only a moment. "About me?"  
Biting her lip, Hermione nodded, but did not unwind her arms from the paper. Hermione's manner was so serious and turbulent that Harriet felt deeply uneasy. Well. . . had she battled a dragon or hadn't she?

"What's it say?" she asked flatly.

Hermione's eyes flickered over her face. She took a deep breath—

And let it out explosively when someone said timidly behind her, "Erm, excuse me? Harriet Potter?"

A tiny second-year girl stood fidgeting on the staircase. "Erm, Harriet Potter? Professor Dumbledore asked me to ask you—I mean, to tell you he's asking to see you in his office. Erm, right now?"

Then she scurried away—only to come right back.

"And, erm, he likes butter creams," she blurted.

Then she was off again, not quite running for her life but rather close to it.

Harriet stared after her. Hermione looked Petrified.

"This is about that bloody article?" Harriet said, outrage flaring in her gut as the uneasy feeling wound deep, tight roots into her. Then, without waiting for a reply from Hermione, she snatched the paper from her arms.

"Don't—!" Hermione said desperately, grabbing after it, but Harriet spun around so Hermione would have to reach around her.

Has Hogwarts Professor Seduced Young Triwizard Champion?

The headline seared itself into her brain, the picture of herself, of Snape—not together but separate, side by side—

Oh

Everything in her brain vanished, dragged into a tiny pinpoint of light at the center of infinite emptiness. She was holding still, frozen, yet ripping through the blackness at the mercy of a violent, crushing pressure, toward that point of light—and as it grew larger, as she streaked toward it, she realized it was white from heat, from a searing, blinding rage—

Hermione was patting at her hands, trying to pry them off the paper. "You're going to hurt yourself," she whispered tearfully. She made to pull the paper away—

Harriet ripped the paper so savagely away from her that she tore it nearly down the middle.

"What is this fucking BULLSHIT—" Her voice was so loud that Hermione flinched. "HOW DOES SHE THINK SHE CAN—"

"We—" Hermione's eyes were darting round the room, as if seeking help. "We need to see Professor Dumbeldore. We need to go there, now, right now. Come on—come?"

Taking Harriet gently by the arm, she guided her out of the room. Harriet stumbled on the steps, hardly noticing where they were going, the print on the torn newspaper marching across her eyes as she tried to take it in; but only certain phrases stuck to her. _Perhaps during midnight trysts, in glittering Christmas gardens and dank dungeon corridors_ and _indecent ideas indubitably inspired by the young champion's peerless performance of bewilderment_ and _a salacious seduction of an ambitious aspiring starlet. . ._

She was going to be sick. Who could write this? Who could write _like_ this?

"No one can believe this," she said numbly. "No one can—he's a grown up."

The memories of Mrs Weasley's tense, anxious face at King's Cross _,_ of Remus' worried eyes in the icy croft, hit her with wrenching force.

"I'm going to be sick," she said. "No, fuck that, I am not going to be sick, I'm going to find this fucking cunt faced Rita Skeeter and I'm going to rip her guts out through her fucking throat."

Hermione blinked at her. Only then did Harriet realize she was leaning on Hermione, her arm around her neck, while Hermione half-supported, half-dragged her down the hallway.

"One of these days I am going to find out where you're learning these phrases," Hermione said faintly.

_From Sirius—oh bloody fucking SHIT, Sirius. What if he sees this?!_

Harriet dug her feet into the flagstones and stood up straight. She swayed a moment, while Hermione hovered with hands outstretched to catch her.

"I need to see Professor Dumbledore," she said.

"That's where we're going," Hermione said desperately.

"Good," Harriet said, and started off in the wrong direction. Hermione grabbed her and steered her round the right way.

By the time they saw the gargoyle, the paper had turned to sweaty shreds in Harriet's fists.

"Ah. . ." Hermione said, staring at the gargoyle.

"Butter creams," Harriet said dully. The gargoyle sprang to life; Hermione jumped, too.

She and Harriet stepped onto the revolving staircase, winding up, up, up. Harriet held onto her murderous determination to maul Rita Skeeter until she was nothing more than an unrecognizable pile of organs so she wouldn't vomit off the edge.

Hermione, dear, brave Hermione, knocked on Professor Dumbledore's study door at the top of the stairs.

He opened it himself. He didn't look surprised to see either of them.

"Miss Granger," he said, sounding grave but very kind. "Thank you for coming. I hope you won't mind that I'd like to speak with Harriet alone for a short time just now?"

"N-no, sir."

"Thank you," he said sincerely, and he conjured her a comfortable chair to wait. A table popped up at her elbow, with a pot of tea or perhaps hot chocolate and a plate of biscuits. "We shall see you shortly."

Harriet supposed Hermione sat down and that she maybe took a biscuit. But somehow the door was shut between them and she was on one side of it, Hermione on the other.

His study was empty except for the two of them. No Snape.

That was probably a very, very, very good thing.

"Thank you for coming," Professor Dumbledore said to her, too. She might have felt quite grown up at the way he said it if she hadn't felt two inches tall, and all of it twisted-up rage.

He gestured to the chairs in front of the fireplace. Somehow, she wound up sitting in one. He conjured tea and offered her a cup, but she couldn't take it. Her hands wouldn't unclench from the newspaper. She was probably going to wind up with those horrible shit words seared onto her palms.

"It's all lies," she said.

"Naturally," said Professor Dumbledore, as if he'd never for one moment thought anything else. Harriet felt like sagging against the wing-back with relief. "Rita Skeeter's desire has never been for the truth, even of a most sordid nature. She seeks rather to outrage and provoke."

Harriet thought she ought not to vent her determination to kill Rita Skeeter, not here. "So no one's going to believe it, then?" she asked with desperate hope.

But Professor Dumbledore's face did not break into a calming smile. She felt her hope shriveling to ashes, leaving behind something cold and slimy that was much worse than the anger.

"Madam Skeeter has gone to great lengths to merely suggest a titillating possibility," he said. Harriet wasn't sure she'd ever heard him sound disgusted, but she was positive that was the emotion she was faintly hearing. "She has not made any accusations, merely, as they say, talked rubbish. It's entirely a case of speculation, and she's framed it as such."

That was, Harriet found, not very comforting. She still felt like she'd swallowed a bowl full of scorpions.

"You will not need to make any explanations to those who matter most," Professor Dumbledore said.

She thought of Sirius and felt grossly treacherous to be glad that he was—hopefully—far away right now.

"How anyone else reacts is entirely a matter of their choosing," he said firmly, "and has nothing whatsoever to do with you."

She had no idea what that meant, but she didn't think it meant anything very good.

"So people are going to believe. . . this." She glared at the bits of paper stuck to her hand. "It—makes it sound like—both of us were—"

"As I said," the disgust in Professor Dumbledore's voice was, for a moment, shiny bright, "Rita Skeeter does not infringe upon the truth."

Which was why she needed to die. Painfully.

"I have judged it best, for my part, to give the article no heed. Codswallop may be treated as such. You may handle the matter as you think best. . . And remember that if you should need to speak to me, about any matter whatsoever, you may call upon me at any hour, be it ever so early or late."

Harriet didn't think she'd find comfort about this anywhere, let alone in his luxurious study, but she said, "Yes, sir," because it really was very kind of him. It was only that kindness wasn't going to grind Rita Skeeter's skull to a pulp.

"Sn—he's not going to get in any trouble, then?" she said.

"No legal trouble whatsoever." Dumbledore's tone was reassuring, but Harriet couldn't help thinking he'd phrased it that way because Snape could get into all kinds of trouble for this that wasn't official.

"Right," she said, wondering what kind of spells a Death Eater might know to hurt someone. "Thank you, sir."

"You and Miss Granger might see what remains for you to enjoy in Care of Magical Creatures," Professor Dumbledore said as she swayed to her feet. "A friendly face might do you good."

"Yes, sir," she said again. Hagrid might be a friendly face, but Pansy Parkinson and Malfoy most certainly would not be.

She threw the gutted remains of the paper into the fire. Professor Dumbledore didn't scold her. They both watched the words, the double-frame picture of her face side-by-side with Snape's, crackle and curl in the flames.

"Thank you, sir," she said, and walked out of the warmth of his office, into a world that might believe this. . .

And perhaps worst of all was the dawning suspicion that if she hadn't felt the way she did, if she'd just stayed away from him like he'd always asked, this never would have happened.


	78. Rita Skeeter's Scoop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter after a much shorter time because I just got back from vacation. I finally got to go to Hogsmeade in Orlando, you guys. The absolute wonder made me speechless at first. But now that I've got my senses back, I can't stop gushing about it to anyone remotely interested. 
> 
> That last chapter was ridiculously hard to make myself write, so I'm glad you seem to have enjoyed it! It's worth the pains, for you ♥ Thank you so *very* much for everything sweet and excited you wrote me!
> 
> The chapter title is, of course, from canon.

Severus listened to the door shutting behind Miss Potter as she left. It echoed faintly through the wall against his head.

Though she was gone, he didn't move. He had no desire to see that wretched, witless girl, who was only half so foolish as her own ridiculous notions—

_Dumbledore, calling on him through the fire, had taken one look at him and swept him into the headmaster's study. "I won't have you doing anything you shall regret, Severus—"_

_"It is not I who need be made to REGRET—"_

_"Severus, would you—ah, good, I've never liked that vase. Severus—"_

_"How COULD she, the complete FOOL—"_

Dumbledore's footfalls padded on the carpet. "Severus?"

Severus slid his eyes to the side until he he could see the old man hovering above him.

"Well?" Severus said in a low voice. He ran the record of her voice through his head: stunned, outraged, bewildered, furious, anxious.

_"Sn—he's not going to get in any trouble, then?"_

_Worry about yourself, you abysmal half-wit—_

Dumbledore sighed as he circled the room, moving toward a divan but not sitting. "This is going to be a difficult time for her. For the both of you."

Really? Severus would've had no fucking idea.

 _Are you going to make it more difficult?_ asked his Inner Slytherin.

_She needs to be broken of this absurd. . . this disgusting. . ._

He couldn't even give name to that sickening and ludicrous parasite that had grown up in her. It was beyond his comprehension. He'd pinned her twitchy, near-terrified behavior on a crush for Draco, when really it had—

 _At least she's properly horrified,_ said his Inner Hufflepuff fairly, assisting with a memory of Miss Potter's face on the night of that godforsaken ball.

Dumbledore seemed to scan the walls of his books and instruments, as if they held answers. If only.

"Please do not take this as an admonition," he said tiredly, "only an explanation. I did not foresee this exactly. . . but this is why I tried to put some distance between you and Harriet the summer before last. Harriet. . . will always be in the spotlight."

"You were so prudish about playing Scrabble because you thought some bottom-feeding piece of human _excrement_ " (swearing around Dumbledore was more difficult than swearing around one's own mother) "would accuse me of ambition-fueled pedophilia?"

"As I said, I did not foresee this exactly—"

"She'll always be in the spotlight—so you said."

But the old man was righter than he knew. Perhaps if they'd never played fucking Scrabble then she wouldn't have. . .

He was seriously afraid he was about to be sick.

"It will be hard," Dumbledore said, "but it will die away, given time."

"Everything dies, given time," Severus said bitterly, and he did not mean it as a companion to the old man's wisdom. 

"It's an absurd story," Dumbledore said.

"People love to believe in the absurd unless it's the truth."

Dumbledore sighed his agreement. "How do you think Tom will react, should he hear of it?" he asked quietly.

Wormtail reading Witch Weekly. Severus imagined carving the rat into ingredients on a potions cutting board. "He would ask me, and I would deny it." _But should he realize that stupid girl. . ._

"That would be the end of it?" Dumbledore asked, almost skeptical.

"Yes." Possibly. Or not. Severus cast his memory back to those days when the Dark Lord had approved of him, smiled on him; even as he, himself, was bringing all his secrets to the man in whose office he now sat, exhausted by his own fury and the incomprehensible heart of Lily's child.

"He never understood. . . desire. His all-consuming fear of death has nothing to do with loving the world he lives in. He sees desires, longings, as bewildering things, things that weaken you. He asked me once if I should ever marry. When I denounced the practice, I rose in his estimation."

He'd thought of Lily when the Dark Lord had asked him; her face when he'd said the word and when he'd failed to apologize to a depth worthy of forgiveness.

"When I asked him to spare—to—" Just then it became difficult to breathe. "He said he was _disappointed_."

Dumbledore said nothing. Severus wouldn't look at his face.

"Should he ask, I'd tell him it was absurd and he would believe me. He thinks it all absurd."

He heard Dumbledore exhale gently. "Forgive me, Severus, for doubting your knowledge of Tom—but Harriet being the daughter of the woman you asked him to save—you do not think—?"

Severus' fingers dug into the arms of his chair so hard that his joints jarred. "I am already tasked with assuring him that I've been gathering intelligence on you, for him, for thirteen years. What's one more dissemination?"

"But won't this make it more difficult? If he should believe the temptation to keep Harriet alive—"

"Either he'll believe me or he'll kill me on sight. There's no way of knowing till the day, therefore it's no use talking about it."

Dumbledore's silence could not have communicated his dislike of that answer more clearly than if he'd proclaimed it from the top of the Astronomy Tower. _It's that damn fool girl's safety you need to be worrying about,_ Severus wanted to snarl.

Dumbledore's robes rustled as he arranged himself on the divan. Long moments passed—or perhaps short ones—Severus could not tell. The inside of his head felt like a room shaken all to bits.

Something prickled at his awareness. Looking up, he found himself the subject of Dumbledore's X-ray gaze, impossibly blue and knowing.

"What?" he snapped. Dumbledore's gaze was unwavering.

"I was wondering if there was anything else troubling you."

He couldn't know about the Vow, he just bloody couldn't—not even he. "Because there aren't difficulties enough already," he said with a soft snarl.

"I'm talking of Harriet in particular."

Severus opened his mouth, met that all-seeing stare. . . and knew.

He relented with something almost like gratitude—almost. "How long have you known?" he whispered venomously.

"I had a hunch when she came back to school this year." Dumbledore's expression was compassionate, but Severus knew better than to think it was for him.

_"How is Harriet doing?" the Headmaster had asked him. "I simply thought you might have noticed if something was bothering her."_

That had been in fucking _September_. Dumbledore had known before Miss Potter. Severus was as certain as could be that she'd only really understood it for herself at the ball; afterward, her behavior had changed so drastically.

"You've dealt with students in this capacity before," Dumbledore reminded him. "We all have. Though I admit, for myself it's been a while."

"That isn't the _point_ ," Severus hissed.

Dumbledore was silent a moment, then said, with the air of a man preparing to propel himself down a cliff-face, "She is Lily's daughter—"

"That's not it either!" Severus reined in his voice, though Dumbledore had not flinched. "She is a foolhardy, reckless—she has risked her neck for far less than the life of someone close to her! She refused to leave a dark forest with a werewolf running lose even before she'd—she'll do something—get herself killed—the Dark Lord is coming back and I must—"

"Severus. . ." Dumbledore reached out as if to touch him but stopped. For a moment he looked—helpless. Later Severus would probably feel shaken to recall that look on Dumbledore's face; now he could not calm himself from the storm of rage brewing in his chest, surrounding his heart, compressing his lungs. At some point he had gotten to his feet; he did not remember doing it.

"It's an unforgivable weakness, do you not understand? She must be broken of it, she cannot be allowed to risk herself for something so—bloody stupid foolish girl!"

"On the contrary." There was an odd expression on Dumbledore's face as he stared up at Severus. "I find Harriet's ability to love to be her greatest strength. It's extraordinary, after everything that she's endured, that she can—"

"Everything she's endured has twisted her brain if she fancies me an object for it!"

He prowled round this too-tiny circular room while Dumbledore sat in silence. Severus wanted to leave, but he was not yet calm enough. He did not want anyone to see him in this state. He felt like hurting someone.

"You asked me to keep the truth of your motives a secret," Dumbledore said quietly. "So I swore never to reveal the best of you. Over the years, I must admit, you have made an exemplary performance of hiding it—from everyone but Harriet. You have shown her this boundless, selfless love of your own volition. It's no mystery to me that she would see in it something worth her affection."

"It isn't—love. No—" Panic was pressing on Severus' heart; he wanted out; he could not talk of this, of her; of that empty picture frame on his mantel and her fragile, foolish child, who was growing up all too quickly and yet may never live long enough to grow up all the way. "It's guilt."

Dumbledore did not argue with him, but Severus wasn't fool enough to believe his silence sprang from agreement. "I have been cruel and unfeeling to that girl," Severus snarled, "in the midst of her _affections._ "

"In the Department of Mysteries there is a room solely devoted to love for a reason."

"You were surprised to learn what she—dear God, tell me you were—tell me no one else knows of it, or that article—"

"I doubt it will occur to anyone else," Dumbledore admitted. "Most of us see what we wish to believe, not what is. I flatter myself that I have learned a few things toward seeing what is really before me." Another of those odd looks, though it was quickly gone. "And I see Harriet as a child of exceptional courage and fortitude. She places herself in very dangerous situations to protect others, as well as who she holds dear—and she survives them. I have faith that when fighting for love, Harriet will find herself the strongest she's ever been."

"Love is going to get her _killed_!" Severus hissed. _Love_ had not protected Lily.

 _But it protected Harriet_ , said one of the Houses; though which one, he knew not.

"No, Severus," said Dumbledore, his gaze clear and straight. "It's going to give her something to live for."

* * *

"In here," Hermione said tensely, pulling Harriet into the girl's bathrooms.

Harriet braced her hands against one of the cubicles, dropped her head and tried to calm herself. It felt like a storm was brewing in her chest, flashing lightning and churning rain.

"Care of Magical Creatures is almost over," Hermione said in that shrill, tight voice that meant she was nervous as hell. "I don't think we want to see the Slytherins right now. Next is your Divinations break, so we'll—"

Her voice choked off abruptly with a strangled gasp. Alarmed, Harriet pulled her head up—

And saw the drawing on the mirror.

It had been done in lipstick, she realized from someplace far away. That was clearly supposed to be a crude drawing of Snape. And the crude drawing of her was—

A shock of pain rocketed up her arm when she rammed her fist as hard as she could into the intersecting hot pink lines. Pulling her arm back, she hit it again, and again, and again—

"Harriet, stop! You're hurting yourself!" Hermione grabbed her arm, pulling her away. Harriet's hand screamed with silent agony. It hung in the air at the end of her wrist, clenched and immobile.

"I—I think you might've broken it." There were tears in Hermione's voice. Harriet couldn't see anything except those jagged, hot pink edges and swooping lines. She felt far beyond herself, even from the pain in her hand.

"Let's go," Hermione whispered. From a great distance, Harriet felt the ghost of Hermione's hand lying on her arm. "To Madam Pomfrey. She'll fix it—y-your hand, I mean."

Hermione took out her wand and wiped the mirror clean, Harriet saw. A second spell made it gleam oddly, warping their reflections.

"Impervious." Hermione's voice trembled. "Nothing—nothing will stick to it now."

Some part of Harriet knew she should say thank you. But the part in control, which was not in control, couldn't speak. It could only respond to the pressure of Hermione's hand, guiding her from the room, and burn and burn and burn inside her.

* * *

Madam Pomfrey healed Harriet's hand with a grim injunction not to go round hitting anything for a while, especially whatever it was had broken her hand. She did not ask—which was just as well. Harriet seemed to have dropped her voice in Dumbledore's office.

Hermione led her out of the infirmary, through the castle. Harriet followed, hardly seeing and caring for none of it. The Fat Lady swung open and then shut; the staircase to the girls' dorm was beneath her feet; their own dorm-room door was closing behind her.

She stood in the middle of the room, staring at her bedpost. There was a notch on the side that looked the same shape as Italy.

"Harriet?" Hermione touched her shoulder. "I—I'm so sorry."

Harriet wanted to say, _It's not your fault_ _,_ or shrug or anything at all. Or maybe she didn't. Had Madam Pomfrey given her something? She felt so very odd—like all her emotions were out of reach, on a shelf high up somewhere.

Hermione's hand dropped from her shoulder. "We'll stay here till it's time for Transfigurations," she said. Her voice had a strange something in it that Harriet couldn't pinpoint.

 _Sounds like a good idea_ , Harriet didn't say.

Good. . . bad. . .

Pros.

Cons.

She turned and stared at her bedside table. It was suddenly, piercingly clear in front of her. She yanked open the drawer, pulled out the battered scroll of her list, and whispered, with every scrap of hatred she could pour those four syllables, " _Incendio_."

The scroll burst into a pillar of flame so bright and hot that Hermione yelped. The ash crumbled between Harriet's fingers. Her hand throbbed.

There was a long, stretched out silence.

"Madam Pomfrey's going to kill us," Hermione said faintly.

* * *

Her class was the last class of the day.

He was not ready to see her; did not want to see her ever again, outside of being certain that she hadn't got herself incinerated or murdered or drowned; but that made no difference. She would come. He doubted she'd skive off—the damn girl was too gutsy for her own good. From a tiny island of rationality, battered by his fury, he knew that her affliction had to be fed by a great deal of nerve or it would never have sprung up at all. Even when the last thing she surely wanted was to see him, she would probably come anyway, just to show—someone. Herself. Himself. The world.

_Bloody little fool._

He became aware of the student presence in the corridor as the noise of their arrival trickled past his heavy classroom door. The clock ticked inexorably forward as their chatter piled up, more of them arriving.

It was time.

He opened the door; looked into their faces without seeing them and spoke at his coldest:

"In."

They filed past until they'd all shuffled into the room. He shut the door behind them with a bang that snuffed out their vicious little whispers.

 _She_ did not look at him. Her face was blank—outwardly. Behind it lived that diamond-bright malice he'd glimpsed the night of the ball, when she'd punished Weasley with humiliations: the nothingness in her face was only a cocoon, enclosing her temper. Someone would push her too far, and then. . .

Granger's attention was focused on her to the exclusion of practically everything else. In the strictest sense, Granger was not alone: every mind in the room was fixed on her like a compass point to the north. A few eyes darted to him, then swiftly away again in terror. But Granger's attention was only from concern. The Gryffindors mirrored her, to a degree; but Granger's sympathy revolved so completely around _her_ that everyone else escaped notice.

Weasley was looking at her with concern, too, from his seat one table behind.

Severus' House rippled with eagerness, like the surface of a pond stirred by a passing wind; waiting for they hardly knew what—for his rage to descend swiftly on  _her_ ; to visit on her the retribution he could not exact elsewhere, for Rita Skeeter's crimes. The Gryffindors prickled with anxiety and preemptive resentment, no doubt dreading the same.

And she. . .

The first day she'd sat in this classroom, almost the first sight he'd had of her, she'd shrunk from the menace in his voice even as she radiated defiance. Today there was none of that. Stark emotion fluttered beneath her expressionless mask, but nothing bold shone forth. She was not proud or defiant or anything like herself, except in being there. There was a fragility to her now, as if the right pressure in the right place would shatter that porcelain composure ridding her face of all emotion and her posture of its Miss Potter-ness.

That was good. Fortuitous, even. In this state, it should be easy to obliterate the impulse that threatened her far beyond any danger Draco's feelings had ever posed to himself.

Severus walked from the door to the center of the room. Granger had judiciously chosen a table almost in the back of the classroom. He saw the know-it-all tense as he drew closer. He saw a frisson run through Miss—through her, something between a stiffening and a shiver. She would not look at him, but the bones around her eyes were taut with expectation of pain. He felt the exact right words rising to his tongue, impossibly cruel; a masterpiece of heartlessness. . .

. . . and there they—stopped.

He couldn't speak. He couldn't say the words. It was impossible, entirely impossible, to force them out, as if an invisible hand had reached into his mouth and gripped his tongue.

He could not say anything to her.

Sweeping his gaze round his classroom, across the rows of eager and resentful faces, he tried again.

"Well?" he asked in a soft, dangerous voice, and had the satisfaction of seeing the whole class jump. "Why are you all sitting like a bunch of gaping half-wits? Is this a classroom or a fish barrel? Your potion"—he flicked his wand at the board, choosing on the spur of that moment a brew to help with the cultivation of aqueous plants—"is waiting. Do try not to disappoint me too bitterly in the execution."

Granger looked terrified. Miss Potter was holding very still. 

He still couldn't speak to her.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," he tried, with a fine dose of cruelty. Miss Potter flinched, ever so slightly. "—Weasley." The boy gaped at him in outrage. "For gawping when you should be working. Well? Do you want to make it fifty?"

The gormless children puttered to work. Severus subjected them to his most cauterizing stares but did not feel vindicated at all. He prowled between the tables, criticizing everyone so viciously that even the Slytherins learned not to invite his attention today, but he felt hardly any better. He knew he should turn and rain the same wrath upon Miss Potter, ten-fold.

He couldn't.

 _Why_ couldn't he? It wasn't as if he had some compunction about. . . hurting. . . her. . .

The Vow.

It had to be the Vow. Black's ridiculously vague injunction echoed back to him: _Protect her from any harm. . ._

There could be no other explanation. He knew his duty to be absolute in breaking Miss Potter of this appalling and dangerous fixation, yet he could not do it because it might _hurt her feelings_? His resolve would never be so _paltry_.

But the Vow. . . It would explain the tightening in his throat, the queasy pulse in his stomach.

To hurt Miss Potter was suddenly beyond him.

 _Stupid_ fucking. . .

Those ninety minutes ticked past as miserably as if the dungeon classroom had been converted to a real torture chamber. He doubted he was alone in despising the time: without Granger, Miss Potter probably would have set the table on fire, she was so distracted; and Weasley was so focused on watching them that he did set the table on fire. Severus vented some of his spleen by insinuating that Weasley's intelligence was subnormal, but that he at least came by it honestly on his mother's side, and gave him detention—with Filch. Then, while Weasley was still apoplectic with rage and Miss Potter pale, perhaps with fury (or, if she would only acknowledge it, her own wretched taste), he ended class and flung them all out of the room.

Instead of going up to dinner, he locked himself in his quarters, smashed the helpful chiming clock and hurled the remains into the fire, and summoned his book on vows so adamantly that he knocked half the shelf's contents to the floor. He needed to know how the parameters of the Vow were set. Black's vague wording hadn't specified physical or more general harm—but how could anyone be expected to protect someone from _any_ harm? The article, in its way, had been extremely harmful, yet he was quite certain this burning desire to disembowel Rita Skeeter was entirely his own.

Here was the page—

_"The Unbreakable Vow is a triple effort in its sealing, for it calls upon he who sets, he who swears, and he who binds; but it is chiefly a dual effort in its formation. For the parameters are set by he who calls for the Vow, and their absolutes determined by he who swears to them. No man can know all the shades of another creature's heart and character; therefore the Vow, to which a man pledges his life's allegiance, is to be set only by the dictates of his own conscience. But each man's heart teems with shadows he cannot name himself; therefore it is wisest to honor what he knows to be right, and to eschew what he feels to be wrong, to ensure the Vow does not rupture with a fatal consequence."_

If this were true, then Black had only given him guidelines for his own conscience to interpret. It was not Black's idea of "harm" that he was belaboring with—it was his own. His own bloody conscience was telling him that he couldn't be mean to Miss Potter without breaking his oath.

Of all the incomprehensible. . .

He flung the book at the wall and dropped his head in his hands.

It was a certain thing now: that girl was going to be the death of him.

* * *

Harriet felt weak and shaky, as if she was recovering from a bad flu. She sat, quite unmoving, as everyone scraped and banged cauldrons about the classroom. Snape was saying something in a snarling voice as everyone packed up to leave. His eyes were as merciless as she'd ever seen them; his teeth were bared; he seemed bigger than normal, somehow, as if all his rage doubled him in size.

He turned toward her, and she tensed, sick to her core, waiting for him to say something _now_. . .

But his eyes swept over her as if she wasn't there.

"Harriet?" Hermione was tugging on her arm. "Class is over—come on—"

Harriet clutched her bag mechanically as Hermione draped it over her shoulder. She stumbled a bit as Hermione guided her through the rows of tables. Her brain felt like Dorothy's house during the tornado that had swept her away to Oz. Or maybe after it had already landed, because nothing felt right or familiar.

She couldn't believe he'd just. . . ignored her. She'd have staked her life that he was going to be as cruel as Snapely possible, which as she knew was a defining force of cruelty.

And then he'd just. . . turned away. Unleashed himself on everyone else. Let her alone.

Not even looked at her after that. Looked over her, around her—through her.

Like she didn't exist.

Hermione hustled her upstairs, away from the Slytherins hooting after her, their voices thrown over each other in the echoing dungeon corridor; shunted her past the Great Hall and up to Gryffindor Tower. Harriet didn't care. It was all over, wasn't it? She wasn't going to be able to even say two words to Snape without everyone pouncing on it. He'd probably ignored her rather than saying something, even a cruel something, because to speak to her was—would be—unwise. Stupid. Incriminating.

Or possibly he hated her that much.

Malfoy had seen her wandering round the dungeons at least once; someone had seen them the night of the Ball, in the garden—Rita Skeeter's article had mentioned both those things. He'd told Harriet to keep away from him over and over, and she hadn't listened because she thought he was just being Snape, having no time or patience for her. Even with Mrs. Weasley's probing questions and Remus' quiet concern, she still hadn't really believed him.

Now she was going to have to keep far away from him, as far away as if the scroll she'd lit on fire had actually done its job and made her hate him, the way he really hated her.

She slumped down onto her bed and stared at the bandage on her hand. (Madam Pomfrey hadn't said anything as she'd wrapped her up—not a word.)

"Harriet?" Hermione touched her shoulder. "Do you. . . would you like me to call Dobby for you?"

Somewhere, Harriet felt an arrow-pulse of wrenching gratitude. Her emotions seemed to be fluctuating in and out like that, one time piercing in their strength, the next, on the other side of some frosted glass.

"I'm not hungry." She pulled her knees up and rolled over till she was facing the wall without seeing it. Hermione didn't make a sound, not even moving away. Had Harriet given it any thought, she would have realized this meant that Hermione stood there looking at her, for a long time afterward.

* * *

Sirius' departure had left Remus to the comforting solitude of a near-invalid—or so Remus had thought. Having spent the last thirteen years nursing a broken heart and an increasingly breakable body, he had never been terribly anxious about his own lot. From the moment Dumbledore had proposed the werewolf scheme, he'd dreaded Sirius' fate far beyond his own.

But the comfort of endless days spent dwelling on the probability of Sirius' capture and death was not to be his: Sirius hadn't been gone twelve hours before Dumbledore came visiting.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he set a hefty picnic basket down on the kitchen counter-top.

"Quite well, thank you," said Remus with a lot less truth than politeness. "I hope you mean to help yourself from that mammoth thing, because I wouldn't be able to eat half of it." This too was a lie; Remus could eat everything in the basket and the basket itself and still be hungry. But the shame of having the Head of one of the world's most prominent wizarding schools leaving his castle and his duties to deliver his meals was galling. He wouldn't let even Dumbledore attempt it, and as soon as he could contrive a way to considerately throw him out, he would.

"I thought," said Dumbledore, smiling, "that with Sirius gone, you might appreciate the opportunity to enjoy a tasty, well-prepared meal without crushing his feelings."

"You would think I'd have developed a taste for blackened crusts and eggs by now."

The basket's contents did smell good—warm, rich, bready with a hint of spice. Remus had long ago learned to eat whatever was put in front of him, and Dumbledore was already unpacking that heavenly largesse. Oh, there was roast duck. . .

As he divvied up the portions and they ate, Dumbledore kept up a flow of talk. His powers of conversation were as prodigious as his other skills; he could relate an anecdote with charming vivacity, laugh at human absurdity with sympathy, and detail his studies with interesting clarity. Remus had often wondered what Dumbledore's classes had been like and more than once envied the students who'd got to take them. As a headmaster and a colleague, Dumbledore always had a moment to spare for anyone who needed it; but so many people needed their own moment, that each was necessarily short. In fact, Remus couldn't remember a time when he'd sat down with Dumbledore and had such a long conversation, undirected by any serious or practical consideration. . . and as that thought occurred, he wondered what Dumbledore had truly come for.

But if Dumbledore had an end game in mind, he didn't show it. Their dinner continued, its pleasantness uninterrupted by talk of war or werewolves. Dumbledore even brewed coffee for afters and brought out a fine pudding. By the time he'd leaned over to put another log on the fire, Remus' suspicions had almost lapsed. Then Dumbledore said,

"I don't believe you read Rita Skeeter's columns, Remus, do you?"

"No. . ." Remus' stomach knotted. If this was the reason Dumbledore had come, she must have written something truly, spectacularly bad.

Dumbledore passed over the paper. Remus unfolded it and immediately understood why Dumbledore had waited till he'd eaten his fill before showing him this.

Dumbledore tidied away their dishes as Remus read the article, or tried to. It was hard to take in. Aside from the revolting style of Rita Skeeter's prose—aside even from the appalling subject matter—the idea of what Harriet must have felt on seeing this, must still be feeling, was so agitating that he could scarcely concentrate.

 _Thank God Sirius isn't here_ , thought his traitorous reason.

The article was as nonsensical as it was badly written:

_"Has Hogwarts Professor Seduced Young Triwizard Champion? (writes special correspondent Rita Skeeter)_

_"With her suspicious ascent to the ranks of Triwizard Champions, Miss Harriet Potter succeeded in seizing the spotlight from more accomplished and perhaps deserving peers. But after contriving her championship, she doubtlessly divined that she was not up to the Task—first, second, or third._

_"'She's nothing as a witch,' reports Pansy Parksinson, a pretty, vivacious fourth year who knows the youngest champion intimately. 'But she's very good at making people do things for her.'_

_"Sources close to Miss Potter are convinced that her peerless performance in the first task owes its ostentation to illegal assistance—from an impossibly improper quarter._

_"Severus Snape, who raised eyebrows when admitted to the ranks of Hogwarts professors thirteen years ago, seems a likely candidate to have undertaken what may prove to be a salacious seduction of an ambitious, aspiring starlet. Sources within Hogwarts itself report frequent after-hours tete-a-tetes between the two, over the course of several months. Mayhap during midnight trysts in glittering Christmas gardens and dank dungeon corridors, the two hatched a plan to out-perform the others, as cunning a scheme as Miss Potter's felonious foray into the Tournament itself. This indecorous idea, indubitably inspired by the young champion's peerless performance of bewilderment, would only feed this ingenue's appetite for glory, and prove impossible to resist. With so much inside interference, will Miss Potter prevail, and be crowned Hogwarts champion? Only time will tell if her Machiavellian manipulations ensure her lasting success."_

Remus couldn't remember when he'd last hated someone as solidly as he was now hating Rita Skeeter. Most people he found rather impossible to hate. There was usually some extenuating circumstance, or at least some way of looking round to their point of view, that made outright hatred impossible. But there was absolutely no excuse for involving a child in this disgusting charade. It was bad enough throwing that light on Snape, who was innocent of this particular evil; to involve Harriet was unconscionable.

At least they could all comfort themselves with their scorn. Though appalling, it was only a third-page story in a gossip rag, and framed without a single credible source. Pansy Parkinson!

He handed the paper back to Dumbledore, wanting to wipe off the hand he'd held it with. "Is Harriet all right?"

"I believe her to be bearing up—though Poppy did say she saw Harriet twice in an hour."

"What _happened?_ "

"To heal her hand. Harriet appeared to have hit something solid, she said, and burnt herself somehow. She's all right now," he added.

"Forgive me, but I hardly think she could be—especially if she's hurting herself."

"You are right," Dumbledore said. "Please forgive _me_."

Remus shook his head. Poor Harriet—what she must be feeling—even his imagination could hardly approximate. Seeing that sort of thing written about oneself would be shocking and sickening enough, without adding in very real feelings from an entirely different context. The pain and mortification of it must have been beyond endurance.

"Have you heard from Sirius at all?" Dumbledore asked. Under the circumstances, Remus wasn't sure if this was changing the subject or not.

"No—but if he'd seen that article, you'd have known it when he and Severus blew up the dungeons." He sighed. "He's always been an unreliable correspondent."

"And a day has not yet passed. It may take him some time to locate a pack, do you think?"

"They tend to hide themselves from wizards."

Dumbledore nodded, and with a spell, cleaned the coffee pot to pack it away. "I hope we may hear from him soon. At any rate, you and I shall converse routinely in his absence. I hope you don't think me terribly rude, but I should be getting back to Hogwarts for the night."

"Of course. Thank you so much for coming."

With a final smile, Dumbledore and his picnic basket departed. Remus sat for a moment in silence, his heart trying to traverse miles of open, frosted ground to Hogwarts, and then summoned parchment and a quill.

* * *

Severus' conscience was kind enough not to extend its peculiar and unwelcome fastidiousness to writing that abominable girl the most excoriating letter he was capable of. He filled an entire roll of parchment with every minute detail of his opinion on her intelligence, though he certainly couldn't call it that, and included exacting definitions of every word he used over two syllables, because he didn't want any of it escaping her.

Testing the limits of the Vow, he sent for an owl and tried very hard to send her the letter. The owl made it down the corridor before he stunned it and threw the letter in the fire. Then he placed Lily's empty picture frame in the secret cupboard in his bookcase, and smashed all the rest of the glass in his quarters.

Bone weary, he stretched out in the armchair next to the fire, watching the broken pieces of the clock blacken in the grate. Spikes of firelight glinted on the shards of glass scattered across the floor.

If he could not say anything to Miss Potter, he would have to say nothing to her. He'd have to cut all contact. This cost him nothing—that bloody girl had been cutting up his peace of mind since Minerva had penned her acceptance letter, a summer not quite four years ago. But if Miss Potter should fight him on it. . .

He could only pray she'd exhibit a hitherto undiscovered common sense and avoid him, too. Hope glimmered, very faintly, that the article might do his job for him.

Speaking of articles. . .

A second letter, more calm than the first but perhaps no less menacing, he wrote to Narcissa. As Dumbledore had reminded him that morning, he couldn't do anything to Rita Skeeter, not from the spotlight she'd placed on him. But happily, that didn't mean he couldn't call in a favor.

And Narcissa owed him.


	79. No Need to Say You're Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even if you're getting tired of being thanked, I never get tired of saying THANK YOU! I am running out of ways to express how kind and thoughtful you are, or how much your continued interest, encouragement and support mean to me, so here is a stream of hearts for your amazing selves ♥♥♥♥♥♥ And, the bigger present, more fic! :p
> 
> Credit: reader _possibleplatypus_ thought the drawings should move. The exquisite cruelty of this was too much to resist, though I dearly wanted to (I am a wimp!)

The days following the article's publication didn't get any easier, though Harriet's emotions returned.

Chief amongst them was rage.

Everyone in school seemed to have read the article. Everyone except the Gryffindors quoted it at her as she walked down the hall. They mimed gestures like the stuff being drawn on every bathroom wall and cubicle door, drawings often charmed to move. They asked her disgusting questions and laughed at her when she turned white or red.

She probably would have been expelled a hundred times without Hermione. She clung to Harriet from morning till night, whispering feverishly, "Ignore them, ignore them,"—and, the real key to her success; the greatest evidence of her cleverness—confiscated Harriet's wand and kept it with her except in classes. Harriet would have resented this interference except that she was almost afraid of what she might do. The anger seemed to be a living thing, crouching in her throat so that breathing burned, stinging beneath her skin.

Hermione took her on a lot of long, vigorous walks in the snow from which they came back so cold and numb and exhausted that the anger had no energy for erupting. But it stored up its energy every night while she slept, and each morning it lurked beneath the surface, waiting, waiting.

Meanwhile, Snape was pretending Harriet didn't exist.

This was a favored tactic of the Dursleys—but Snape, being Snape, was capable of an artistry the Dursleys weren't. They might have been tempted to admire him even though he _was_ a wizard, he was so good at Ignoring Harriet. The Dursleys couldn't stop their eyes from twitching when they spotted her from the corner; their lips from pressing together when she came into a room; their heads from turning swiftly away to avoid looking at her.

Snape, though. . . Snape gave no sign that he ever noticed her sitting in his classroom, botching a potion, not-eating what Hermione put on her plate in the Great Hall—even existing at all. He projected the complete belief that she wasn't there. It was like he'd erased her from his consciousness. Harriet even stopped receiving homework essays back from him. (She did not dare ask where they'd gone.)

She was trying her hardest to copy him and pretend he wasn't there, that they brewed and botched Potions alone; that the oppressive atmosphere was just part and parcel of the dungeons, left over from when actual torture implements had probably hung there.

She didn't think she did even as well as the Dursleys.

Ignoring Snape was at once the easiest and hardest part. Everyone was acting vicious to a depth Harriet hadn't known they possessed—far worse than the rubbish over the Triwizard Tournament—but the Dursleys had despised her for years; she shouldn't have been surprised to find some people Hogwarts had the same capacity. Really (she told herself in the darkness of her four poster, when sleep would not come), the things the Slytherins were saying weren't any worse than anything Uncle Vernon had said about her parents deserving what they got, or Aunt Petunia blaming Lily for dying and saddling her family with an ungrateful freak. Aunt Petunia had already implied the exact same thing about Snape that Hermione kept scouring off bathroom walls.

But none of that really meant anything for the way she felt about—about him. It just meant that. . . whatever she'd felt. . . was dangerous, for him, and had brought her only misery; and the good things she'd felt now and then—scarce, but powerful—were gone. . . probably forever.

Snape wasn't forgiving, and she wasn't stupid enough to think this was going to get better. People would forget it if she and Snape showed how much they didn't care about each other's existence, or when they got bored. But no matter what happened with everyone else, every tiny bit of kindness—of his own sort—he'd ever shown her, he'd never show again.

Harriet was certain of that.

The complete lack of hope was the worst. But second-worst was the letter that came from Remus.

 _"Dearest Harriet,"_ he wrote, _"I wish there was something I could write that would make all of this better. There is never anything good that anyone can say. Platitudes are as useless as wisdom, and not even the deepest sympathy can cure anything. The only truth I can offer you, a truth as useless as the truth always is, is that this horrible feeling, this wretched state, will not last forever. I know that does not really help you and that I've done what I said I wouldn't, and tried to make better with words what cannot be made better with words._

_"Another useless bit of comfort I must offer is that the article is one of the stupidest things I've ever forced myself to read. No one with a particle of sense will credit it. I know that doesn't help, and that people are surely making your life hell right now, not the least because you are unable to commit mass murder. Sirius would at this point steal the letter from me and suggest you master the hex Langlock. He'd write that you'd want a nice, sharp wand movement, somewhat like a fencing jab, and the person's tongue will stick to the roof of the mouth, leaving them unable to say anything._

_"I am so very sorry this was done to you. We won't talk of it 'happening,' because it was clearly the precise intention of a person whom I cannot loathe enough. It may be some little comfort to you to know that she will probably find, sooner or later, that she has chosen her target unwisely. I wish I could feel sorry for her if I am proved right, but that's impossible. Severus probably did something to anger her—articles of this stamp are her favorite way of revenging herself. Even so, nothing he did or said would clear her of blame for writing what she did—particularly not about you._

_"My final cold comfort that I can't help sending, is that you have done nothing wrong. Whatever Rita Skeeter felt to be warranted by her twisted brain, it should never have involved you. Bad matters are always worse when we have to reproach ourselves. You have absolutely nothing to blame yourself for. When this blows over, your conscience can be perfectly clear._

_"If you feel that you want to write back, I am always overjoyed to hear from you. If you would like to visit, speak to Dumbledore. Whatever you decide or feel, I love you dearly. Nothing can possibly alter that. Remus."_

This was a letter not easily recovered from. Harriet had never heard Remus sound so open, earnest, and affectionate. His letters had always been as calm and reserved as himself. Here was indignation, ardent sympathy, and strength of love, all on her behalf—and they were not easier to bear than the knowledge that he was wrong: she had done something to blame herself for. If she hadn't followed Snape around when he'd told her to go away, Rita Skeeter wouldn't have had this fodder, no matter what he said to her. Harriet would bet her Firebolt that Skeeter had been rooting around for dirt on him, and someone (Pansy was probably a good contender; Remus had the right idea with that spell) must have seen Harriet in the dungeons, in the garden, and reported it.

Hermione had said everyone was harassing her more for fun than from believing it. Remus seemed to think the same. Harriet was relieved—as loathsome as it was to bear, she'd rather be mocked than Snape sacked or worse. But nobody, as far as she knew, had come to investigate. The teachers seemed to be ignoring the matter entirely. At least, despite the mess she'd made, he wasn't in any real trouble.

She stared at Remus' letter, reading it over without really reading it, feeling confused, embarrassed, grieved, and above all, loved—and had to fold it up and put it away. It was too painful—it was agonizing. She could not stop the thought that whatever proof she had ever had of the goodness of Snape's heart, of the strength of his love for her mum, he would never, should they all live a thousand years, send her a letter with one ounce as much love as this one, because he'd never feel it for her.

* * *

Severus was surprised at himself.

The rage he'd felt upon comprehending the truth of the girl's feelings had been so strong and natural and just, he'd expected to endure it for days, even weeks afterward. But when he woke up the morning after, the rage seemed to have burnt itself to ash, leaving him listless and uncaring. He drank some coffee, but it gave him no energy; smoked one cigarette, then simply didn't care enough to light another.

Perhaps it was the Vow. The little student pustules were surely tormenting her with all the evil glee in their wretched hearts and stunted brains. Maybe his inability to protect her from their ignorant malice was sapping his strength away. He tried to comfort himself by thinking that if he couldn't say anything to her, everyone else might soon say enough to starve her affliction to death.

The rest of the day brought no change to his mood. The other teachers' behavior toward him was markedly different: awkward yet conciliating. Practically everyone went out of their way to say something polite or friendly to him. Minerva even kept up a one-sided conversation for about ten minutes during breakfast. He didn't know what she'd talked about—he hadn't listened—but even his inattention hadn't forestalled her. Only Dumbledore treated him normally.

Severus had decided to pretend the girl didn't exist. He supposed it was good practice for the Dark Lord's return, when he would need to profess opinions to the exact opposite of reality. (That was, of course, supposing the Dark Lord didn't murder him on sight.) If he could pretend the girl no longer existed while being painfully aware of her at all times, he would be ahead of schedule.

He went through the day without caring about a second of it or feeling the slightest pang of emotion, except for a natural annoyance with the stupidity of his students. But he'd have to be dead for about ten years before he failed to feel _that_.

Narcissa's answer to his favor arrived some hours after dinner. He read it, but his satisfaction was only intellectual.

 _"My dear Severus,_ " she wrote, _"you may be assured that every means in my power will be entirely at your disposal, from this moment until you have fed enough on her suffering. Since I know you well enough to understand how long that is likely to be, I shall have my work cut out for me. But do not despair—I assure you, I will enjoy myself immensely. Her paltry revenge, her style, her conceit, everything about her is disgusting to me. It will never be forgiven, dearest, you have my word. And you know what price I put on my forgiveness."_

She closed with an expression of her love. From beginning to end there wasn't a word about hoping this repugnant business would cool Draco's little flame of love or fearing that it would worsen it. He was almost touched by her sacrifice of writing an entire paragraph that did not mention her son.

He penned a brief reply—he knew he could rely on her; he trusted her powers and her discretion—and then sat for a long time, staring at the fire. The mantel was empty. Lily's picture was still in the secret cubby-hole.

He did not get up to retrieve it.

* * *

By Friday afternoon, Harriet was hiding even from Hermione. She couldn't bear to speak to another person. After Potions—an endless hour spent not knowing whether she was more angry at the gestures Pansy Parkinson would make behind Snape's back or miserable with the way Snape erased her with every glance and word and gesture, she eluded Hermione and hid in a dirty, snowy courtyard off the main quad. Night had fallen; the torches were lit; but it was bitterly cold, and snow had been falling steadily all week, piling the cobblestones with drifts. She wouldn't be able to stay out there long, but she hoped even five minutes would clear her head—and clear the corridors of students going into dinner, so she could escape up to Gryffindor Tower without harassment.

But _damn_ , it was bloody cold. She'd have conjured up some of Hermione's flames, but she didn't have a jar.

When her feet went numb, she decided that if anyone tried anything, she would just punch them in the face. With her icicle hands, she might not even feel it.

Pulling her cloak round her, she hurried beneath the stone arch into the corridor beyond, and almost bowled over Tracey Davis.

Harriet recoiled. Any one of Pansy Parkinson's friends had a solid spot on the List of People Deserving Langlock. Tracey was raising her hands—was she going to mime the _thing_ , like everyone loved charming onto the bathroom walls?—but no, she was facing her palms outward in a peace-making gesture.

"Steady on, Potter," she said.

Harriet tried to move past her without speaking, but Tracey followed her.

"Look, Potter, would you stop? I need to talk to you—"

"If you really needed to, I think I'd have some similar feeling," Harriet retorted, "and I really don't. Piss off!" she snarled when Tracey dogged her steps.

" _Look._ " Tracey spoke like a person striving for patience, but with a funny edge to her voice, "I just wanted you to know Daphne and I didn't have anything to do with that article."

Harriet was about to tell her to get lost in stronger terms, but confusion made her stop walking.

"What are you on about?" she asked.

Tracey was perhaps equally confused. "We didn't have anything to do with it," she repeated. "We never talked to Skeeter, at all."

"Why would you?" Harriet asked impatiently.

Tracey's confusion was giving way to exasperation. "Great Salazar, Potter, are you serious?"

"If you're not going to start making sense, you can _piss off_ ," Harriet said. "I've got better things to do than stand here not understanding you."

"I bet you do," Tracey retorted, "I've read all about—" She stopped herself and raised her hands again, which was a good move, because Harriet was readier than she thought to punch someone in the mouth. "All right, I'm sorry—I'd say I hope you noticed I hadn't been joining in much with Pansy, but since you don't have any idea what I'm talking about—"

"And since you're a _fucking_ hypocrite—" Harriet started angrily; but a random flash of memory, of dark hair and blonde tangled together against a hedge, made her understand. "Wait. This is about you and Daphne. In the garden—"

"Shut up!" Tracey's eyes darted round the empty, snow-scattered corridor, like she was actually afraid.

Harriet narrowed her eyes. She wanted to ask why Tracey was so agitated, but she didn't want to her to know she didn't know. It was clear, at least, that Tracey didn't want people to hear about her and Daphne kissing. Not only was she anxious that Harriet not say anything, but she didn't want Harriet to think she and Daphne had contacted Skeeter—in revenge?

It must be a Slytherin thing, because Snape's mind was even more convoluted.

"I won't say anything," Harriet said shortly. "Trust me when I say I couldn't care less about it, with everything I've got to bloody worry about. After this conversation I'll go back to forgetting, because that's how much I don't care. So you can get lost now, for good."

"Gladly," said Tracey, turning to go.

She almost walked straight into Pansy Parkinson.

Pansy looked so surprised to see them, Harriet could tell that she hadn't known they were there. But Pansy recovered quickly. A nasty smile was spreading over her face in a moment.

"Well, Potter," she said. "So this is where you get to, when Granger's let you off her Mudblood leash." Her expression turned sly; her eyes gleamed. "You didn't use to hang round here, though, did you? I suppose you've got a lot of free time on your hands, now that Professor Snape's chucked you." She laughed.

Harriet thought about the spell Remus had given her. She had even practiced the wand movements. She raised her hand, but she wasn't holding her wand—where had it gone? But it didn't seem to be her intention to hex Pansy, because her fist was already connecting with Pansy's pug nose.

Harriet's hand jarred, not as hard as on the mirror; something went crunch under her knuckles. Pansy shrieked, staggering away. She clapped her hands to her nose, blood dripping down over her lip, and stared at Harriet in horror. Tracey stood rooted to the spot, like she'd been Petrified.

Harriet flexed her fingers. "I," she hissed, narrowing her eyes on Pansy's bloodied face, "am going to rip your HAIR OUT."

Pansy didn't need telling twice. She turned and bolted.

Harriet flung off her school bag and hurtled after her. Pansy was taller, but Harriet was quicker. Perhaps Pansy noticed, because she shrieked at the top of her lungs as she fled down the corridor. Her racket was sure to draw people to them if Harriet didn't shut her up.

Harriet eyed Pansy's long hair trailing behind her. As Pansy made to cut round the corner, Harriet lunged and seized a handful. Pansy shrieked again as Harriet hauled on her hair, throwing all her weight into it; Pansy stumbled, costing Harriet her balance, and knocked them both to the floor.

They tumbled across the flagstones, Pansy trying to scratch at her face and Harriet punching at every part of Pansy she could reach. She managed to jab Pansy in the stomach with her knee; Pansy dug her fingernails into Harriet's scalp. She was trying to rip Harriet's glasses off, to scratch at her eyes; Harriet pinched her bloody nose and twisted as hard as she could. Pansy let out a scream, more piercing than any yet—

" _MISS POTTER_!"

Pansy was yanked off Harriet, who was hauled roughly to her feet.

" _Miss Parkinson_! What is the meaning of this?!"

Shoving her glasses straight, Harriet looked up into Professor McGonagall's white, furious face. The doors of the Great Hall stood flung open behind her, and a sea of shocked and excited faces—including those from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and several teachers—filled the doorway.

"Sh-sh-sheee huh-hit m-mee," Pansy sobbed, pointing at Harriet. Blood was smeared across Pansy's face and dribbling down the front of her blouse, and her eyes were streaming with pain. Harriet's face stung from the marks of Pansy's nails; every part of her felt battered where it had hit the floor.

"Miss Potter?" Professor McGonagall demanded, her grip like iron.

"Yeah," said Harriet, in full view of everyone gawping at her. "I did."

Professor McGonagall stared at her for a long moment. Then her lips pressed together until they turned white. Keeping her grip on both girls, she said, "We are going to see the Headmaster. Everyone else," she raised her voice, "will return to their meals."

She marched Harriet and Pansy up the grand staircase while Sprout and Flitwick chivvied everyone else back into the Great Hall.

Harriet looked down at the crowd as they reluctantly shuffled away, many of them still craning to look.

She did not see Snape.

* * *

Professor McGonagall was so angry, she did not speak one word to Harriet or Pansy for the entire march to Dumbledore's office, not even to scold them or to tell Pansy to stop sniveling. She barked the password at the gargoyle and gave the girls a not-so-gentle push onto the revolving staircase.

Though she rapped on the door, she was opening it before Dumbledore had finished answering. She strode inside, pulling the girls behind her—and stopped. Harriet bumped into her, peered around her shoulder, and felt the floor vanish.

She hadn't seen Snape downstairs because he was _here_. He stood over Draco Malfoy (whose nose was also bloody) and Ron (whose left ear had been transfigured into a leek), his arms folded and his eyes directed at a point on the wall above everyone's heads.

"Professor McGongall—good evening," said Professor Dumbledore. "Well. Though I'm sorry for us all to meet under these circumstances, it looks like we might be more productive from coming together like this. Please," he said to Harriet and Pansy, "take a seat," and conjured comfortable chairs, to match Malfoy's and Ron's, out of midair.

Harriet sat, uncaring of the stinging in her face or the throbbing in her knuckles. It was extremely important that she be as indifferent to Snape as he was to her.

Professor McGonagall took up a position behind Harriet and Pansy to mirror Snape's over the boys.

"Now." Dumbledore looked at all four of them without anger, but with a seriousness that was almost grave. "I would like to discuss the trouble that's brought you here."

"She hit me!" Pansy said thickly, while Malfoy declared the same.

He pointed at Ron. "I wasn't doing anything to that _weasel_ and he just—"

Ron went red with fury. "You know damn _bloody_ well what you were doing, you—"

"Mr. Weasley!" barked Professor McGonagall, no doubt at his language.

Harriet couldn't help noticing that Snape looked miles away from the rest of them. Dumbledore was grave, Professor McGonagall furious, but Snape looked. . . uncaring.

" _I_ wasn't doing anything either," Pansy said querulously. Harriet snorted, doing her best to convey her contempt, though she didn't say anything.

"Those are Mr. Malfoy's and Miss Parkinson's testimonies," said Professor Dumbledore. He looked at Harriet. "Miss Potter?"

Harriet had nothing to say. She wasn't going to repeat what Pansy had said, with or without Snape in the room—though certainly not _with_ him here. She knew Ron wouldn't either. And Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore must know why they'd been fighting. Snape. . .

"I hit her," she said. "And I'm not sorry."

Professor McGonagall made a faint noise. Pansy's bloody face had a look of mingled triumph and resentment on it. Malfoy dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief. Dumbledore gazed at her gravely over the top of his half-moon spectacles.

Snape did not react at all.

"If that is the case," said Dumbledore, "I must give you detention. Fighting is not permitted at Hogwarts."

Harriet nodded, trying to look unconcerned. It was easy: detention was a small price to pay for being able to punch Pansy in the face.

"Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore asked him.

"I'll take the detention," said Ron. "Punching Malfoy was a pleasure."

Malfoy looked rather shocked at his rudeness.

Dumbledore gave Ron a stern look that made him flush and drop his eyes. "I should be very sorry to hear that it was, Mr. Weasley. Professor Snape, you may take Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinson to the infirmary. I will discuss the details of Miss Potter and Miss Weasley's punishment with their head of house."

"Headmaster," said Snape curtly. At a needle-point glare from him, Pansy and Malfoy slunk after him—sending Ron and Harriet looks dripping with hatred as they went.

Once the door had shut behind them, Professor McGonagall launched into a spectacular scold.

"I am ashamed," she said, " _deeply_ ashamed of you both. Brawling is bad enough, but to gloat in front of your professors like this!"

"I'm sorry, Professor," said Ron, raising his head, "but Malfoy deserved it."

"I can guess at what he said," Professor McGonagall said sharply, "and I would have hoped you and Miss Potter had better sense than to credit a word out of his mouth. Both Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinson were attempting to goad you, to make your anger get the better of you, but you should know better than to pay attention to them! They have never deserved the compliment of any rational opposition, and in this matter, certainly not! I am more disappointed than I can express that either of you, let alone both, should have stooped to bestow any genuine anger on their absurdity!"

Harriet and Ron gaped at her. Even Dumbledore looked surprised. Professor McGonagall's expression changed. Perhaps the sight of their gaping faces made her realize exactly what she was saying, because she glared at all three of them and said severely, "Professor Dumbledore, what will their punishment be?"

"Ah. . ." He blinked. "It's rather too cold to be working outside, but the trophies always need cleaning."

"A nice, _lengthy_ cleaning," said Professor McGonagall, her glasses flashing. "Comprising several _long_ sessions?"

"I believe that would be beneficial. Mr. Filch," he added, making Ron flinch, "no doubt has a few matters that need some extra attention. Professor McGonagall, you will ask him for a list?"

"With alacrity," she said, aiming a gimlet stare at Harriet and Ron. "Stressing his attention to detail."

"Thank you, Professor. Professor McGonagall will be in contact with the dates and times," he said to Harriet and Ron.

"Expect them _very_ soon," she said grimly.

"Yes, ma'am," they mumbled.

* * *

Harriet and Ron rode the revolving staircase down in silence. Only when the door was scraping into place behind them did they look at each other. Then the expression on Professor McGonagall's face, Pansy and Malfoy's bloody noses, their two-faced indignation, and Ron's and her own complete lack of guilt, struck Harriet as being the funniest things she could remember, in she _couldn't_ remember how long.

Ron was grinning. She was grinning too. And suddenly they were laughing, laughing so hard they had to double over and brace against each other or fall on their faces.

"Did you see the look on his _face_?" Ron hooted.

"You should have heard her squealing as she ran!" Harriet gasped.

"Did you chase her?"

"She screamed the whole way—"

They leaned against the stone gargoyle, laughing until it hurt.

Harriet pulled her glasses off her face and wiped at her streaming eyes. Her face and stomach hurt, and something more substantial, her heart. But she didn't want to think about that right now.

She'd wound up slumped on the floor with her back against the gargoyle, with Ron sprawled next to her.

"Merlin. . ." He was wiping at his eyes, too. "I thought for sure I was going to get chucked out for good. Then you came in, and I thought, 'It's all over, but at least we'll go together'—and then you said you didn't care that you'd hit her and I knew I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Harriet smiled. She knew that what they'd done hadn't been good, and that they probably should feel worse about it. . . but while she'd been chasing Pansy down the hall, the sick, wretched, angry, guilty feelings twisting her heart had been forgotten. She was rather afraid she'd punch Pansy as many times as she needed if it made her stop feeling all of that for a while.

"And we got caught by Snape _and_ McGonagall and weren't tossed out," Ron was saying, and her heart clenched on hearing his name. "That's probably what I can't believe the most."

"What happened with you and Malfoy?" she asked, trying to sound only curious about her friend, and not like she needed to hear about Snape and what he'd been doing.

Ron's face darkened. "Snape caught me and that smug dick rolling round on the floor, pulling each other's hair—I was trying to bite him. I thought for sure he'd kill me on the spot—Snape, I mean, Malfoy's bloody useless—but he just looked at us both like we were slugs and told us to follow him. I didn't dare say no. He's been. . . scarier than usual, you know, since—since."

He stared awkwardly at his knees. Harriet didn't say anything. Her heart was hurting again, a distant kind of ache that she knew would grow stronger the more she thought about it.

She got to her feet. Ron followed her up, rubbing a hand through his hair and making it worse.

"Look," he said abruptly, "I'm—"

Harriet knew he was about to apologize for everything that had happened at the Ball, and found she suddenly couldn't bear to hear it.

"Forget it," she said.

Ron closed his mouth, mute with confusion. "Forget it?"

"We can both forget it," she said, remembering that he hadn't been the only one who'd acted badly.

They looked at each other in silence. Her heart was beating hard, in case he said no.

He said, "Easy as anything. But what I can't forget," he said seriously, "is how I didn't have any dinner because I was too busy pounding Malfoy's smug git face."

She smiled so hard it hurt. "Kitchens?"

"Yeah," he said, grinning back.

They walked down the hall in companionable silence. At the end of the hall, Ron pulled up a tapestry concealing a stretch of blank wall that led to a secret staircase. As they passed through the stones and down a torchlit staircase, Harriet knew they were avoiding the main corridors where they might run into people who'd taunt her. Her heart swelled with happiness and remorse, a rush that momentarily loosened the strains of misery.

"Ron. . . did you know your ear's been transfigured to a leek?"

"Thought my hearing had gone funny," he said, looking pleased to have figured it out. He reached up and pulled on the greens sticking out the side of his head. "We'll see Pomfrey—after dinner, though. Those elves make a mean steak and kidney pie."

* * *

Severus dumped Pansy Parkinson and Draco on Madam Pomfrey's sufferance with orders to report to his office when their blood had been siphoned back into their (fat) heads, and left before he succumbed to the urge to throttle them. He could not take points from them; Weasley and the girl had clearly been the instigators of the fight, for all that Parkinson and Draco had provoked them. He needed to handle this delicately, to avoid even the shade of suspicion falling on his true motives.

He trusted that his foolish students would obey his orders to come, and so they did. They shuffled in, looking sulky but apprehensive. They knew he did not censure fighting as long as he did not have to step in. When he did. . .

"Sit," he said coldly. The sight of Draco and Weasley pummeling each other had lit a spark of rage within him, the first emotion he'd experienced since their death Monday night while he slept. Even now he felt the fire returning, at the sight of Draco's mussed hair.

"Sir—" Draco said.

"You may be silent, Mr. Malfoy. You and Miss Parkinson had your chance to speak in the Headmaster's office. I am sure you said more than enough to Potter and Weasley." (Their look of apprehension mounted.) "I can even guess the subject of it."

Now they wouldn't look him in the eye.

"Sir—" Parkinson muttered.

" _Silence_." Severus struggled to control his temper. He could not lose it right now. His position would be precarious enough when the Dark Lord returned without his becoming unpredictable and unleashing his anger on his own House; a thing he had never done in all the years he'd been Head. He needed to remain the master of himself. Sudden fits of rage would look like he was coming unscrewed, like Karkaroff. They would look like guilt.

"I have no reservations when it comes to riling Gryffindors," he said, which was true as far as all of them went but one. " _Especially_ Gryffindors. But you must comprehend how every mention of _this one subject_ involves me as well as Potter. It involves me to a worse degree. If there were an investigation, do you think it likely _she_ would be held to blame? Allow me to correct you. _She_ would not."

"But sir," said Draco timidly, "it's all a joke. Everyone knows Skeeter made it all up—"

"I'm pleased to have provided you with amusement," Severus said at his coldest, while he filed away the information that Draco did not believe in the tiniest bit of it, nor knew who'd reported it. As poor a liar as he was, he couldn't be bluffing.

Who _had_ told? Parkinson's face did not betray any guilt or knowledge either. But then, it would take a very peculiar Slytherin to have reported such things to Skeeter about their head of House. With any other House-member it would be no wonder, but the only non-Slytherin who'd ever sneaked about the dungeons was Lily's daughter.

"Continue to provoke Potter and Weasley," Severus said, "and any Gryffindor you meet, particularly now, when they are vulnerable. But find some means other than that wretched article. You're dismissed."

He waited till they must have made it down the corridor before rising from his desk. He paced the room once, twice—then grabbed a handful of Floo powder and returned to Dumbledore's office.

Thankfully the Headmaster was alone. He was petting Fawkes and looking sombre—and, to see Severus dusting ash onto his carpet, surprised.

"Severus—to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Severus pictured the girl sitting conjured arm chair—scratches all over her face, her expression wounded yet proud. The brittleness of the last few days had fallen away, had broken to pieces, leaving behind a dark center in the midst of a bright, shining thing. The memory of it created a feeling in him that was nearly like fear.

"You didn't like her attitude," he said to Dumbledore, "her unconcern over punching that vile wart, Pansy Parkinson. Tell me you did not."

"I did not." Dumbledore looked at him with a grave kind of curiosity, but curiosity nonetheless. "May I confess to you that I'm worried about her? The timing of this wretched business is a bad thing for Harriet, I believe. She is vulnerable in a way that could see lasting damage from this—lasting damage to her heart."

"Yes," Severus said, distracted. Was that what this feeling was; this agitation, this fraying control? ' _Any harm'_ —the instructions left to his own conscience to interpret. . . he knew about the harm you could turn on yourself by allowing bitterness to consume your heart; oh, did he know. "She needs—someone must talk to her. This can't continue. _She_ can't continue like this."

"I am in full agreement." Dumbledore's expression was appraising. "And I believe, though you won't like hearing it, that you are the properest person to help her."

" _I_?" Severus didn't know whether to be indignant or disgusted.

Dumbledore's hand stilled on Fawkes' bright feathers. "Harriet's feelings—"

"Are proof of the problem! You may prate on about her recognizing goodness in me, but it is far easier to recognize what no reasonable or decent person would permit themselves to admire. Her feelings for—" He could not bring himself to say it "—they are further indication that something is _wrong with her._ "

"I can't agree with you there," said Dumbledore, but held up a hand to forestall argument. "But I do take your point. If you'll allow me to put a different construction on it, however. . . It does truly pain me to say it, my dear boy, but the way you and Sirius treat each other is not good behavior for any young person to emulate. Harriet is. . . fond of you both. It's testament to the strength of her heart that she hasn't taken sides or fallen into resentment when you are so clearly and bitterly at war with each other."

Severus would be perfectly happy for Miss Potter's to resent Sirius Black to the ends of the earth, but he knew better than to expect her to. (Was _that_ what Dumbledore meant?)

"But," Dumbledore said, "I am afraid that in continuing to love the both of you"—he ignored Severus' full body twitch of horror—"she has taken to overlooking a great deal. It is difficult to hold someone in deep, fond regard when we must censure some aspect of their behavior. Forgiveness, true forgiveness, not blindness, is the difficult product of arduous wisdom."

"You're saying that Black and I, hating each other, are making it easier for _her_ to hate?" He did not know whether to scorn the idea or be ashamed of himself, and that surprised him. He had never seen anything to censure in his own hatred of anyone. Hatred was comfortable; at times, it was even sensible and just. Black certainly deserved every shard of malice in Severus' heart. He only did not like it in Miss Potter, who was—who was. . .

Better than that.

"We become more like the people we love as we love them," said Dumbledore, his voice very quiet. "If we find ourselves loving those who do things we cannot approve of. . . things we cannot love. . . we must either learn to resist their influence, or cut them away from us."

Severus felt a deep, wrenching pulse of remorse and despair. Lily's face flashed across his mind, contempt writ across the features he had held so dear for so long, as she turned away from him. With something like panic, he recalled her daughter's face tonight. They were not the same.

He did not feel comforted because he did not know what that meant.

"I would not have Harriet cut herself away from you and Sirius," Dumbledore said. "I know that you must be careful now, that the nature of your closeness with Harriet must change, because of what has happened. But your affection for her—and whatever you say, Severus, I know you would be devastated from more than your promise if anything happened to her—and Sirius's love for her, however little value you see in it. . . she should continue to possess both of these things. The poor girl has had few enough people truly care about her in her life, and that is a lonely thing. It is the loneliest feeling of them all."

And Severus knew that, just as deeply as he knew the price of bitterness.

"Black isn't even here," he said, taking refuge in deflection. "He's gone off to sniff at werewolves."

"Then it might be a good time to begin learning," Dumbledore sighed. "Without the provocation. A little more kindness to Remus would be a good place to start."

Severus' temper flared higher than ever. " _He_ withheld information on Black that could have got her killed!"

"You must learn to put that aside," Dumbledore said seriously. "Indeed, Severus, you must."

Severus refused to grace such unfeeling stupidity with any reply. Dumbledore looked at him, a long, measuring look, and then, with a deep breath and terrible compassion, said, "Tom killed Lily." He stretched out a hand toward Severus, but divided by the length of his office, he could not reach him. "You will have to look him in the face and bear his company, lie to him, lie to them all, knowing this—I cannot imagine the difficulty of that, or the strength it will take, the toll it will take on you."

Severus didn't tell Dumbledore the truth: that he would be able to bear it because he hated himself more than he hated any of them. He had never told Dumbledore because he had the odd sense that it would upset him, and that would make him insufferable.

"But I know that you will bear it somehow." Dumbledore did not look cheered by this thought, though why shouldn't he? Severus' strength would be _her_ salvation. "You will bear it for Harriet's sake. Can you not bear a little kindness to Remus, a little forbearance toward Sirius, for her as well?"

"It is different." His voice came out harsh with emotion; he hoped Dumbledore took it for loathing. "The Dark Lord will not ask me for kindness. He will ask for my cruelty. You know how easily I'm capable of _that._ "

Dumbledore was silent. Severus tried to arrange his thoughts so he could solidly persuade Dumbledore that he should be the one to talk to Miss Potter, to impress on her the absolute necessity of cutting herself off from Severus and becoming fully sensible of every quality that made him such a deeply horrible person. The old man must be close to realizing it now. Surely what Severus had just said would remind him of that. (His reasoning tried to ignore the fact that Dumbledore had kept him a professor for so many years in spite of daily reminders.)

"We are agreed, at least," Dumbledore said suddenly, "that Harriet mustn't continue down this path. We have two choices for ourselves: she must be spoken to, or shown as much. But only by you."

Severus' hopes crumpled. "I'm not _fit_ to—"

"Whatever else you may believe, you have to admit that a young person in love" (Severus couldn't stop his arm from lashing out and knocking a porcelain unicorn off of Dumbledore's mantel) "will not be swayed to believe ill of the person she cares for. If I were to tell Harriet she should not act like you in any way, I would be cementing her feelings, not swaying them. She would fire up in your defense."

And she was stubborn; by God, was she stubborn. "She never listens to me. And as to actions, she's had daily witness to those already. She's sat in my classes for three, nearly four years!"

"I'm not referring to Harriet being broken of her feelings for you, Severus, no one can do that. I am talking about showing her that she should not hold up certain aspects of your behavior as a pattern for her own."

"If I were to suddenly be _nice_ to Lupin, she'd be a lot less likely to start despising me!"

"True. Harriet responds far more favorably to kindness than she responds negatively to ill-treatment. The one, she expects. The other. . ."

Severus would like to kill the Dursleys while they were on this subject; particularly if he thought it would horrify Harriet and detach her from himself. She might appreciate a man who tormented her disgusting relatives for her sake, but surely she would throw him off if he murdered them.

"But," said Dumbledore, "it would solve the problem of this little dark tendency that neither you nor I can like. You know that I believe Harriet needs to love in order to endure what is coming. She does not need to hate. Hatred could too easily lead her down a path where she would lose more than her way. Voldemort knows hatred, he understands it. He does not know love. And love has saved Harriet before—the love that someone else felt for her. The love _she_ feels, or can feel. . . it will be her greatest weapon this time around. If you have trusted me before, Severus, I beg you will trust me now. Harriet must not be allowed to give in to the darkness in her heart, the darkness that lies in all of us. She must be encouraged to love."

And with the Vow—perhaps even without it—Severus knew he was right. Harriet must not be permitted to become a person like himself. He would not let it happen to her for any cost. The goodness in her must be protected. Though he couldn't condone the form it took toward himself, he knew that she could, and did, love strongly. Granger, Weasley—the whole lot of Weasleys—Lupin, Black—he knew she loved them, without having to be told.

Lily had died to save her. Lily had given proof of a love so powerful, it had transcended evil. He had promised once, in this very office, to this very man, to honor Lily's sacrifice; he had promised again, to men he hated, to protect Harriet's well-being.

He had promises to keep.


	80. The Shadow Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your continued and beautiful support ♥♥♥♥

When she'd launched herself after Pansy, Harriet's picture of the future had only extended to pounding Pansy into a pulpy mess and smearing her slimy remains across the floors of Hogwarts. The fact that she'd done it at dinner, and that the entirety at Hogwarts plus the visiting schools had seen her, had quite flown out of her head by the time she'd reached Dumbledore's office and been confronted with Snape. The making up with Ron, their detour to dinner, full of laughing about—she couldn't remember now; she'd just been so happy to be talking again, getting on like they'd spoken only that morning—all of that had, in fact, made her forget that everyone had seen her twisting Pansy's bloody nose until she'd screamed.

It wasn't until she walked into Gryffindor with Ron to a sudden hush, and then an excited whoop and rippling applause, that she remembered.

Harriet blushed, embarrassed but not displeased to be the sudden focus of positive attention for once. People all around were grinning at her, in particular a group of girls the year below Harriet, one of whom (Harriet thought her name was Romilda Vane) said, " _So_ glad you decked her one," as Harriet and Ron walked by her chair. "I'm seriously thinking about asking for your autograph."

Harriet was then accosted by Fred and George.

"Harry, old girl!" said Fred, draping his arm across her shoulders.

"Always knew you had it in you," said George, elbowing Ron out of the way.

"We're enjoying this mean and nasty side of you, indeed we are," said Fred.

"Makes you look taller, you'll be happy to hear," said George.

"Ha, ha." Harriet tried to push Fred off, but she would need to shove to move him. She sighed. "What d'you two want, then?"

Fred opened his mouth to reply, but Angelina called his name from her seat beside the fire. His expression changed somehow, and he dropped his arm from Harriet's shoulders.

"Just wanted to say. . ." He held out to her a familiar-looking little capsule. "If you want to have fun, but don't want to bring old McGonagall's wrath down upon you—give this a go."

And then he was off, moving toward Angelina and hailing her merrily. George went with him, saying nothing.

"What's that thing?" Ron asked as Harriet pocketed the capsule.

"Turns people into—"

Then she saw Hermione.

It happened as a couple of first years moved out of the way: the usual crowding of people in the common room after curfew on a bitterly cold night parted, and dead ahead of her sat Hermione, in a chair with a book open on her lap and a blank look on her face. Harriet's heart jumped, then shriveled up and dropped into her stomach.

She'd forgotten everything except her triumph over Pansy and the reconciliation with Ron. She'd forgot all about Hermione's feelings, and Ron's, and Krum, and the reconciliation between Ron and Hermione that had certainly not happened yet. And now she stood with Ron, Hermione less than twenty feet away, and she had no idea what to do.

Ron must have seen Hermione too: from his silence, you'd think Malfoy had transfigured his tongue into a leek (and only now did she realize they'd also forgotten to get his ear fixed).

What should she do? Hermione did not look like she was going to come to them. Her expression was moving from blank to apprehensive, almost to frightened. Harriet was afraid that if Hermione got up, she would only bolt upstairs, and that would ruin everything.

Wishing she had the option to use the capsule on herself and turn into a marmoset, beyond the reach of questioning and awkward-as-hell making up, she seized her courage in both hands and walked over to Hermione, hoping with each desperate beat of her heart that Ron was going to follow.

When he did, she felt both braver and more afraid. _Now_ she would have to make sure he stayed.

Not knowing how to begin, Harriet decided to act as if showing up with Ron in tow was nothing unexpected.

"Sorry I wasn't at dinner," she said to Hermione as she took a seat at the table next to her chair. Ron sat, too, deeply silent. Harriet didn't dare look at him yet. Hermione's apprehension had frozen on her face. "I was—well, I was pummeling Pansy Parksinon, and—"

"What happened to your _ear_?" The question burst out of Hermione like she couldn't help herself. She was staring with horrified fascination at the scraggly greens hanging down the side of Ron's face and did not seem to have heard Harriet at all.

Ron stared at her for a moment. Harriet's heart started drumming against her ribcage like it had outside of Dumbledore's office, when she'd wondered if Ron was going to say, _I can't forget it—_

"Malfoy transfigured it to a leek," he said calmly. "The lousy ferret. We forgot to go to Pomfrey after all," he said to Harriet. "We were going to go after getting a bite, but we forgot—"

" _Malfoy_ transfigured it?" Hermione stared from Ron to Harriet and back again. "Don't tell me you were fighting with him!"

Harriet could have groaned—this was not a response calculated to make Ron easy-tempered again—but Ron surprised her.

"I was winning," he said.

Hermione stared at his satisfied expression for an agonizingly long moment. . . and then she covered her mouth with her hand, clearly hiding a smile. Harriet could have stood on her chair and sung.

"It's a wonder neither of you are being expelled," Hermione said repressively, but she was not quite managing to hide her smile. "I was looking for you when you and Pansy were trying to throttle each other," she said to Harriet, "but Ginny filled me in."

"We got a ream of detentions from McGonagall," Ron said, not looking very bothered.

"You're lucky that's all," said Hermione, exasperated. "The visiting schools saw you, Harriet—and you're a champion in the tournament!"

Instead of feeling chastened, Harriet felt faintly smug. Everyone had seen her kicking that stupid cow Pansy Parkinson around. . . anyone at Hogwarts would know she'd deserved it. . .

"I think McGonagall might've demanded Malfoy and Parkinson get detentions," Ron was saying. "Nobody in their right mind could think they were blameless little angels. Mind you, she did call them a pair of halfwits—"

"She did?" Hermione said, looking torn between astonishment and satisfaction.

"Said they didn't deserve—what was it, Harry? 'The compliment of—' something—"

"'The compliment of rational opposition,' I think."

"She means they're so stupid you might as well not argue with them," said Hermione, the satisfaction gaining ground. "She's right, you know, you really ought to learn to ignore them. You won't gain anything from fighting with them—they're too stupid to learn to be better, and they're foul enough that they'll only try getting back at you worse than before."

 _Let them try_ , Harriet thought fiercely, thinking of the capsule in her pocket. She wouldn't be so nice as last time. . .

"'Foul' is right," said Ron darkly. "Snape's a slimy git" (Harriet's stomach turned over) "but he's Malfoy's head of house, he turns a blind eye to anything those arseholes do, but you should have heard the rubbish Malfoy was saying about him, just to have a go at me."

"Well, that just goes to show, doesn't it?" Hermione said. "They'll throw his reputation away if it means blackening Harriet's—or anyone's, I imagine. They don't have any consideration for anybody but themselves. And if they'll do that to someone who they do seem to like, imagine what they'll try to do to someone they really _hate_."

"You know, I've been wondering," Ron said, frowning, "who told all those rubbishy lies to Rita Skeeter? She wouldn't have written it if—"

"Harriet," Hermione said anxiously, "do you want us to talk about something else?"

Ron clammed up, looking horrified. It occurred to Harriet that he must've been longing to talk about the article, but had probably had no one to discuss it with—and that Hermione, her friendship restored, was of course the first person he'd turn to. For her part, Harriet was thrilled, down to a very deep level, that they were all on good terms again, but she'd rather have talked about anything else. But they were both looking so concerned for her that she rallied all her courage to say:

"Snape probably said something to piss her off. That's what Remus' theory is, anyway. As to Malfoy and Pansy. . ." _Say his name, you can say it, you have to_. "S-snape might not have given them detentions in front of a pack of Gryffindors, but you can bit he's royally fucked off at them right now."

"Never thought I'd say this," said Ron, "but I'll be glad he's such a nasty bastard if he takes some of it out on those two."

Each word against Snape stung—all the more for being perfectly just—but she nurtured the abuse against Malfoy and Pansy, and they spent a good long while bad-mouthing them to their hearts' content. There was a great deal of contentment to be had, now they were all talking again; and in spite of the occasional mention of Snape, Harriet was happier than she'd been in a very long time.

(It would be all right, she thought heavily, until Ron remembered Viktor Krum.)

* * *

_Need to talk to you about Miss Potter. SS_

Remus was astonished to get Snape's note—then curious—and finally, deeply unsettled. He knew that Snape was. . . _concerned_ would probably be the closest word to it, about Harriet's well-being, but he also knew that Snape considered him unsafe for her to be around. For Snape to voluntarily involve Remus in any matter of Harriet's was rare enough to be out of character; and Snape acting out of character was always its own cause for concern.

He was reminded of the World Cup, when Snape had also enlisted his help—when former Death Eaters were prophesied to go larking about. Then he thought of the Tournament, and Harriet's tasks.

He wrote back that Snape could come at any time, and resigned himself to an evening spent in tense, silent worry, the tedium of anxiety untinctured by any human contact. Since Sirius had left, taking with him his old annoying habits and the new, disquieting ones, the croft had been all too silent. Boredom and isolation were setting Remus on edge; his concern for Harriet, currently taking the form of the article, was the only thing he had to distract himself from his fears for Sirius and the threat of his own impending death, looming as the moon waned. He rotated through these dark thoughts in solitude: Harriet-Sirius-himself, the last one skated most quickly over. His fretting was unproductive, yet there was nothing else for him to do. He was still weak, even so close to the new moon, when he should have been at his strongest; the weather was wretched, forbidding him any exercise; nothing useful had ever been written about werewolves, so he could not even research his own affairs. The only alleviation he could have enjoyed, a letter from Harriet, had not arrived, and he couldn't even be surprised. She was a secretive child who disliked talking of her feelings. Snape was not likely to come soon—would put off seeing Remus as long as possible. No, tonight would be a long one, productive of nothing but his own frustration.

So when someone banged on the door, and that someone turned out to be Snape, Remus nearly thought he was hallucinating.

Snape was—on edge. Normally master of himself (except when his temper got the better of him), tonight Snape was almost jittery. The wind and snow outside probably helped—they'd certainly blown his hair around and stained his black clothes with snow—but there was a wildness in his eyes, a restlessness to his movements, that Remus' worries proved very susceptible to. One look at Snape, and Remus' concern turned to ice.

"What's happened to Harriet?" he asked before Snape had even finished peeling off his cloak.

"What?" Snape looked almost taken aback, which did not help. Snape never looked taken aback. Even when Sirius had sprung the Vow on him, Snape's composure had barely flickered.

"Your note," Remus said, wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

"She hasn't been hurt," Snape said impatiently, as if Remus was the one mucking him about and not the other way around.

"But your _note_ ," Remus persisted.

Snape flung his cloak at the rack, missed, and didn't seem to notice it had ended up in a heap on the floor. Remus was in no mood to care about cloaks. In fact, Snape's inattention made him even less inclined. Something was the matter with Harriet. Snape had always taken meticulous care of even his rattiest possessions.

"Last night she brawled with Pansy Parkinson," said Snape. He prowled into the sitting room, cast an eye over the furnishings without really seeming to see them, and did not sit down. "Broke her nose, chased her through the school, clawed at her face in front of the dinner crowd at the Great Hall. Minerva pulled them apart and dragged them off to Dumbledore, where Miss Potter declared that she was not sorry."

Pansy Parkinson was a vicious little wart, as Remus well knew. He could also tell, by Snape's complete unconcern in reciting what had happened to her, that he felt the same way. Nonetheless, Remus felt a sense of disquiet. The violence of it was not something that he would have thought of Harriet.

"What did Pansy do to provoke her?" he asked guardedly.

Snape gave him a look, as if he'd stooped to think better of Remus' intelligence, and was annoyed to find it a wasted effort.

"Well," Remus said, "because of that, I would imagine that Harriet has been. . . unusually on edge, this week."

"You did not see her at the Ball," Snape said, narrowing his eyes. "Weasley was being a jealous, sulky little prick because his date, whom he wasn't remotely interested in, had arrived looking like a princess, and the girl he fancied had shown up on the arm of a famous Quidditch twit. So Miss Potter took it upon herself to humiliate him."

"What? She never mentioned—"

"I don't imagine she saw it that way," Snape said, "but she was extremely angry. And only a little before that—a month or so—she exploded a jar I was holding, _as_ I was holding it. Yes," he said impatiently, perhaps seeing something in Remus' face, though Remus was so shocked that he thought Snape must really be feeling the pricking of his conscience, "I was being an arsehole, about _you_. I am not denying the justice of her anger, I am saying she is letting it turn her toward malice—each time with an increasing lack of conscience."

Remus felt a rocking sort of emotion in his head, as if he was sailing a boat into a turbulent sea. He was quite certain, on some visceral level, as when you know something bad is coming, that Snape was telling the truth, that he wasn't twisting everything out of proportion. His agitation, his coming to see Remus, whom he scorned and loathed, with a sense of urgency but no gloating or satisfaction, presented themselves as proof. But more deeply than that, the fact that Snape—king of grudges, connoisseur of hatred, purveyor of petty malice—that _he_ should be concerned at Harriet developing any similar tendency, was. . .

Remus' little boat on the rocky sea was sailing into a black sky, an icy, tearing wind. He tried to pull himself back to the present moment. Snape hadn't noticed Remus' lack of reaction. He'd picked up some little cloisonne trinket box off the mantel and, without any change of expression, now hurled it to smash on the hearthstone. Remus stared; but Snape didn't seem to have meant it to get his attention. He was now glaring at the empty mantel, as if it should be offering him something else to destroy.

"I wrote her on Tuesday," Remus said, trying to gain Snape's attention; it worked, Snape dragging his gaze back to Remus without breaking his irritated, agitated air. "There was nothing I could really say that would console her, but. . . she hasn't written back. Not that I expected her to—she doesn't like talking about her feelings—"

"And yet she's an incurably nosy brat," Snape muttered, but like his heart wasn't really in it.

"Harriet bottles things up," Remus said, "she likes to make her own way, but for precisely that reason this has to be more awful than it would be for anyone less private. She won't talk about it, though it eats away at her. I imagine that when Pansy Parkinson started having a go at her, she couldn't hold it back any longer. . ."

"I imagine it would have happened a great deal sooner if Miss Granger hadn't been keeping watch over her," Snape said sourly, rather as if he hated having to praise Hermione, even obliquely. "I saw her giving Harriet her wand at the start of my class—she must have been keeping hold of it."

Remus stared at Snape, who did not seem to realize he'd called Harriet by her given name—a thing Remus couldn't ever remember him doing. She had always been "Miss Potter," as though they were living in a Victorian drama.

"Oh dear," Remus said slowly. "That certainly might have contributed to building it up. . ."

"Undoubtedly," Snape said, his sneer restored by this proof that Hermione's good sense had fallen short.

Remus waited for Snape to say something else—to explain why he had come several miles through the dark and bitter cold to lay his news at the feet of someone he held in contempt—but he seemed to have gone off somewhere in his own head. He picked up the fire poker, glared around as if longing for something to smash it with, and then threw it back in its stand with a _clang_.

"Dumbledore thinks," Snape said, glaring ferociously at Remus, "that I need to _talk_ to her. To explain why a lack of concern over thrashing your enemies is a _bad_ thing."

Since Remus doubted that Dumbledore was the real reason Snape was here, he stayed silent, especially since Dumbledore was surely too clever not to realize that Snape giving any such lecture would present itself as the height of hypocrisy. At best, he was a cautionary tale—though Harriet clearly did not see him that way.

"Let me be clear," Snape said coldly, " _I_ do not think I should be telling her any such thing. I don't even think that talking will avail us. She does like to go her own way." (Remus was shocked anew by this tacit agreement to his own perception of Harriet and couldn't say a word.) "But something must be done. Dumbledore's idea, that I should be _nicer_ "—Snape bared his teeth; Remus fought a grotesque urge to laugh hysterically—"is ludicrous and would take too long. And Miss Potter wouldn't understand subtlety if it blew up in her face."

So they were back to "Miss Potter." And Snape seemed so oblivious, which was not like him either. . .

Remus frowned as he translated what Snape was not saying. "Dumbledore thinks Harriet is picking up this behavior from you?"

To Remus' astonishment, Snape blushed. It was not attractive—he turned a dull red, and his expression twisted between horror and apoplexy. Snape knew. Oh God, Snape knew that Harriet—oh dear God, the poor girl. What had he said to her? No wonder she'd punched Pansy Parkinson in the face. Remus wanted to demand to know what Snape had done, yet didn't want Snape to understand that he knew himself, because that could only make everything worse—

"He thinks," Snape ground out, clearly struggling to retain his grip on his temper, as it fought him like a wild dog, "that Black and I—always fighting—taking potshots at _you_ —"

"That makes sense," Remus said calmly, with desperate relief that Snape did not seem to have guessed that Remus already knew. "You do treat each other abominably."

Snape treated him to a look of loathing. The red had receded from most of his face, leaving only two bright splotches on his cheeks.

"And that," he said with cold contempt, the frost in his voice trying to burn the skin off Remus' ears, "is what I want to talk to you about. If we are going to show her the dark side of righteous anger, we can't skimp. I want to tell her. . ."

If Remus had thought he could be shocked any more times tonight, he'd have been wrong. As he listened to Snape laying out his plan—the brightness in his eyes as sharp as cut glass, his teeth bared, his fingers curling into fists and flexing like claws—Remus felt the numbing effect of dread. As he comprehended Snape's full plan, he could not help remembering the night he'd bound Snape and Sirius in a Vow to the death; couldn't help feeling that what Snape was asking him to agree to was as cruel as anything Sirius would have loved to visit on Snape himself.

"We can't tell her that, Severus," he said once Snape had stopped talking. "We can't—on top of everything, it would be—"

"We aren't going to tell her, Lupin," said Snape, eyes glittering. "We're going to show her."

* * *

Professor McGonagall was prompt in delivering their detention assignments (next morning, at breakfast). Harriet and Ron spent Saturday in the trophy room, polishing endless rows of awards, and a good portion of Sunday in an empty classroom, cutting yards of ancient velvet curtains into polishing rags for Filch. Strangely, Filch did not come once to check on them. They were left alone entirely, and a plate of sandwiches, with a flagon of pumpkin juice and treacle tart for dessert, turned up on a table around lunchtime. Though the work was tedious, Harriet found the near-solitude luxurious, and she and Ron never ran out of things to talk about. They didn't even get an irate visitor when they staged a fencing match with a pair of brass curtain rods, though the clanging could surely have been heard on the Quidditch pitch. It was an unexpectedly peaceful time.

"Perhaps Professor McGonagall thinks you two simply ought to be separated from _some_ people," Hermione said when they came back to the common room Sunday evening, dusty but in good spirits. "She's probably just trying to keep you out of any more trouble."

"Can't pummel Slytherin berks if we're cutting up curtains," Ron said sagely. "What's this?" he asked as Hermione set a sheaf of parchment in front of him.

"My homework," she said briskly. "You two can copy for Monday. You haven't had a chance to do any of it on your own, being shut away all weekend."

She disappeared behind a giant copy of _Magical Beasts of the Adriatic_ before Harriet or Ron could recover from their astonishment. They traded looks of awe, then came to mutual, silent agreement that they should act as if this behavior were perfectly normal, while being extremely considerate of Hermione for the next month at least (especially when they realized she had included her homework for the full week).

Harriet and Ron diligently copied Hermione's homework until the fire sank and the common room emptied. It was marvelous being friends again, all three of them. She would polish trophies until graduation if that was the trade-off.

Ron was a slower copier than Harriet, so she finished up first. She and Hermione bid him goodnight together and went off to have their baths at the same time; but Harriet was quicker at showering, too. Some of it was having a great deal less hair than Hermione, and some of it was from years of Aunt Petunia coming in and turning off the water if she took too long.

Harriet was sitting on her bed, brushing out the snarls in her hair when the tapping came at her window. It was an owl—a little grey one. . .

 _Nitwit_ , she realized with a guilty squirm. She had never replied to Remus. She still didn't know how to.

She opened the window for poor Nitwit, and devoted some time arranging a comfortable nest for him using one of her oldest t-shirts. Once he was snoozing in a little grey ball, she turned to the letter. By that time, the guilty squirm had grown all the way to a writhe.

"Dearest Harriet," said the letter, making her feel even worse. "Please don't imagine that I am writing to harangue you, first of all. I have quite a different intention—to invite you to the croft on Friday next. It would be in the evening, after classes; Professor Dumbledore would arrange for you to come. There are a few things that I believe we ought to say to each other in person, over biscuits, if at all possible. Dumbledore has been sending me some excellent ones. If this sounds pleasant, do write back so that I know not to eat all the biscuits before you come. Love, Remus. PS. Professor Snape will also be present."

Harriet read the post-script in the deepest shock, then read it three times over again. Snape? What could Remus want to talk about that needed to involve Snape? Why would Snape want to be there when he was pretending so skillfully that she didn't exist? And Snape did not eat biscuits!

Okay, that last thought was edging into hysterical.

She got up, pacing round in the space behind her bed. Hermione was still in the shower, which was good, as she would ask Harriet what the matter was, and Harriet couldn't explain the matter because it would involve explaining her feelings about Snape. She wished it didn't, because she would love to have _Hermione_ explain the letter to _her_. Hermione would read it once and immediately know what Remus wanted to talk about. That's what Hermione did: read everything and understand it.

Harriet returned to the letter to scan it for clues. A lot about biscuits, and nothing else that she could make out.

He couldn't mean to talk about—the article. Not with Snape there. Snape couldn't want to discuss that bloody fucking thing. She couldn't imagine Snape being— _rational_ wasn't the right word, because the rational reaction to Skeeter's writing was to want to kill her. Harriet couldn't imagine Snape being _calm_ about it. If _she_ wanted the article to vanish from the minds of everyone on earth, surely Snape had to feel the same way? And if he didn't. . . she couldn't bear to have it mentioned when they were in the same room.

But if Snape _was_ in the same room, at a chat with Remus. . . he'd have to talk to her, wouldn't he? He couldn't just pretend she didn't exist.

She sat down on her bed, pressing the parchment over her chest.

What did she really want?

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, that the answer came before she'd finished asking the question.

* * *

Harriet replied to Remus, and then tossed and turned for hours. At one point, she got up and changed her answer by wand-light (Nitwit was sleeping in his makeshift nest, hooting softly as he snored). Then she got up and changed it again.

It was perhaps a good thing, though, that she had Remus' invitation to distract her, or she might have spent the night wondering how the rest of the school had reacted to her fight with Pansy. She'd spent all weekend isolated with her best friends and fellow Gryffindors, who were disposed to approve of her. In her Snape-quandary-induced fog, she made it all the way to the Entrance Hall before she realized that she hadn't had to field a single disgusting question.

Something else was happening instead.

People grew quiet as she walked toward them (bracketed by Ron and Hermione). They stared at her openly, or pretended ostentatiously to be looking at something else, and once she'd walked past, hissed to themselves in carrying whispers. She heard the words "crazy" and "madwoman" and "gone round the bloody twist" and had to grind her teeth to keep from hexing them.

"Ignore them," Hermione said, with a lofty look on her face (but she put her hand on Harriet's arm to steer her into the Great Hall). "They're nothing but a lot of cowards."

"She's right, mate," Ron said. " _What_?" he asked aggressively of a group of second-year Slytherins. Perhaps intimidated by his height—or remembering that he'd bloodied Malfoy's nose—they scurried off, whispering together.

"They don't seem that afraid of me," Harriet said darkly, glaring at a group of Ravenclaws, who glanced quickly away with superior smiles on their faces.

"They might not think so," Hermione said coolly as they took their seats at Gryffindor table. "But they _are_ intimidated now. They just don't really think you're _crazy_. They know you probably won't jump at them and break their noses or they would really be leaving you alone, but now they know you can and you may if they're too provoking, so this is their new tactic."

She was probably right, but Harriet still wanted to punch those Ravenclaws sitting behind her. Maybe she should ask Ginny to teach her the Bat Bogey Hex. She'd been using it on people who annoyed her for years and was quite the master of it.

Then Harriet realized she had been in the Great Hall for a good five minutes and hadn't once looked round for Snape. Her heartbeat felt sticky for a moment. Bloody hell, how was she supposed to get through a week of wondering what he wanted to talk about or how he was going to act?

 _Courage in the face of the unknown_ , she thought disgustedly, her memory snatching at the timbre of his voice the night he'd told her about the dragons. _Turns out it doesn't get any bloody easier._

Because she _was_ still a Gryffindor, she sneaked a look over her shoulder at the staff table. He wasn't there. How surprising that wasn't.

Pansy was at Slytherin table, however. . . telegraphing pure hatred. Harriet smiled, thin and self-satisfied, and turned back to her breakfast in time for that group of Ravenclaws to laugh raucously. Her satisfaction congealed like the cold fried egg on her plate. She wanted to stab them with her fork.

"So," said Ron—in a falsely matey voice, like he was trying to distract her—"is the egg talking to you yet?"

Harriet looked down at the rubbery eggs on her plate. "I certainly _hope_ they haven't gone off that badly."

"Not _those_ eggs, the Triwizard—"

He, Harriet, and half of Gryffindor table jumped when Hermione slammed the flagon of pumpkin juice down so hard that orange liquid sprayed into the air, raining down on a group of third-year girls.

"Talking!" Hermione cried, her face going rigid, as if a massive idea had hit her at full speed. She jumped to her feet, knocking Harriet's plate of fried eggs into her lap. "It's _talking_! Come on!"

She grabbed Harriet by the arm and dragged her away from the table, sprinting along the aisle toward the Entrance Hall. A bout of scrambling and swearing behind her said that Ron was probably following.

Hermione tore up the staircase, down a hall, through a trick door, along a narrow, twisty passageway, and emerged into the library corridor.

"What _is_ it?" Harriet asked, as Hermione staggered to a halt in front of the library doors, clutching a stitch in her side. Harriet, more used to running about, was barely winded. Ron lurched up beside them, clutching a bacon sandwich.

"Should've known," he groaned, with a glance at the library doors.

"Oh, shut—up," Hermione huffed, and limped inside. "Put that away!" she hissed at him, but he was already stowing the sandwich in his pocket so Madam Pince wouldn't see. Harriet hoped the librarian also had a bad head cold; Hedwig could probably smell the bacon from the owlery, it was so fragrant.

But they scuttled past the front desk without incurring anything worse than a glare of mistrustful loathing, and followed Hermione down the aisle devoted to magical languages. Checking her watch, Harriet realized they were going to be late to Care of Magical Creatures, but she didn't dare mention it.

"Talking," Hermione breathed, skimming her fingertip along the book spines. "The egg is _talking_. It's some kind of magical language, I'm sure it is!"

Harriet blinked, then mutely accepted half the bacon sandwich Ron was elbowing her to take. "How can you be sure?" she asked.

"The sounds are too long and continuous." Hermione pulled a book off the shelf, flung open the back cover to scan the index, frowned, slammed it shut, and re-shelved it. "All magical beast calls come in short bursts. When we kept the egg open until it went silent, it gave us a minute and twelve seconds of continuous noise. It's _speech_. I can't believe I didn't see it before!"

"But we tried translation spells," Harriet said. "They didn't—"

" _That's_ because I thought it was some sort of garbled message. But if it's a specific language, we'll need to identify that before we can begin translating it—and it will give us a clue as to what you'll be dealing with. It's certainly not a non-magical language. . ." She trailed off, muttering to herself as she opened another index.

Harriet wasn't convinced, not the least because she didn't understand why the translation spells wouldn't have worked on a real magical language as well as spell-induced gibberish; but she knew Hermione was a great deal cleverer than she was. "All right, then. What are we looking for?"

Hermione beamed, as if Harriet really was the clever one. "Languages that _screech_."

"How I missed this," said Ron to Harriet under his breath, as Hermione marched off down the aisle toward the card catalog. "Endless hours breathing dust in the library."

But he didn't sound terribly put off, even as he pulled _Magic Folk of the Himalayas_ off the shelf and sneezed in the resulting cloud of dust.

* * *

The Pensieve sat on Severus' table, mocking him.

He tried to focus on a batch of first-year Hufflepuff essays, but even had they not been a study of epic inanity, he would have found it hard to resist the smug, sneering air of that shallow stone bowl. _I'm waiting_ , it said. _I'm empty because you've failed to put any memories into me. What is the issue here?_

Severus snapped his fourth quill since the fucking thing had turned up in his sitting-room at his own request.

"To hell with it," he hissed, pressing his wand against his temple and summoning the memory. It came with alacrity—as always.

As he dropped the glowing thread into the bowl, he reflected that he would not, at least, need to view it himself. Even the shadow of remembrance in his head, the residue of a memory removed, was all too clear.

It swirled, silvery and numinous, in the shallow bowl. The runes on the rim shimmered like water reflecting off stone. If he concentrated, he could see the colors of that day (green for the grass and trees, blue for the sky, the dark stones of Hogwarts, the pink of their faces) seething at the bottom of the bowl.

He turned away. _Happy now?_ he thought viciously.

 _Are you?_ the Pensieve asked, smug.

The argument with Lupin swirled to the front of his recollections, as if he'd drawn out a very different memory and plunged himself into the Pensieve after all.

_"You do not wish to tarnish her image of her saintly arsehole of a father, Lupin, admit it—"_

_"I don't know that it would benefit Harriet to know the worst of James when she can never experience the best, but that isn't it. After everything she's been through, it will only upset her more to learn—"_

_"She_ needs _a good, strong shock to her system—"_

_"I think she's had quite enough of those lately, thank you!"_

Lupin's lined, exhausted face had blazed with energy, even anger. When Sirius Black's soul had been at stake and Pettigrew cowered at their feet, Lupin had controlled his desperation and his hatred; now, with Miss Potter's feelings in danger, he was suddenly adamant? Lupin had not cared when Miss Potter's safety was involved, last year.

 _"If you will not assist me, Lupin, I will go it alone, and Miss Potter will have to do without your_ kind _interference."_

The werewolf had folded, as Severus had known he would. Telling himself that Harriet needed him there, he'd settle for the best of a bad bargain, rather than trying to hex and bend Severus to his will, as Severus himself would have done. Lupin was pathetic, but with his complicity, everything was in train to stop being so bloody _wrong_.

The ghostly light of memory lit the air around the Pensieve, tinting the nearby shadows.

What would Miss Potter think. . .

His palm tingled with its own memory of shattered glass embedded in its skin. He pictured her face in those moments, illuminated from within by something dark and ferocious. A nameless echo shivered through his bones; something somehow frightening.

He was quite certain Lily had never looked like that. Lily had been too unnerved by the presence of her darker self. He'd thrilled in every little malice of hers, great and petty; thrilled equally in every display of her power and intelligence and kindness. She had adored her own skill and cleverness and goodness, but she'd abhorred the shadow inside. He wondered, with an aching grief, if she had lived long enough to realize everyone had one. He doubted it. She'd died so young, only a handful of years older than the child who was having to grow up all too fast.

Miss Potter did not seem to be afraid of that bright darkness. She did not glorify in it—not yet, if ever—but she did not understand it either. He'd watched her all week, and he was quite certain she did not understand. She'd taken to hexing people (Lupin must have told her about Langlock, in one of his letters; Severus' own curse, in vogue during his days at Hogwarts, often used against himself by her precious father and godfather). When she shut them up, or attacked them with a face-full of bats, she looked fiercely satisfied. He was relieved to see her fighting back—she had spirit; he did not want to see her letting herself be trodden upon, and it was against the rules for him to hex his own students—but he still. . .

Sometimes he thought he was only being paranoid. If Harriet was related to Petunia and James Potter, who were loathsome and foul, she was also related to Lily, who could have asked for any better sister or husband and got them. Other times—when he remembered Dumbledore's gravity—he felt as if he weren't being paranoid enough. Then he'd wonder if he hadn't simply played into Dumbledore's pet scheme to one day make him fair weather mates with Sirius Fucking Black and Remus Bloody Lupin.

And then he'd remember the nature of the girl's feelings toward himself and he _knew_ : there was something the matter with her. She needed to be straightened out before she did herself, or someone she loved, an injury.

And the Pensieve, mocking him still with its flickering runes, would be the means. He was sure of it, no matter how Lupin insisted that now was not the time; that instead of pressing on Harriet the importance of controlling her temper, they would only make it harder for her to bear the taunting of her peers. Severus did not quite see how that connected. . . it was only Lupin fearing what needed to be done. . .

But staring at the shimmering runes, a thought slipped into his head, faint and tentative. . . might Lupin be more right than wrong, in this instance?. . . he was lying and spineless, but he had a better grip on the human emotional state than a lot of people. . . he knew how to make others like him, which was more than Severus had ever figured out; though a liar through and through, Lupin earned people's trust. Despite being a coward, he gained the love of those important to him. He just might, in this case, be right. . . perhaps they shouldn't. . .

Or Lupin could be looking to protect the memory of the saintly James Potter.

 _Lupin's lies are rather lies of omission_ , said Severus' Inner Ravenclaw.

"His entire existence is a lie of omission," Severus hissed.

 _But he is not cunning_ , _merely secretive. He is more likely to believe what he argues, even if he argues from selfish motives._

 _And his motive is more likely to be the desire to protect Harriet_ , added his Inner Hufflepuff.

"Yes," Severus ground out. "He's so noble in that endeavor _now_."

It was no use dithering. His plan was the right one. Lupin could never bear the truth. _That_ was really all it was.

He scooped the memory out of the Pensieve and siphoned it back into his head. It wasn't good to leave them out of the brain for too long; they'd ruin.

The memory shot stark tendrils through his mind as it settled, the colors almost painfully vivid. His gut clenched as he re-lived every word, every tic of the strain. Replacing memories was always like that.

The runes were dark, the Pensieve's bowl sitting empty again.

He loathed this memory, but it was a priceless reminder of what he owed. In case the girl wasn't enough.

He had to scald this weakness out of his heart.

He had to show this to her.

His meeting with Miss Potter was tomorrow.

 


	81. Into the Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish this chapter was longer, since it contains a goodish portion of canon material, but part of the reason I was sitting on this for so long is because I wasn't satisfied with it but was at a loss to do anything differently. I still am, but I was bummed to miss my 2nd year anniversary posting date! So here are the fruits of my labor, such as they are.
> 
> Also, I am a huge baby and secondhand embarrassment kills me. These last few chapters have been agony :p
> 
> As always, much ♥♥♥♥ to you all, my dears.

Harriet woke up Friday morning in agitation so intense, it was like being pricked all beneath her skin by needles. She was up earlier than usual, dressed before Parvati had even finished brushing out her own hair, and so thoroughly annoyed Lavender by rattling about the room that she had to leave or start a row. (Really, Lavender accusing _anyone_ of “rattling about” was rich as hell.)

She was the first person at Gryffindor table for breakfast, early enough that there wasn’t any food on the table. As soon as she sat down, however, basins of bacon, eggs, porridge, kippers, and toast popped up in front of her. Her stomach pitched at the fishy, meaty, eggy smell. But the thought of being too nervous to eat—too nervous about seeing  _Snape_ —made her so indignant that she resolutely dragged a basin toward her and ladled some porridge onto her plate. Bacon was a bit too much, even for indignation. Still, she defiantly added as much butter, cream and sugar as her stomach could stand.

By the time Hermione came down with Ron, Harriet had swirled the remains of her porridge into a lumpy sculpture meant to resemble Hogwarts. There was a lot of it left in the bowl.  

“You’re up early,” Hermione said as she and Ron sat down on either side of Harriet, as they’d been doing since Monday. Her tone was hard to read.

“Had trouble sleeping,” Harriet muttered. Her friends knew she was meeting Remus that evening, but there was no reason for _that_ to make her nervous. She couldn’t tell them what the real problem was.

Hermione took some bacon without comment. 

The upcoming meeting sat on Harriet differently than the knowledge that she’d be facing a fire-breathing dragon: this time, instead of deadening everything around her, her panic dulled it. Time scudded past like fog around a ship. She was leaving the breakfast table; she was in Care of Magical Creatures; it was over; a plant almost strangled Ron in Herbology, and it may have been her fault; she was on her way in to lunch; she hexed someone with Furnunculus, a new spell she’d learned that week when she should have been studying magical languages. 

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Hermione said as the hexed girl ran off down the hall, her face covered in hundreds of wriggling tentacles. 

“Wouldn’t do what?” Harriet asked, watching the girl’s retreating back. She couldn’t have said what the girl had done; she’d done _something_ , and Harriet had hexed her. But surely she’d deserved it. They all did. They all said the same things.

Hermione was staring at her. “Hex people,” she said, sounding worried. “Harriet—”

“You all right, mate?” Ron asked quietly. 

“I’m fine.” The lie rose so easily to Harriet’s lips, she was sure she could have said it when she was half-dead. There was no need to burden them with knowledge that she couldn’t really explain. 

“You don’t seem fine at all,” Hermione said. “Harriet—”

“I’m _fine_. Come on or we’ll be late for”—the word lodged in her throat—“Potions.”

Potions class did not disappear behind a comfortable, confusing fog; it revolved around her in streaks of shadow, distinct as a torture session. Snape, in a fine feather of cruelty to everyone else, was still obliterating her with crushing competence. When Harriet tried to pour her potion into its vial for submission, the glass bubbled and she dropped it to keep from burning her hand. Hermione swiftly cleaned up the mess; Snape did not even look round. 

Sometimes in the past week, Harriet had wondered if Remus was even telling the truth. How could Snape have any interest in seeing her if this was the way he behaved? But then she told herself to stop being stupid; of course Snape would continue ignoring her in front of everyone; of course he needed to make them think he’d never have anything to do with her if they all lived a thousand years. He could talk to her with Remus because it was _safe_.

It was the only thought that had got her through the week.

Despite her resolution during breakfast, at dinner she couldn’t force down a bite. Neither Hermione nor Ron commented. Harriet couldn’t spare a thought to wonder what they might be thinking. She kept checking her watch, and as soon as it had ticked close enough to six o’clock, she muttered a quick, “See you later,” and dashed away from the table, heading for Dumbledore’s office. 

“Harriet, my dear,” he said as she let herself into his study, “how have you been?” As he looked at her over the tops of his glasses, she thought about how he sometimes did that to make you feel worse, sometimes to feel better. 

“Though perhaps,” he added, “that is a foolish question.”

“Fine, sir, thank you.” She looked around for the Portkey. Mr. Weasley had said they were usually pieces of trash, easily ignored. Dumbledore’s desk was decorated with rich and shiny objects, but there was a dusty case in the corner crammed with things too hard to make out behind the dirt. Would it be in there?

But Dumbledore was taking down a beat-up old kettle from a shelf behind him. He set it on his desk, whirled his wand over it in a once-forwards, once-backwards figure eight, and tapped the lid smartly. The tarnished old aluminum glowed bronze all over, then faded again to silver.

“After you, my dear,” he said. She thought he sounded something almost like sad, but she could not think it important. 

* * *

Remus did not like the plan—if it could even be called a _plan_ , and not simply a _Very Bad Idea_. 

His objection, that Harriet did not need to learn about James’ less-than-savory side right now, had not been perfectly genuous. Harriet _didn’t_ need to learn about it now, but not for James’ sake, or even for her own pertaining to her father. She did not need to know because of James’ _target_. In her current state, finding out that _Snape_ had routinely been the focus of James’ capacity for cruelty would be agony. But he could not very well say this to Snape, who clearly knew that Harriet’s feelings were genuine and seemed to believe his ill-chosen course would be effective in eradicating them. Remus didn’t find his other motive, rescuing her from some inner darkness, to be terribly convincing. He believed _Snape_ thought it was—he was certain, as much as you could be certain about a man who had without detection curried Voldemort’s secrets to his most feared enemy—but Snape was very low on emotional intelligence; always had been. 

Remus spent the week in sober solitude, thinking back to those days at Hogwarts. They presented nothing that he wanted Harriet to know, at least not now. The unpleasant geometry of her parents and Snape was not something she needed to grapple with yet, within such proximity to her awareness of Snape, on the heels of that article. 

“Do you really want Harriet to see James treating you like that?” He had nearly asked the question, but shied away from it. He couldn’t see Snape responding with anything but rage. The violent force of Snape’s adolescent anger had grown in his adulthood into a truly terrifying thing; particularly as Harriet would probably bear the brunt of it. 

Poor Harriet—the dear girl could really not have chosen anyone worse to love. Remus suspected that Snape no more knew how to _be_ loved than he knew how to love another person. 

That made Remus pause. “Love”—to give it such a word—why was he not considering Harriet’s feelings to be the product of simple fancy, easily blown over? He wasn’t; he didn’t. He considered them to be something alarmingly solid. Surely that was over-dramatizing? She was only fourteen; Snape was such a bewildering object of attraction that Remus couldn’t really imagine _any_ passion for him subsisting for an hour or a moment. Yet in Harriet it had clearly outlasted a moment. 

Only then did he realize he’d been thinking of Harriet pining after Snape all this while, without anyone having said so. They said she had been troubled, violent in her anger, but that _could_ all be laid at the door of a libellious article and the cruelty of children. Even if the agony of mortification hadn’t killed her attraction, it might be making inroads. At the very least, there was no reason to suppose her feelings would be terribly lasting. There was everything in the world against their being so—the world itself, and Snape in particular. 

Was he thinking of her as being rather like James—was that it? 

James had fallen hard for Lily, rather sooner than he ought to have done. He’d fallen for her when she’d barely tolerated his presence, and no amount of insults, snubbing, haughty disregard, hot-and-cold treatment, and bewildering turns had undone his admiration. He had _felt_ them—he’d been angry, hurt, and confused—but he had never come to resent her, either by Sirius’ obvious disapproval of Lily or Lily’s vocal disapproval of James himself. Remus had never been quite sure whether this unconscious avowal to keep liking Lily, in spite of everything she did to kill it, was evidence of James’ good nature, or obtuseness so extreme that he didn’t have the common sense to try liking someone who didn’t treat him like a recurring case of spattergroit.

James had always been important to him. James had done so much for him that there would have been gratitude even without honestly liking him—loving him. James had had some shining good qualities, and several very bad ones. The bullying had been largely the result of high spirits in a spoilt, overindulged child. . . except with Snape. _That_ had been enmity unchecked: the sort that Snape was now seeing in Harriet. Snape and James had been at odds from the first, and each encounter had only worsened them. In seventh year, they’d culiminated in Snape using a spell that cut off James’ nose; but the founding of their feud in childish insults had been both stupid and petty; unworthy of being the catalyst for the years of resentment, and eventually hatred, that had followed. Remus suspected that Snape was seeing Harriet through the lens of himself, with James added into the mixture, or vice versa, depending on how much he genuinely worried about her. Remus was inclined to think Snape’s worry was quite genuine in his way. That he didn’t know how to express it except through some form of convoluted cruelty was so exceptionally sad that Remus had to truly pity him. Not as much as he pitied Harriet; but he had never so clearly seen Snape as someone who was so inequipped to give or receive kindness. 

But he felt Snape was overlooking a major part of the business—two major parts: Harriet’s own good nature. . . and Lily.

Remus was not sure how much of James’ hatred of Snape had been fueled by his feelings for Lily, or even how much James had been aware of it. But she _had_ had something to do with it. Sirius had approved of tormenting Snape, though he’d disliked the reason; he had never thought Lily worthy of James’ regard. She had never treated James as badly as James himself had treated other people for fun; but she had blown hot and cold. Remus had always suspected that Lily thought she should rightfully hate James for his behavior, even though she hadn’t. It had even seemed to bewilder that she hadn’t. She had always seemed to believe this was a personal failing of hers; that anyone truly good _would_ hate such a bully. She would forget herself at times, and laugh and get along with him—and then make an abrupt change and suddenly turn snubbing, even vicious. The insults never really penetrated James’ shell—he was too confident, the adoration lavished on him by his parents armoring him against internalizing anyone’s contempt—but he had understood enough to be hurt by her manner. 

Sometimes Remus thought that was all his continued regard for Lily had been: an inability to understand he could be truly disliked by anyone _he_ liked. James took it for granted that people would like him. Snape’s hatred was a matter of course; he was a Dark wizard, an evil little oddball; it was only right that he hate someone good and talented and handsome like James. But Lily—why should Lily hate him? Lily was good and talented and extremely pretty. She couldn’t _really_ hate him. 

And then Remus felt that was unfair, because James hadn’t been stupid, and had understood that _other_ people at least did like him a great deal more than Lily appeared to. They’d certainly treated him better. But it had always come back to Lily. 

Did Harriet have the same tendency? If she did, she at least had the good sense to be horrified by it (he remembered her face when she’d stuttered that Snape was a git and the Ravenclaws had done a study on it). With a painful rush of fondness, he couldn’t be surprised that James’ fourteen-year-old daughter should exhibit more common sense than _he_ ever had. . . but Lily, at least, had been a more sensible person to fix on. Even Sirius, her worst critic in Gryffindor, had admitted she was pretty enough (“And _she_ knows it,” he’d always added, sneering), which was all that very young people often needed. But Snape. . .

Remus was reminded that Lily and Snape had been friends, and Snape had been entirely transparent in holding her more dearly than that. The extent of Lily’s feelings had been harder to gauge—Harriet was unlike her, in that respect; she had James’ open heart—but she had been tenacious in their friendship. She had put a brave face on it once it ended, but in moments when she’d thought no one was watching, she had looked. . . lost, dejected. Remus had wondered if that would have been his own face if he’d stopped speaking to Sirius after what had happened at the Shack. In the last two years of school, Lily had rotated through her female friends, but always held herself somehow aloof, never choosing one over the other, as she’d once chosen Snape. But she’d never talked about him—except once. She had said to Remus, quietly, twisting her new wedding ring on her finger, “I thought I could help him see he really could be a wonderful person,” and then, when he asked, “Who?” she’d looked startled, laughed, and said, “James, of course! But you’re the wrong audience—you already think he’s wonderful. And so must I, now.” And she’d turned to some other Order member and started talking about something else. Remus had been tugged away by Sirius and hadn’t thought much of it then; but it had kept coming back to him, and at some later date he’d suspected she’d been talking about Snape. 

Lily had always been scornful and dismissive of those who were admired for reasons she considered shallow and unimportant. James’ inventive antics and Sirius’ haughty good looks had left her unimpressed; she had been one of their only critics outside of Slytherin House. Though constantly attacking Remus’ tolerance of his friends’ behavior, she had always been kind to him, and finding out that he was a werewolf had motivated only her fierce protectiveness on his behalf. It made sense that she should have spread her wing over a young Snape, whom it was only too easy to dislike and mock. His off-putting, jealous, greedy intelligence was the antithesis of James and Sirius’ dynamic popularity. 

Harriet was, in some strong ways, the product of Lily and James’ peculiarities and characters shaken together to produce a compelling, quixotic mixture. But in other ways equally strong, their presence was entirely absent. Remus supposed this was natural; she had never really known them, and blood did not rule everything. She was less brilliant because she was less sure of herself. She possessed all their talent and good looks without being aware of it; content to sit in Hermione’s academic shadow, win Quidditch matches because she enjoyed catching Snitches, and ignore all her natural claims to beauty. She was drawn to the down-and-out, the off-beat, the overlooked and slighted. But those people were her kindred. Had she grown up in the heart of her true family, raised on a daily diet of admiration and love, she might have turned out as spoilt and unconcerned as James. (Lily, though far less arrogant, had nonetheless been too her parents’ darling.) Growing up with the Dursleys had left Harriet with an acute sense of being unloved.

The worry that burrowed into Remus’ heart—the worry he could not shake, no matter how he berated himself for being melodramatic and silly and seeing the shadow of tragic love in a fourteen-year-old girl because he had nothing better to do with himself—was the fear that Harriet had inherited James’ steadiness of heart and Lily’s propensity to chase after the good in people who were almost wholly without it. . . and that it would end only in her misery. 

As it had for himself. 

* * *

Dumbledore had been too quiet all week. A born meddler, he did not really understand privacy, though he respected discretion. He had been helping himself to Severus’ secrets for years. To suddenly and completely remove himself from even maddeningly abstract discussion was so unlike him that Severus was uneasy and agitated; and being uneasy and agitated made him irate. 

Now it was Friday evening, time for Severus to fasten on his winter cloak and trek through icy darkness to Lupin’s borrowed croft, and Dumbledore had not even bid him an oblique injunction to be nice to the werewolf and not insult Harriet too deeply. (Severus had avoided dinner, but neither space nor time had ever interfered with Dumbledore’s interference.) 

What was his game?

The Pensieve sat as ever on his personal desk in his quarters; empty, for the memory was safely stowed in his head, snarling his thoughts, tangling round much more recent memories of the pendulum of Harriet’s mood that week—jittery in Potions, vengeful in the halls, distracted at mealtimes, performing poorly in all her classes. Minerva was worried that she might fail out, and raged constantly over the perfidy of ancient magical artifacts that did not care about the health of children too young to compete in its worthless tournament. Pomfrey had made a few vague suggestions that perhaps Miss Potter should talk to someone. The Muggle mania for psychotherapy had never made any successful foray into the magical world, but Pomfrey, as a half-blood, would be aware of its existence and would take for granted that it worked in some fashion. 

Severus’ solution was sitting on his desk. Miss Potter needed something done; they were all united in that one decision, though moving beyond _something_ to _what_ was beyond everyone but himself. He had his idea—his solution. 

All he had to do was pick up the Pensieve, take it to Lupin’s, and force Miss Potter to confront this shade of her inheritance, this reflection of the past in the present.

It was all he had to do.

Pick it _up_.

* * *

Harriet didn’t like Portkeys very much. Tumbling to Remus’ carpet, she was afraid that her porridge was going to come back up. 

She saw Remus starting to stand from his chair and come to her, but she scrambled to her feet before he could even begin to stand. “I’m fine,” she said a third time.

Then the outside door opened, and Snape walked in on a swirl of snow.

He saw Harriet and stopped in the act of reaching up to unpin his cloak. His pause was only for a heartbeat, but with the acuteness of mortification that heightened everything for maximum humiliation later, Harriet saw it clearly. In that moment of agony, she saw all three of them frozen: herself standing stupidly in the middle of the floor, Remus about to push up from his chair, Snape’s hands suspended over his throat. The looks on their faces were almost funny.

Then time was moving through her at a normal pace and nothing was the least bit funny. 

Snape took off his cloak and hung it up like she wasn’t there. Remus settled back into his chair, his face unreadable as he looked at Snape—for a moment; then he turned and smiled at her.

“Did you have a rough ride?” He gestured to a chair at the round kitchen table, which was set for three. 

“I don’t like Portkeys very much,” she said, crossing the sitting-room to the kitchen and trying to ignore Snape. “Wizard travel isn’t all that comfortable. Floo’s just as bad.”

Remus said something sympathetic—at least his voice was sympathetic—but she was so over-tuned to Snape being in the same room that she could barely pay attention to anything else. How long was he going to bloody stand over there rooting through his bloody cloak?

Remus was setting a tea cup in front of her—with a biscuit on the saucer. It had green icing and some kind of jam sandwiched in the middle. She forced herself to pick it up and nibble. She was _not_ going to let Snape think she couldn’t eat just because he was over _there_ and wouldn’t come any closer. It was bloody stupid to be this nervous, anyway. This couldn’t be worse than facing a dragon. It wasn’t.

 _Yes it is_ , said her treacherous honesty. _But are you a Gryffindor or aren’t you?_

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked her biscuit, hoping Remus understood that this question was meant for him.

There was a slick, ice-filled pause. 

When Snape answered, his voice was much closer than Harriet had expected; she jumped, for she hadn’t heard him coming toward them, but here he was, stepping right up to the table, his cold, strangely melodious voice flowing into her head and she couldn’t understand a word. It was like he was speaking in another language.

His eyes flicked over her; he stopped talking, frowned, and then turned the frown toward Remus, who’d developed a worried line between his gray eyebrows.

“Harriet, sweetheart?” he said.

“Mm?” She bit off half her biscuit. The jam was tangy; she couldn’t tell what flavor. She couldn’t manage to swallow it. The chunk of biscuit just sat there on her tongue. She took a swig of tea to try washing it down. 

Now it was Remus’ turn to frown at Snape, who was taking his seat slowly behind a wide, shallow stone bowl. 

“This isn’t a good idea, Severus,” Remus said, like he’d said it before.

The tea worked; the biscuit went down. “What’s not a good idea?” Harriet asked roughly. 

“Now she pays attention.” Snape’s sneer iced his face, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. “I _said_ , Miss Potter, that we need to have a conversation about your recent behavior.”

“My—” Harriet almost choked on her biscuit in indignation. “What _about_ my bloody behavior?”

Snape’s eyes glittered like moonlight chased across a black lake. The biscuit felt slippery in her fingers. “Still feeling no remorse for thrashing Miss Parkinson in front of witnesses?” he asked.

“Only that Professor McGonagall stopped me,” Harriet said savagely. 

Remus moved slightly, or she thought he did; she was glaring at Snape and everything around him was warped, like in a funhouse mirror. He was looking straight at her, he was talking to her, and the sensation was stabbing at her skin from the underside. It was uncomfortable, agitating, anything but pleasant; now that it was happening, she almost wished it wasn’t.

Snape’s lip curled. “You see, Lupin? You still think there’s no cause to _bring it up_ now?”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not _here_ ,” Harriet said. Suddenly anger was beating in her throat, at her temples, that savage energy that had filled her for ten days now, that had never really left her, even through hexes flung far and wide.

Snape looked at her with an expression of satisfaction that was curiously unlike real satisfaction. It was like a greasy film over a bowl of broth. She felt hot all over with anger and the desire to _hit_ something and feel the impact in her bones. She looked accusingly at Remus, who did not smooth away his expression of worry quick enough.

“ _What_?” she demanded.

“Lupin wants to talk to you about your father,” said Snape.

Remus’ mouth fell open slightly. “ _I_ do?” 

“My _father?_ ” Harriet stared at Snape, then at Remus, who looked, to her astonishment, like he wanted to wring Snape’s neck. It was astonishing because Remus never looked like that, not because Snape didn’t deserve to have his neck wrung twelve times over for this conversation alone. Remus glared at Snape, who glared back. Harriet felt even more deeply mired in confusion. 

“What’s this bowl for?” she asked, in an attempt to divert their hostility.

“It’s a Pensieve,” said Snape, controlling his syllables like he was cutting up something very delicate and expensive. “Used for viewing memories from a. . . somewhat distant perspective. On the periphery of events, rather than from their center.”

This did not clear up Harriet’s confusion, particularly since Remus only looked more agitated. 

Snape looked at Harriet. “I have a memory you need to see.”

“Harriet,” said Remus, “you don’t have to.”

Remus thought she shouldn’t see it; she could tell. Remus liked to keep his secrets. So did Snape. . . but Snape wanted to show this to her. He was volunteering information about something he remembered. How often did he do that? Never.

 _Are you sure you want to see it?_ she asked herself. But she was. She did.

“I’ll see it,” she said, setting down the last uneaten half of her biscuit.

Snape smiled, or something not really like it. He touched his wand to his temple, and as he pulled it away a strand of shimmering silver-white hung like a thread from the tip. He dropped the glowing thread into the stone bowl, where it swirled into vapor, shining cold and bright on their faces. Harriet refused to shiver.

“Look into it,” Snape said, his voice cold and shining.

Heart hammering, Harriet stood and leaned over the bowl. The vapor swirl of memory threw spots of light into her eyes. A picture formed of something seen from high, high up, tiny little shapes a long way below. She bent closer to get a better look—

And with a swooping flip in her stomach, her feet left the floor. She was falling, through blackness streaked with color and sound; there was no wind, just the fall—

And with a final topsy-turvy swoop, she was standing on her feet again.

Instead of the croft, she was in a high-ceilinged hall—the Great Hall. But the four tables had gone, replaced by countless desks. A single student sat at each one, bent over and scratching at a long sheaf of parchment. Slants of sunlight falling through the high windows brightened the light—but she could not feel anything, not the coolness of the hall nor the warmth of the sun. She could, however, hear quills scratching on parchment, the scuff of a walking pair of shoes, a cough here or there. 

What on earth was this memory about? She looked around for Snape—it must be his memory, if he’d pulled it out of his head—

She stared at the boy sitting just behind her. Her heart beat in her throat like a trapped bird. It was. . . he was. . . _Snape_?

It was clearly Snape, and yet—he looked so odd. There was the long greasy hair, the curved hatchet of a nose, the fierce black eyes, but he was. . . She couldn’t put it to words. 

She moved closer with her heart beating hard; he did not notice her. Because she was only looking at a memory, she must be invisible to him. She was not really here.

(Though she couldn’t help thinking he ignored her this perfectly even when she _was_ really there.)

She moved to read over his shoulder. It was like walking around inside a string of film; his body gave off no heat. 

 _Defense Against the Dark Arts: Ordinary Wizarding Level_ the paper proclaimed. The test paper was long, and Snape had crammed every available space with his cramped handwriting. He’d written twice as much as anyone sitting near him, and he was still feverishly scribbling, though other students were picking their nails with their quills, or doodling on their papers, or staring slack-jawed into space. 

“Time’s up!” squeaked a voice she recognized, from the front of the room: Professor Flitwick. “Papers to me!” He summoned them, rolling them up with a hundred dry snaps, and was buried beneath the pile of scrolls that all descended on him at once. People laughed, but Harriet was busy watching Snape. He was gathering up his copy of the test paper but was still absorbed in it, and as everyone else stood chattering to leave, he walked with his overlarge nose (which was not quite so large as his real one) buried in his test paper.

Harriet followed him. She felt tethered to him. These were O.W.L.’s, which she knew they took fifth year; Fred and George had done theirs last year and scraped only a handful between them. So Snape—this boy she was following, with his twitchy yet round-shouldered walk—was about fifteen or sixteen. He was practically her age. The thought put her head in a whirl. She had never really thought before about Snape having once been _her_ age. She’d known he and her mother were friends as children, but she had never really _thought_. . .

She didn’t know why she was here or what Snape wanted to show her, but this was a window into his past, which he guarded like a Horntail with her eggs. She’d take it, whatever it was.

Again, that fear whispered through her that whatever Snape wanted to show her, it couldn’t be anything she would want to see. . . but she waved the fear away, like smoke beneath her nose. Anything Snape told her was at least something he _told_ her.

And it was an excuse to study the boy. Hungry as she was for anything real to do with Snape, she could hardly look at anyone or anything else. He was not as tall as his real self. He did not have that grim and menacing power that threw a prickling shadow over everything. This boy looked fierce and anxious. Her Snape was fierce too, but in a different way, like he was aware of it and knew how to use it. Walking along unseen beside this odd, scowling boy, his jerky walk making his stringy hair jump about his face, it was easy to see the real Snape and yet hard to imagine this boy _becoming_ him. The gap of years was too wide.

She followed him across the grounds toward the lake, Snape still absorbed in his paper. No one could see her, so no one commented on her walking along with Snape. With a fierce, bitter wrench of desire, she wished it could really be like that—wished even more that Snape would want her there. 

They ended up in the shadow of a dense clump of bushes. Snape sat on the grass, hunched over his paper. Harriet had never before imagined that Snape would sit in the grass. 

She’d never been this close to him, either, or at least not in a way that gave her time to really look at him. He had very long, thick black eyelashes that Lavender and Parvati would have killed for. A breeze coming off the lake pushed a strand of dirty hair across his face; he ignored it. She wished she could feel the breeze, or even the grass beneath her. It should prickle; the sun should feel warm. But there was nothing. The numbness was starting to become uncomfortable—and she still didn’t know why she was here. 

Harriet looked around them, but the bushes hid them from a good vantage point. There were some girls sitting on the bank of the glittering lake, dipping their toes in the water, and other students spread across the sunny lawn. No clues there. And Snape didn’t seem to be the type who talked to himself. He was fiercely reading his exam paper, but not even muttering under his breath that he’d forgotten to list the _seventh_ side effect of such-and-such a curse, the way Hermione would be doing. 

“It’s a bit rich for you to lecture me on my temper anyway,” Harriet told him. No reaction, of course. “I’d love to know why we’re here.”

As if that was his cue, Snape stood up. He stuffed the OWL paper in his bag and left the shadow of the bushes, heading toward the school. 

“Finally,” Harriet sighed, getting to her feet.

“All right, Snivellus?” asked a loud male voice.

Snape’s reaction made her jump, it was so sudden and violent: he threw off his bag and had his wand halfway into the air in less than three seconds—but he wasn’t fast enough; the same male voice shouted, “ _Expelliarmus!”_ and Snape’s wand went flying. Someone laughed unkindly.

Harriet rounded on the boy and stopped dead.

It was her dad and Sirius. 

Her dad pointed his wand at her and called, “ _Impedimenta_!” looking pleased. Feeling stupid and slow, she groped for her own wand—but nothing happened. 

Something behind her went _thud_.

“No!” she cried, as understanding hit her like a curse. She spun back around. Snape had been knocked to the grass and was struggling to get up, his wand lying out of reach. Her wand was in her hand, but there was nothing she could do with it; this was a memory, and whatever had happened to Snape was going to happen again—

“How’d the exam go, Snivelly?” asked her dad, drawing a little closer. 

“I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment,” said Sirius in a vicious voice that made Harriet look at him in horror. A crowd of people had drawn round in a wide ring, some looking nervous, others excited. Just behind Sirius was Wormtail, his expression hungry as he stared at Snape struggling on the grass. Harriet felt sick.

“There’ll be great grease marks all over it,” Sirius went on, “they won’t be able to read a word.”

Some people in the crowd laughed, including Wormtail. Harriet wanted to hit him.

“You—wait,” Snape panted, his voice choked with loathing, “you—wait!”

“Wait for what?” said Sirius, sneering. “What’re you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?”

“Shut up!” Harriet cried, wanting to hit him, too, and just the fact of _wanting to_ made her feel even sicker. What was _wrong_ with them? Why were they acting like this?

Snape let out a stream of hexes and swear words, as bad as anything she’d ever heard him say, but with his wand out of reach, nothing happened.

“Wash out your mouth,” James said coldly. “ _Scourgify!_ ”

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth poured over his lips, gagging him, choking him—

“STOP IT!” Harriet shouted, wanting to hex them, wanting _out_ of this horrible memory, and James and Sirius looked around. She stopped, head spinning, wondering how they’d heard her, and then realized it hadn’t been her at all. A girl had come up to them, a girl with dark red hair almost the color of wine, and striking green eyes—

Harriet’s mum. 

Harriet felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

“All right, Evans?” said James, pitching his voice deeper. 

“Leave him alone,” Lily said. She looked at James like he was a bug she wanted to squash. On some level, Harriet thought this should have made her feel better, feel vindicated, but it was somehow as upsetting as the burst of hatred in her heart against Sirius. “What’s he done to you?”

“Well,” said James, “it’s more the fact that he _exists_ , if you know what I mean. . .”

Many of the watching crowd laughed, Sirius and Wormtail with him, but Lily did not. In an agony of empathy and mortification, Harriet looked at Snape. He’d turned his head to spit out bubbles, and his ferocious attention was fixated on his wand, as if by sheer force of will he could Summon it to himself. He twisted on the grass, and the Impediment Jinx must have been wearing off because he was able to move a bit. Knowing it was futile, Harriet ran to his wand and kicked at it, but her foot passed through as if it was made of mist. With a cry of rage she kicked at it again, and again, wanting to tear up the grass; but of course, it was as useless as Snape trying to hex her father without a wand. She couldn’t do anything, and neither could he—

“You think you’re funny,” Lily was saying to James, “but you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him _alone_.”

“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James; Harriet couldn’t believe her ears. “Go on—go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” Lily said coldly.

“Bad luck, Prongs,” said Sirius, like he didn’t really care, and turned back to Snape. “OI!”

But Snape had got to his wand; a flash of light ripped through the air, and a long gash exploded on James’ cheek, blood flying. James spun round; there was another flash of light, and then Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants.

Harriet couldn’t look. She put her hands over her eyes, wanting to die, wanting to kill everyone who laughed—which included her father, Sirius, and Wormtail.

Lily said furiously, “Let him down!”

“Certainly,” said James, and he jerked his wand upwards; Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground. He jumped to his feet, but Sirius said lazily, “ _Petrificus Totalus!”_ and Snape crashed again to the grass, rigid as a board.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” shouted Lily, pulling out her own wand; Harriet wondered why she hadn’t hexed them long since. 

“Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,” said James, eying her warily.

“Take the curse off him, then!”

James sighed deeply, but he turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse. Sirius looked faintly disgusted.

“There you go,” James said, as Snape struggled to his feet. “You’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus—”

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

Harriet stared at the twisted expression on his face. 

“Fine,” Lily said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, _Snivellus_.”

Harriet could hear her parents shouting at each other, but it seemed to be happening from a long way away. She was staring at Snape. She couldn’t look away. She had never seen someone look like they might collapse in on themselves from rage, hatred—self-loathing—

“Evans!” James was shouting. “Hey, EVANS!”

There was no reply. Harriet realized her mother had left them. 

“What is it with her?” James said, his chest rising and falling as he struggled with his feelings.

“Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” said Sirius.

“Right,” said James, looking furious now, “right—”

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air.

“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?”

But whether James followed through on this threat, Harriet didn’t know, because she was suddenly rising straight into the air. The summer’s day disappeared into icy blackness; her stomach swooped again, and with a disorienting jolt she was standing in the croft, bent over the Pensieve, feeling like she was going to be sick. 

Someone touched her shoulder; she jerked backwards, her arm flying up to bat them away. Remus stared at her, his hand stretched out toward her.

“Harriet,” he said uncertainly. 

Snape was standing on the other side of the Pensieve, his arms hanging down by his sides, a peculiar expression on his face. 

Harriet realized she was shaking all over.

She had to get out of there.

She turned, looking feverishly for the door. 

“Harriet—” Remus said again.

She threw open the door and ducked out into the cutting wind. Her eyes stung; she pulled her head down and kept going, slamming the door behind her.  


	82. You Can Be Honest With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Remus' history, including his family, is reproduced to the best of my memory from his Pottermore backstory.
> 
> -This chapter did not really go the way I'd planned :p
> 
> - _You are all the best_. I was seriously chewing my nails over the last chapter and then BAM, you threw all the love my way. Beyond awesome, that's you. Here's to you, my dears ♥

Harriet stumbled through the dark and the cold in the midst of a bitter wind—in the grips of blind emotion. She felt like something was trying to claw its way out of her chest. It was beyond anger or grief; it was something she couldn't name, hadn't felt before, something she didn't know how to deal with. If she could have ripped it out of herself she would have, because nothing could be as bad as this pain, this. . . this—

Her foot slipped—both her feet. She landed hard on her backside and started to slide downwards—flailed ineffectually to grab onto something, her fingers passing through frost-bitten, scrubby, useless grass—

She was falling—

* * *

"We need to go  _after_  her, Lupin," Snape said. He might as well have said  _we need to go after her, idiot_.

" _No_ ," Remus said. "Right now she needs space. Good Lord, Severus, what memory did you show her?"

Snape's lip curled, exposing his stained, crowded teeth, but there was something peculiarly fragile in his expression. "Something she damn well needed to see."

He glanced at the windows, paced toward them and looked out at the dark, snowy landscape. Remus watched him, angry yet wary. Snape's control was crackling like a brittle shell about to split open.

"I don't see her." The flash in Snape's voice was, for a moment, clear panic—but when he spun round, he'd pushed it beneath a wall of rage. With a glare of hatred, as if Remus had vanished her himself, Snape drew and raised his wand—Remus pulled out his own, by reflex—

Snape's arm swung out and he blasted the door open. It crashed into the snow in a multitude of splinters. While Remus stared in disbelief, Snape strode out the door, a ferocious whirl of black disappearing into black.

Not sheathing his wand, Remus followed him.

The wind was as fierce and angry as Snape, but with a spell it fell silent, roaring noiselessly across an empty hill.

Harriet was nowhere in sight.

"Harriet?" Remus called, magnifying his voice. Only the wind, tossing handfuls of snow around them, answered.

"This is  _your_  fault," Snape said rigidly, his face bloodless and eerie in the light of his wand.

"She can't have gone far in the time since she left," Remus said, striving to maintain his calm less because he thought it would soothe Snape than because Snape's agitation was infectious. He remembered that feeling of sailing into a black wind, which Snape had given him last week as he paced round Remus' borrowed parlor; only now it was roaring all around him, demanding he confront this bleak, unseen, terrible thing that he turned his eyes away from naming. . .

Snape cast a spell in the snow that lit a set of half-obscured footprints. The wind had blown much of them away, but the trail jumped and lurched toward the edge of the hill. Snape strode after it, Remus following—and nearly slipped on a patch of ice just at the edge.

A feeble little wand light blinked up at them from the bottom of the hill. Snape took off down the slope, almost slipping several times on the patches of ice scattered across the scrubby grass, but somehow managing to keep his footing. Remus hurried after, the freezing wind stripping his skin.

"—abysmally foolish girl!" Snape was saying when Remus reached the bottom, his voice splitting with fury.

Harriet, huddled on the ground in the snow, shivering with her arms locked round her legs, wouldn't look up. The grip of compassion on Remus' heart was physically painful.

"Severus!" he snapped. "Not now. Sweetheart," he knelt next to her, wanting to touch her but remembering the way she'd recoiled after coming out of the Pensieve. "Are you hurt?"

"M-my ankle," she chattered, not looking at him either.

Black cloth swamped her: Snape had pulled off his cloak and dropped it on her. She raised her face enough for Remus to see the emotion there; then she was pulling the hood over her head, blocking herself off from them, or vice versa. Saying nothing, Snape cast a diagnostic spell on her ankle; the left one was sprained. With a nonverbal spell he healed it. Harriet twitched but did not otherwise respond, hiding in his cloak.

"Get up before you freeze to death," Snape said in a dangerous, serrated voice.

Remus put a hand lightly underneath Harriet's elbow. When she didn't throw him off, he helped her to her feet. Swathed in Snape's cloak, she didn't speak or raise her head. Remus remembered once when Sirius had stolen his school robe because all of his had been dirty, and returned it two days later without putting it through the laundry; foolish and in love, Remus had prickled with the awareness that he was wearing a robe Sirius had worn (a robe he'd spilled pumpkin juice on).

Now Snape was glaring at Remus, who was suddenly, fiercely grateful that Snape's attempts at seeing into his mind had never been successful.

"Well, Lupin?" Snape said in the same malevolent tone as before. "What are you  _waiting for_?"

Remus helped Harriet back up the hill, trying to convey his silent support. She gave no indication that she sensed it. He might be doing a lousy job, or she might be angry with him, or beyond caring. Whatever memory Snape had shown her, it had hit her exactly the way Remus had predicted. . . and if it was a memory of James at his worst, Remus himself had probably been standing at his side, doing nothing to stop him. (Sirius had probably been participating.) If Snape had shown her a memory of James bullying himself. . .

Harriet's steps slowed as they reached the croft's open doorway. The splintered pieces of the door lay scattered in the snow.

With another silent spell, Snape reconstructed the door. The pins slammed home as he re-attached it.

Harriet shuffled into the kitchen. Face still hidden beneath the hood, she tensed, probably as she saw the Pensieve still glowing on the table. Snape had not yet replaced his memory. He had gone flying out the door after her instead.

That dark wind clawed through Remus' mind, trying to tell him something. He shivered and turned to Harriet instead. . .

Who flinched as Snape grabbed her hand. He pulled it up, making her stumble, and with long fingers like claws, splayed her hand open. She was bleeding: a long gash on the outer side of her hand, cuts across her knuckles. Snape swung a look of crackling hatred at Remus, who felt it like a physical blow.

"Well?" Snape hissed. "Where are your ointments?"

He dropped Harriet's hand like it had stung him. She let it fall back to her side, her posture curiously detached. The hood was big enough that it fell across her eyes, hiding the most expressive part of her face.

Wordless, Remus climbed the stairs to the loo. He pulled bottles of disinfectant down from the medicine cabinet, along with some gauze. Swinging the cabinet door shut, he stared into his own pale eyes for a long moment, the bottle cold in his hand.

He slowly descended the stairs. Harriet was sitting in an armchair, still wrapped in Snape's cloak. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to get it back.

He snatched the bottle and gauze from Remus' hands, then shoved them back at him.

"Fix it," Snape hissed. "If you aren't  _completely_  useless."

He stalked into the kitchen and swiped his memory out of the bowl, jabbing his wand at his own temple. Remus saw his shoulders tauten as the memory wound itself back into place.

Remus sat on the coffee table in front of Harriet's chair and held out his hand. After a moment, she placed hers in his. Her fingers were burning cold and her hand was trembling.

Remus cleaned her cuts while Snape packed up the Pensieve, wrapping it in a special cloth and stuffing it into a leather satchel. Every now and then he would glare ferociously at Remus, but he did not return to the sitting-room.

"Make sure she hasn't hurt herself anywhere  _else_ ," Snape snarled, the satchel over his shoulder. The sound of his voice made Harriet's fingers tighten on Remus' hand.

Then he hurled open the back door and stormed out, slamming it behind him so hard that the pane rattled.

He left his cloak with Harriet.

* * *

Severus found himself walking through icy slush on the Hogsmeade-Hogwarts road with no idea how he'd come there. He was frozen through except for a hot core scalding his heart, a molten, helpless panic. . . It was difficult to breathe. The Vow, it must be. . .

He needed to get to his quarters. Hogwarts wasn't far; he could see its amber windows glimmering far-off in the dark. . .

The memory, almost twenty years old, stuck to the front of his mind like toffee. He'd shown it to the girl. Dear God, what had he been thinking?

He'd seen people in the grips of Pensieve-watching before. It was a curious sight: their eyes unfocused and their faces slackened; their reactions were telegraphed only distantly. The girl had stood over the Pensieve, glassy-eyed, her expressive face tracking her progress through events he'd remembered only dimly at the time. Her veiled emotions had been so complex, yet with the memory removed, he'd been reduced to distant curiosity. When the memory had ended and released her, she'd stumbled back, and the look she had turned on him had been. . .

He didn't understand. Even with the memory replaced, vivid in its humiliating glory, he didn't understand what that look meant. He remembered, with clarity sharp as starlight, her expression as she'd understood her feelings that night in the snow-dusted garden at the ball. Understanding—horror. Not the same as her face this night.

He called up other faces after extreme shocks: resentment, rage, loathing, hatred, betrayal, disbelief, denial, grief—none of them were right. He could not recall that anyone had looked at him like that before.

What did it  _mean_?

He should have stayed and forced her to acknowledge the lesson he'd meant to impart—about her father, about himself—but the pain had been too great. He couldn't have remained there. He'd left her with Lupin tending her cuts—the Vow had not resisted—and escaped, burning with his failure. The memory had caused her pain. It would do her good, but the Vow only cared that she had been hurt. It had not prevented him, but it had reacted with the proof in front of him, driving hot needles into his heart once she'd run out the door, branding him once he'd found her at the foot of the hill, huddled and miserable.

 _You did this,_  his conscience had whispered, and the Vow had lashed him in ropes of fire.

He shivered as he coaxed the gates to part for him. He felt fevered.

 _She saw me calling her mother a Mudblood_ , he told himself.  _She'll stop feeling. . . whatever she felt. She will heal. It was the right thing to do. It was the best thing._

"The best thing," he muttered, as the wind swept around him, icy and uncaring, and his heart burned bound and helpless inside him.

* * *

Harriet figured Remus must have finished patching her up when he screwed the cap back on the little brown bottle and stood from the table. It was nice of him to heal her, but she didn't care about cuts and things. She hadn't really felt them. Next to the pain in her mind and her heart, they weren't much. The only reason she hadn't kept running once she'd finished rolling to the bottom of the hill had been her ankle folding under her weight.

She was wrapped in Snape's cloak. He'd left without taking it back. It was warm, and there was a faint smell of cigarette smoke on it.

" _I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her,_ " that boy he'd been had said, and boiled with rage and hatred and self-loathing. . .

The real Snape shouted at her for hurting herself and gave her his cloak. . .

Her dad dangled the boy upside down while Sirius laughed with Wormtail at his side and her mother told Snape to wash his pants, after he'd called her a Mudblood. . .

She frowned as something occurred to her for the first time.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"I'm sorry?" Remus said from behind her, in the kitchen.

She turned in her chair, pushing the hood of Snape's cloak off so she could see Remus. He was holding a saucepan and looking confused.

"In the memory," she said. "I saw. . ." She didn't want to say. "Everyone but you."

Remus placed the saucepan on the hob. "I don't know which memory he showed you," he said slowly, looking at the saucepan. It reminded her of the way she'd talked to her biscuit, in this kitchen, what felt like so long ago. "But I can guess the substance." His voice sounded suddenly heavy. "In those. . . encounters. . . I was usually there. Doing nothing," he said flatly, and lit the gas to heat the stove.

She could see Sirius' face as he'd laughed at Snape dangling in the air. Harriet realized that Sirius laughing bothered her more than what her father had done. She hadn't known her father—didn't love him, only an idea of him. She knew and loved  _Sirius_.

And Snape. . .

"Why?" she asked. She felt—helpless. She wanted Remus to make it all make  _sense_.

"A lot of reasons," Remus said hollowly, not looking at her. "And none that are worth anything."

"My dad hung him in the air and Sirius  _laughed_." She wanted to cry; she was not going to. She waited for the rage to come back—to beat in her throat, to choke her breath—but all she felt was an overwhelming, painful confusion. "And he called my mum a Mudblood," she said, bewildered. "I thought they were friends? I thought he—"  _Loved her_.

But he did—his Patronus was proof. How could he love her mum and say. . .

Well, it was Snape and Snape was cruel. He didn't make sense. He'd loved her mum and still become a Death Eater. She'd already been over this at the beginning of the year, when she'd made her first list. Something else was bothering her, something else that didn't fit. . .

" _Fine. I won't bother in future. And I'd wash my pants if I were you,_ Snivellus."

There—that was it. If she hadn't known better, she would never have guessed her mum and Snape had been friends, not from that memory. They hadn't seemed to know each other at all. Her mum had defended him, but Harriet had done the same for Asteria without knowing her. Snape had called her mum a Mudblood, like Malfoy, the bigoted prick, had done to Hermione plenty of times. And Lily had retorted with a scathing insult like Harriet herself might have shot back at him. But all that sure as hell hadn't made them seem like. . .

"They were friends," Remus said, now stirring something in the saucepan. "When they first got to Hogwarts. They. . . drifted apart over the years." He hesitated. "How did you know?"

"Aunt Petunia said some things. Then I asked Snape." Wasn't  _that_  the abridged version.

Remus glanced at her, like he knew exactly how much she'd left out. "I'm not sure he'd like me telling you. . . but he did show you the memory, he had to anticipate you'd have questions." He swirled the spoon slowly through whatever was heating in the saucepan. Steam was now drifting up. "If he showed you the day I'm thinking of—during O.W.L.s, wasn't it? Lily never spoke to him after that. Not that I knew of, at any rate."

"You and Sirius never told me they were friends," Harriet said slowly.  _Why not, if you knew, if you remember all this?_

"Severus doesn't like being gossiped about," Remus said. But he didn't meet her eyes. And she remembered her dad saying, " _Go out with me, and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again._ "

 _Did my dad hurt Snape because he loved my mum too?_  The question burned in her throat—and there was the whisper of anger, dark with promise. . . but she couldn't ask. It was bad enough feeling like this about Snape without saying out loud that he'd loved your mother, still loved her. . .

She put her head in her hands, wanting out of her own head, wanting. . . just wanting  _out_.

* * *

Severus was slumped on his sofa in the dark when Dumbledore came prying.

"Severus?" The door creaked as Dumbledore let himself into the sitting-room. The fire in the grate burned low, courtesy of house-elf circumspection. The firelight glinted gold on Dumbledore's beard.

 _I'm not in the mood, old man._  Severus wanted to curl up and turn away, but he needed to sit up. The conflicting desires only resulted in his hunching in on himself.

"Severus?" Dumbledore's voice was suddenly sharp; he moved with a swiftness people would not expect from a doddering old codger, and knelt next to the couch. "Is it Tom?"

"No." Severus forced himself to push up his sleeve. The Mark looked black in the firelight, but it was cold on his skin. Only the Vow burned, tight around his heart, squeezing it as he remembered Harriet's face as she had looked at him, the light of the Pensieve darkening her eyes.

Dumbledore relaxed, but his gaze searched Severus' face. Severus took the knowledge of the Vow, the pain in his heart, handling them as lightly as he might gather cobwebs for a potion, and with a whisper pulled them down into himself, wrapping them in layers of hatred, resentment, helplessness. There was more than enough to keep them safe.

"I take it your talk with Harriet did not go well," Dumbledore said, his tone guarded and resigned.

"What makes you say that?" Though Severus felt oddly terrified, he stood and with a spell made the fire leap higher, washing more light across the room.

"Remus called me on the fire to say he thought Harriet should spend the night."

Severus' fingers tightened on his wand. Well, he'd left her with the werewolf of his own volition. The full moon was in two nights' time, but she would be safe now. The Vow did not twinge. The werewolf was good at being  _understanding_  and  _comforting_. He was probably even now telling her stories of her father's true wonderfulness, and how Snivellus had never taken it lying down; how it was four on one, because Snivelly was a greasy little odd-ball up to his eyes in the Dark Arts. . .

"Severus?" Dumbledore said gently.

"It went very well, Dumbledore," he said, as memory of Harriet's misery scalded him. "I accomplished exactly what I set out to do."

By the time Lupin was finished defending her father, she'd despise Severus. When she'd finished processing how he'd treated her mother, she'd know how lucky she was to hate him now.

It was the best thing for her.

* * *

Remus washed up the Muggle way: a sink full of hot, sudsy water that he ran from the tap, scrubbing the cocoa cups and saucepan and biscuit plates with a dishcloth, sleeves rolled back. Harriet had gone up to bed, Snape's overlong cloak trailing the stairs behind her.

Remus always did the dishes the Muggle way when he needed to think. It had been his mother's way; he had grown up with refrigerators and vacuum cleaners, lawn-mowers and sinks full of soapy water for the dishes and the clothes. He'd once asked her why she didn't let his father take care of the work, for with magic it would have been done in half the time; but she'd said she enjoyed keeping everything tidy in her own way. He had always heard stories of resentful, frightened Muggles, fearing and coveting magic, but his mother had treated it like a special talent he and his father possessed, something she could take pride in but did not need for herself. They'd never had much money—the constant uprooting and failed treatments had sucked it all away—but wherever they had gone, his mother had turned it cozy and welcoming and theirs. Remus had always regarded it as her own sort of magic, one he'd never been able to replicate. The places he lived always remained separate from himself.

In Dumbledore's croft, he did the dishes the Muggle way and thought about Harriet.

He hadn't been able to say anything to soothe what she had seen. He doubted there  _was_  anything he could say. He could explain but not excuse it, and any explanation would lack the fundamental  _why_  she really needed answered.

He'd been relieved at first when she had not flown into a rage, but it had gradually dawned on him that her helpless confusion was worse. Whatever exactly she had seen, it was hitting her as hard as he'd ever feared. He'd  _told_  Snape how it would be—the emotionally tone-deaf arse.

As he drained the sink, he looked out the black window at the darkly opaque sky. If clouds hadn't obscured the moon, it would have shone nearly full. Two more nights.

Surely Sirius would come back. He wouldn't have found any cure, but he'd come back. Unless he'd been hurt.

Remus didn't want to be right twice.

He sat on the couch next to the fire. Harriet was upstairs, needing something from him—needing comfort. He just didn't know how to give it. Stories of how Sirius and James were not just those bullies she'd seen would not avail her. She knew that Sirius loved and valued her. She needed to know why he'd hurt someone she cared about. In the present, he and Snape were more on a level; in the past, Sirius had been popular, Snape decidedly not. Sirius had had loving friends, a comrade-in-arms; Snape had driven everyone away, except the sort of nasty people who'd never helped him out in a pinch. And Harriet, who knew so keenly how it felt to be unloved, would surely have felt the echo of isolation even without her feelings. In a way, her feelings isolated her all the more: they divided her from her peers, probably even from her friends, who'd never comprehend them. Snape himself was determined to drive her away if he could. She had not talked about that aspect with Remus when she'd asked her disjointed questions. . . he doubted if she'd talked about it with anyone. Harriet didn't ever talk about what was really bothering her. He knew the loneliness of that—the desire for help, for understanding, the inability to ask for it. . .

He paused there for a long time.

He couldn't enter into her specific feelings for Snape; but he knew what it was like to love someone for whom any tenderness seemed hopeless. Again, part of him scoffed that he was taking it too seriously, but the rest of him remembered her face when she'd looked at Snape after coming out of the Pensieve.

He knew what it was like to care for someone who'd done horrible things.

He could not really help her accept what James and Sirius had done. If that was anyone's work, it was Sirius', and the less said by him on the subject of Snape, the better. But perhaps Remus could help her come to terms with feelings for someone who, in most people's eyes, did not deserve them. 

He would have to be brave.

 _It's never easy to be brave_ , his father had told him. For James and Sirius, it always had been. Courage had come as naturally to them as fear to cowards.

The fire had almost gone when he rose from the couch and started up the stairs.

Though the bedroom was dark, he couldn't imagine that Harriet would be asleep. In her case, he wouldn't have been. He could see an unmoving lump curled beneath the covers. She was probably still wrapped in Snape's cloak. He would have been, too.

When he sat gingerly on the bed at her back, she didn't stir, not even to make a sleepy noise.

"I became a werewolf when I was very young," he said quietly, so softly that she could pretend not to be awakened. "My father had angered a werewolf—a very dangerous one, named Fenrir Greyback. Biting children. . . was his favored method of revenge against wizards.

"I survived the attack, of course, but I was cursed. You. . . you have grown up among Muggles, you've seen me only at Hogwarts, with people who either don't know what I am or who accept me, but werewolves are. . . feared and hated. My parents moved us constantly throughout my childhood—whenever anyone began to suspect. I couldn't have friends because they might find out and we'd be driven out anyway. . . My father sought a cure for years, but of course nothing worked. Until the Wolfsbane, nothing worked even slightly." His father's Holy Grail: a cure for his werewolf son.

Behind him, Harriet was perfectly still. Remus cleared his throat and went on. "My father never thought I'd be accepted at Hogwarts. I think he really couldn't believe it when Dumbledore came personally to tell us that with sensible precautions, there should be no reason I shouldn't get the education of any magical child. I didn't believe it myself. . . but I went, and for the first time in my life, I. . . had friends. Sirius, James—and Peter," he added, unable to help his bitterness. "They'd never have been friends with him if I hadn't convinced them to give him a chance."

He was startled when Harriet's small hand touched his back, but he didn't jump. She left her hand there, as if giving comfort. She, comforting him, when it was what he'd come to give her, after failing to protect her from. . . everything.

"Peter was alone and friendless, too," he said, forcing his voice to levelness. "I. . . knew so well what that was like. Peter worshipped them, especially James. Rather literally—he was something of a—groupie, I suppose you'd say. So they allowed him to tag along, and, well. . . once you were their friend, it was for life. They'd have done anything. . ." And the inverse had been a propensity for forging implacable enmity, with as little thought as they'd formed enduring friendships.

"We told you last year about their becoming Animagi for me. About figuring out I was a werewolf—I was never any good at excuses, and they were precocious. They changed for me, but really they. . . changed  _me_. I had never thought I would have friends, let alone those who would—do for me what they'd done.

"Looking back on it," he forced his voice to be steady, "it was inevitable, I suppose, that I should have fallen so hard for Sirius."

Harriet's fingers curled slowly in his shirt and held on.

"He was. . . something like a force of nature," Remus said, remembering him so beautiful and full of life, hauteur and bravado masking something dark and wounded that a young Remus, with his own inner darkness, had strangely not recognized. "An enormous personality, careless yet devoted. He would have done anything for all of us, but for James. . . if there was a 'beyond anything,' he'd have gone that far for James. Sirius' parents weren't kind people; the Potters rather adopted him from the first. And Sirius loved James. . . very much. When James started dating Lily, Sirius didn't quite know what to do with himself."

The bed moved behind him. Harriet spoke suddenly, her voice hoarse. "Wait. . . d'you mean Sirius loved my dad like you loved Sirius?"

"Yes." It would be craven not to look at her. He almost didn't manage it. She had sat up, her hair rumpled from lying down. "It was only natural. Their friendship. . . nothing could quite equal it—at least in Sirius' heart. He came to me when James and Lily were engaged and. . ." Hopefully Harriet was too young to understand the full implications of it, but she  _had_  read all those romance novels.

"All things considered," he said, "it didn't last very long. The shadow of the war drove spikes between us all."

"He thought you were the spy," she said quietly. He couldn't read her voice.

"Abetted by Peter, I'm sure. But yes. And when James and Lily were killed. . ."

It was still hard to think of it, so many years later. He thought of Sirius' wasted face, his haunted touch towards everything but Remus himself, whom he did not touch at all. "I lost everyone that night. James and Lily, Peter and Sirius. . . I couldn't believe it had happened. I couldn't believe Sirius had done it. Even Albus said he had, and I told myself I had to believe them, all the evidence said so. . . but I kept thinking  _it feels wrong, it doesn't feel right._  . ."

"But you were right," Harriet said when he fell silent. "It  _was_  wrong. He never did it."

He did not want to say it, but he had to. She had to know he knew what it was like, to struggle against your own heart, to doubt its faith, to. . .

"I felt that it was wrong," he said steadily, "but I couldn't believe I was right. It felt like a form of—of cowardice, or willful blindness—that I couldn't  _really_  have failed to know who he was, I couldn't have been so wrong in him, I couldn't have failed to see what he was capable of. . . it wasn't my fault he'd killed them, because he hadn't really. . . I told myself that my doubt was just me trying to convince myself that I hadn't been wrong, because in the face of everyone telling me otherwise, I couldn't be  _right_. . . I was too close to him, I'd lost too much, it was just terror of losing him too, losing that memory of. . ."  _Love. Belonging._

He breathed in, feeling his breath shake. Harriet was silent. "Albus offered to get me in to Azkaban to see him, but I couldn't go. I was. . . afraid. I was afraid that if he told me hadn't done it, I'd believe him—or worse, that if he told me he  _had_ , I would forgive him. That if he asked me to help him escape, I'd do it, whatever the excuse, confession or denial. . . I was absolutely terrified. I had never stood in his way before, never refused him in anything important, always forgiven him everything that I hadn't approved of. I'd have mistrusted myself at any time, but  _then_ , when I had lost everything—I feared I didn't have the strength to refuse the only person left alive who'd loved me—or who I thought had loved me."

He had to stop as his control over his voice weakened, before it broke apart entirely. He would not weep, but those days would always be too close. They had scarred something inside, changed him in soul the way Fenrir Greyback had changed him in body.

"It wasn't your fault," Harriet said suddenly. "Even  _Dumbledore_  was wrong, and everyone is always saying how great and wise and powerful he is. Sirius made sure nobody knew. Peter spent twelve years as a  _rat_ , hiding with the Weasleys. Nobody could have  _known_  that."

"If I'd gone to talk to Sirius, we might have figured it out," he said. "If I hadn't been so weak—"

"You  _loved_  him," Harriet said. "You stayed away from him because you didn't want anything worse to happen. You chose to be alone for all those years for the same reason. That's not being weak."

"A stronger person wouldn't have felt the temptation in the first place."

"Bollocks," Harriet said forcefully. "That's just—a bloody load of bollocks. I bet Sirius says the same thing."

He shrugged. He and Sirius hadn't talked about it. He hadn't admitted it aloud to anyone before. He wouldn't have, if Harriet hadn't needed to know.

"You're just going to have to forgive yourself," she said.

He blinked at her stubborn expression. He couldn't help smiling very slightly. "Oh? If you say so."

"I do," she said fiercely. He was at once comforted by this childish simplicity, and deeply saddened.

"It isn't that simple," he said gently.

"Yes it is. You forgave Sirius for all that stuff you were talking about, weren't you? For being a bully and—things." Her eyes darted away.

"Well. . . yes. I didn't like them," he said, "but I've forgiven him."  _A thousand times._

"So why can't you forgive yourself?"

"Because it's different," he said.

She frowned. "I don't see how."

He swallowed. He did not want to have this conversation—had not expected to have it. This was not going the way he'd planned. "I didn't tell anyone about Sirius being an Animagus last year. It was how he'd escaped Azkaban, how he evaded the Dementors and got into the school—"

"Right, I know," she said, looking confusedly at him.

"Even though I thought he was a servant of Voldemort—a servant who was out to kill you."

Harriet stared at him a long moment. His palms were actually damp. He felt sick, with remorse, with something like terror.

"I forgive you," she said.

He stared back at her, feeling his own confusion. "Sweetheart, I don't think you understand—"

"No, I do," she said steadily. "If Sirius had been a Death Eater, he'd have killed me, and you could've stopped him by telling them what they should've been looking for. But I'm fine. He loved me all along.  _You_  were right about him all along."

"But if I hadn't been—" Remus said, feeling agitated.

"Well, if I were dead, I'd probably be angrier about it," Harriet said, with a lack of concern he found almost infuriating.

"Harriet, dear, it isn't funny."

"Of course not. But I love you, so I forgive you."

He shook his head. A feeling of helplessness was rising in him, like a massive wave raised by a powerful tremor deep in the sea. Her expression was clear, open, steady. How could he convince her how wrong she was? By keeping silent, he'd condemned Sirius—and her—to twelve years in hell; he'd placed her life in jeopardy he had accepted as certain when he'd refused to believe the knowledge of his heart.

"Remus?" Harriet said, sounding almost worried.

"It's late," he said abruptly, rising from the bed. "I've kept you awake long enough. You—need your sleep."

" _Remus_ ," she said, throwing off the blankets. Snape's cloak was tangled up in the sheets.

He fled the room.

And stopped dead at the top of the stairs.

Sirius was sitting a few steps down, his arms folded on his knees. He looked up at Remus, his dirty hair falling around his eyes, his expression somber.

"Hey, Moony," he said quietly.


	83. The Next Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update, what the heeeeeelll???
> 
> SORRY this took me so long. I got the Everlasting Gobstobber of grading. Fate almost worse than death :p
> 
> I'm also sorry I'm so crap at replying to your beautiful, inspiring comments :/ You are all wonderful, and my reason for writing; I sheepishly offer you this very late chapter as tribute. I hope it's okay; I felt *really* rusty writing it :\

Harriet had no idea how she felt to see Sirius sitting on the stairs outside the bedroom. The sound of his laughter when her father had dangled Snape in the air echoed in her memory, but here, now, he was smiling at her in a tired, glowing way, and his face was gaunt and grim, his hair long and matted. He was nothing like that arrogant, handsome boy who’d looked disgusted when her dad let Snape go because her mother had demanded it. But he’d _been_ that boy.

_Snape was once that boy you saw, too._

It was just so—it made her head hurt.

“What,” said Sirius, holding out his arm. “No hug for me? I smell that bad?”

Harriet dredged her concentration from the muck of much-too-tangled problems. “Now you mention it. . .” 

He laughed—different from that boy, a hoarse, barking sound—and reached forward to grab her shoulder and haul her into a rough, stinky hug. 

“I’ll go put on some tea,” Remus said abruptly, and moved past Sirius down the stairs so fast, he was practically running.

Harriet pulled away from Sirius to watch Remus’ back as he disappeared. Then she sneaked a look at Sirius’ face to see how much he’d heard of their conversation. His expression gave nothing away.

“You’re back, then? Did you find anything out about—Remus? What to do?”

“Of a sort.” His bland look shifted; he tried to drag a hand through his hair, but it was so filthy that his fingers tangled up. He made a face. “I really am fucking disgusting, aren’t I?”

He was, but worry for Remus was slipping tendrils through the ache calcified around her heart. “What did you find out?”

“Something I’m not sure is a load of rubbish or not.” He sighed. “Holly-berry, I won’t keep this from you, any of it, but I want to tell Remus alone, first. You know how much he hates to show what he’s really feeling.”

She did. Which was one reason why Remus’—confession?—just now had taken her so off-guard. “All right,” she said slowly. “I should. . . try to sleep anyway.”

“It’s late, yeah.” Sirius scrubbed a hand through her hair. “We’ll talk in the morning. I’ve missed you, kid.”

He smiled at her, exhausted yet pleased, and headed downstairs. Harriet was grateful he hadn’t waited to see how she’d respond. She wasn’t sure she had a smile in her just then. She was even less sure she had one for him, even though she was desperately relieved he’d come back unhurt.

She could hear the sounds of them shuffling about in the kitchen below, and bit her lip. Sirius was right: Remus wouldn’t want her to know how he’d reacted when Sirius first told him what he’d found out. This wouldn’t be eavesdropping just on information. Things people kept from her because they thought she was too young, that was one thing; but things people kept from her because they were private. . .

She shut the bedroom door behind her and curled up in the bed, the world outside the window dark and frozen, and wrapped Snape’s cloak around herself.

* * *

Remus did not know what to do, so of course, he made tea.

It had been the absolute worst time for Sirius to have come back, so of course, he had. Remus dreaded to know what Sirius had heard—how _much_ he had heard. He couldn't ask. The very knowledge that Sirius had surely heard _something_ weighed on his heart like terror.

He could hear Sirius coming down the stairs. 

Sirius stopped somewhere around the kitchen table, only a few feet away. Remus did not turn. He pretended to be busy filling the kettle.

“So, I know how this goes,” Sirius said. “I say ‘we need to talk,’ and you say, ‘there’s nothing to talk about,’ or something equally fucking daft. And you know, I’m just too tired to fuck with it right now, Moony. So instead I’ll just ask if there’s anything to eat.”

Remus twisted the tap off and placed the kettle on the hub, as if his heart weren’t pounding. “Let me check the fridge,” he said, voice calm. 

He pulled out remains from the last dinner Albus had sent, roast chicken and carrot soufflé. Sirius sat down at the table, head bowed slightly, so that his filthy hair hung across his face. He was gaunt again, skin stripped down to bone, like he’d been after Azkaban. 

Remus’ heart wanted to jump out his throat.

He heated the food with magic, knowing it wouldn’t taste as good but that Sirius wouldn’t care. When Remus slid the plate in front of him, Sirius tore into the chicken like a starving dog.

Now Remus wished he hadn't spent so long hiding in the kitchen earlier, trying to figure out what to tell Harriet. There was nothing to tidy up while he tried to figure out what to tell Sirius. He’d meant every word to Harriet, but he had never meant to say any of it to _Sirius_.

Sirius finished the food faster than anyone should have and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Remus handed him a napkin, and the look Sirius gave him nearly seared the skin off Remus’ nose.

“Want to tell me what I’m allowed to talk about?” Sirius' voice was as low as if Harriet slept on the sofa only feet away. 

Even asking him to refrain from talking about it would acknowledge what he might have heard. Remus looked away—he couldn’t maintain eye contact—and said quietly, “I’m glad you’re back, safe.”

Sirius was quiet for a while. Then he sighed, a ragged, explosive sound, and reached out. Remus tensed, but Sirius clapped a hand on the back of his neck and pressed their foreheads together. He didn’t say anything, but Remus’ heart wanted to tear his way out of his chest. Instead of comfort, a twisted panic lodged under his heart.

“Remus. . .” Sirius sounded hoarse and sad and Remus couldn’t bear to hear what he might say.

“What did you learn from the werewolves?” he asked, pulling away, sitting up straight.

Sirius’ hand fell away and he stared at Remus, who could not meet his eye but could feel the weight of it.

“Why don’t you call Dumbledore?” Now Sirius’ voice was harsh, almost sarcastic. “Then you can both hear it at the same time.” His chair scraped harshly across the stone floor as he stood. “In the meantime I’m going to make myself less of a fucking mess.”

He stomped up the stairs, not bothering to keep the noise down. Remus waited till the bathroom door thumped shut and the pipes in the walls clicked with running water before pressing his face into his hands. He did not weep.

* * *

Dumbledore came promptly, as if he’d always been expecting a call well past midnight. 

By the time he stepped in with a swirl of snow, Sirius had finished his bath and run a drying spell through his ragged hair. He sat grimly on the edge of the sofa, feet planted apart and hands on his knees. He and Remus had not spoken since Sirius had gone upstairs. Remus said quietly, “Dumbledore is coming,” when Sirius reappeared, his hair tangled and his eyes snapping, and he nodded curtly. That was it.

(Harriet had not stirred from the bedroom. Remus doubted she was asleep. Either she was too preoccupied with her own affairs, or she’d discovered a sense of delicacy. Well, considering that _he_ wanted to be miles away right now, he supposed he was hardly complimenting her subtlety for staying out of the way.)

“Sirius,” said Dumbledore, casting a spell on himself to steam away the snow. “It is good to see you. I hope you will not mistake my urgency for a lack of delight at your return, but I must ask, what have you found?”

Perhaps he read the thick, grim silence in the room for bad news; Dumbledore had mastered subtlety to a degree that it _would_ be an insult to suppose he hadn’t noticed their mood. He gave no sign, however, merely seating himself with alacrity and looking at Sirius with alertness.

Sirius drew in a breath that, Remus saw with creeping unease, shook ever so slightly. 

“Nothing,” he said flatly.

Remus blinked. He looked at Sirius, who did not look at him, but stared at some point beyond the window. Had Sirius said ‘nothing’? What. . . what an odd thing for him to say. ‘Nothing’ couldn’t be right. . .

“Nothing,” repeated Dumbledore.

Sirius shrugged one shoulder, then dragged a hand savagely through his hair. His left hand clenched on his knee. 

“Fucking nothing. Fucking _useless_ , the lot of them.”

Remus wanted to reach out and place a hand on his arm, but stopped himself. Sirius never liked being touched when he was like this. He didn’t like being touched by Remus anymore, at all, ever.

The memory of Sirius’ forehead pressed against his shook him to the core. _Nothing nothing fucking nothing fucking useless_

“Sirius,” Dumbledore, “I know how difficult this must be for you—” 

Sirius gave a harsh bark of laughter; Dumbledore did not blink or pause, though his gaze darted to Remus.

“—but I must ask you, specifically: what did you find out? Please, if you were told anything, despite how unhelpful it may have sounded, I beg you to repeat it.”

Sirius glared at him. In that moment, he reminded Remus of Snape—Snape standing in the kitchen, staring out the dark window, snarling at Remus that it was his fault, that. . .

Remus blinked. His hand crept up to his mouth. Sirius was speaking, but Remus barely heard him.

 _Oh_ , he thought, as that black wind in the darkness of his understanding howled once, impossibly loud, and then settled around him like a black cloak falling on a small figure huddled in the snow. 

“. . . telling you, it’s fucking _useless_ , Dumbledore!” Sirius snarled, getting to his feet. “‘Name of the wolf’ my fucking arse—”

“Names have great power. Why do you think Voldemort named himself anew on his rise to power? Remus,” he said, while Sirius growled something that sounded like ‘do I look like I give a fucking fuck’ as he braced himself against the mantle, the line of his back harsh as he bent his head to stare into the fire, “does it have any significance to you?”

“I. . . sorry?” Remus tried to jumble his thoughts properly together. Sirius’ hair was hanging across his face; Snape had blasted the door off its hinges. “Does. . . does what have significance?”

“The werewolves told Sirius that they—each of you—must find the true name of the wolf,” Dumbledore said, as if it wasn’t worrisome that Remus was hardly paying attention to a conversation that so greatly concerned him. “Have you heard of such a thing before?”

“I. . . no.” Remus rubbed his forehead. “What does it mean?”

“That’s what nobody could fucking tell me,” Sirius growled. “The old ones banged on about it, but not a one of their useless arses could tell me fuck-all about what it _means_. Fucking empty werewolf legendary bollocks, is what it sounded like.”

“Did. . . did they say how I was supposed to find it?” 

“You take a _journey_ ,” Sirius said with evident disgust. “That’s all. A journey to find a fucking true name. Fat lot of fucking help they were—”

Dumbledore was silent, though Sirius ranted on. Remus tuned him out. He was suddenly, extremely tired. The inside of his head felt three sizes too big for his skull. 

“Well,” said Dumbledore eventually, once Sirius’ anger had simmered to silence. “I don’t think we should discount this advice just yet. I will see what is available in the Hogwarts library on the subject of similar journeys. In the meantime. . . rest, Remus. Sirius, it is good to have you back.”

He bid them both farewell—his voice kind and sympathetic, though Remus knew they both hardly cared just then—and left them alone with things unspoken. 

Sirius remained standing over the mantle, his gaze falling into the fire. His voice, angry and low and rough, curled out of him. “Are we going to talk yet, or are you going to shut me out?”

Remus opened his mouth. What he might have said had he thought about it, he would never know, for he did say was, “You should rest.”

Sirius’ hands clenched on the mantle. His whole body seemed to clench. Then without a word, he left the parlor, climbed the stairs, and slammed the bedroom door so hard the house seemed to shake.

Remus sat on the couch, not moving, till night faded to dawn.

* * *

Harriet hadn’t thought she was going to fall asleep, but when she opened her eyes and the room was lit with pre-dawn grey, she realized she must have slept after all. A warm weight was pressing against her leg—Padfoot. Sirius had banged into the room last night, changed into a dog, and curled up on the bed with his nose tucked under his paw. There had been shouting just before he'd come up, hardly muffled by the walls. She’d rested a hand on his fur, and he’d made a faint, whining noise in the back of his throat and cuddled against her hip. 

She knew what it was like to fight with someone you’d rather not. Boy, did she know.

Tired of the bed, feeling an uncomfortable pressure on her bladder, she started to push the covers away when she saw a flash of black under the blanket.

Snape’s cloak. 

 _Shit_. 

Eyes on Padfoot’s back, she shoved the cloak under the blankets. Padfoot didn’t move. She hoped to hell he hadn’t smelled Snape’s scent on it or something. But if he had, surely he’d have blown the roof off already? There was no explanation for her having Snape’s cloak that wouldn’t send Sirius hunting him down. Sirius wanted to hunt Snape down practically for existing.

_It’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean_

She kicked that slice of memory away. She needed to get the cloak out of there.

Sirius needed to leave the room, first. 

“Morning,” she said quietly to Padfoot, testing to see if he was awake. He whuffed, thumped his tail weakly against the blankets. Damn. 

She got out of bed, tugging the blankets into a secretive position. “Think there’s breakfast?” 

Padfoot raised his head and nuzzled her hand, but he didn’t transform—or jump down from the bed. Harriet patted his nose, trying to think of a way to get him out of the room. 

“I’ll go check, huh? After. . .”

She let herself out of the room, then swiftly shut herself in the bathroom. _Please don’t find it, please, please, PLEASE._

She took care of business, and noticed a third toothbrush on the sink as she was washing her hands. Remus had foresight in the midst of all of that? Hermione would be pleased and impressed.

She brushed her teeth, wishing she had another set of clothes so she could make the excuse that she needed the bedroom to change, and then chuck Snape’s cloak out the window. Snow was falling outside, thick and wet; the cloak would have been buried soon enough.

Padfoot was sitting outside the bedroom door when she emerged from the bathroom. 

“Ready to see if there’s breakfast?” 

His tail thumped again, and he followed her down the stairs. 

The ground floor was empty. Kitchen, parlor, laundry—all empty. 

“Where’s Remus?” she asked uneasily, looking out the window at the thickly falling snow. “He can’t have gone _out_. . .”

Sirius transformed so fast she almost jumped. His face was bloodless, his eyes burning bright.

“Stay inside, Holly-berry,” he said, and wrenched open the door. Icy air blasted inside, but he did not stop; he stepped out, a dark shape against the swirling snow, and shut the door behind him.

She clambered up on the kitchen counter to watch him through the window. She could see him casting spells on the ground, flashes of ruby light against the snow.

 _Get the cloak, now_ , whispered her Inner Slytherin.

She bit her lip, watching Sirius fade in and out as he paced further into the driving snow. What if Remus had left them?

 _Won’t make it better if Sirius discovers you slept curled up in Snape’s cloak,_ said her Inner Slytherin.  

She could barely see Sirius now.

“Fine,” she said under her breath, and took the stairs two at a time. 

She dragged the cloak out of the bed and was about to throw open the window when she thought,  _Sirius is outside. I can’t throw the cloak outside if Sirius is out there to see it._  

Double shit. 

Biting her lip again, she stared at the cloak in her hands. Her fingers bunched in the fabric. _Think, Harriet._ _Before he gets back, think of SOMETHING._

How much time did she have?

Two dark shapes were faintly visible against the swirling snow.

Not very long, then. And she had only one idea. . .

* * *

Sirius had found Remus wandering about in the snow. More precisely, Padfoot had found him. 

“Hello,” Remus said cautiously. It was hard to see in all that snow, and with those canine features, but he was fairly sure that Padfoot was glaring at him.

Padfoot growled and turned back toward the croft. Sighing, wiping sleet-sodden hair out of his eyes, Remus followed. 

Inside the croft, he was greeted by the sharp scent of toast. Harriet was in the kitchen, making tea, a plate stacked with thick toast on the table.

“Morning,” she said, looking vaguely shifty about something. Well, Remus felt rather shifty himself, after everything that had happened last night. 

“Morning, dear,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. He hung it on the peg by the door, next to the coats and cloaks. 

“Want some eggs or sausages?” Harriet's eyes followed Padfoot as he stalked over to the couch and shook out his wet fur on the cushions. “I can do a fry-up.”

“I’ll take care of it—” 

Padfoot transformed into Sirius in a flash. “Right, Holly-berry. You should know better than to try and keep Remus from avoiding a serious conversation by hook or fucking sodding crook. Cooking is one of his favorite ways to get out of it.”

Remus saw Harriet tense up and a look of wary unhappiness dart across her face. “Sirius,” he said warningly.

“No,” Sirius barked. “We are talking about this right fucking _now_. No more—equivocating, no more hiding behind the fucking tea kettle, no more God damned _run arounds_. NOW, Remus!”

“At least let Harriet get back to Hogwarts first,” Remus said quickly. His heart was twisting with shame, anger, unease and sympathy, and Harriet looked like she was feeling all that and more (minus the anger, perhaps).

Sirius looked like he wanted to shout some more, but he only growled, “At least that’s a _decent_ reason,” and grabbed the pot of Floo powder off the mantle. He flung a handful into the fire, saying curtly, “Albus Dumbledore—Headmaster’s study.”

It only took Dumbledore a moment to answer. “Sirius? What have you—”

“Holly-berry needs to come through.”

Dumbledore barely paused. “Understood. Send her through, please.”

Harriet didn’t look at Remus as she approached the fireplace. He supposed he deserved that. Sirius gripped her shoulder. Her eyes darted up to his face, but she didn’t speak.

“I’ll apologize for being a complete arsehole later,” he said gruffly. “Get some breakfast and don’t worry about us.”

Her eyes did dart to Remus that time, but she only chewed on her lower lip and nodded. 

Then she stepped into the fire and vanished in a flare of emerald flame.

The fire crackled down, orange and disconnected again. Sirius’ gray eyes were nearly black, gazing at Remus from deep-set hollows. He had been so handsome, once, turning most eyes toward him. Suffering had whittled beauty down to something grim; the outward casing of a heart that didn’t know how to be happy, how to be content. He and Snape really were so similar, on so many levels.

But Sirius was not the one who could not sit and have a conversation about his heart. In that, Snape was Remus’ match.

“Well?” Sirius said, his voice a wall of iron; yet there was brittleness running through it.

“I. . . have to go. Not like that,” Remus said when something violently dark flared in Sirius’ face. “I mean—I’m talking permanently. At least for now. I have to. . . leave.”

“That clears up fuck all."

Remus passed his hands across his face. “I can’t stay here as I am. What if you can’t control me? What if I hurt you? This close to Hogwarts. . .”

“We live in the _middle of nowhere._ The middle of nowhere that’s in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“I’m going to die,” Remus said. Sirius was suddenly beyond silent, as if all sounds he could have made had disappeared into a void. “If not this month, then. . . soon. I have to figure out some way to. . . If there’s a way to control it. . .” He breathed out. He could not look at Sirius.

“Tell me where to find the pack. I need to talk to those old werewolves.”

“Moony,” Sirius said. 

Remus did look at him then. Sirius’ expression was bleak, frightened—too young in a face aged beyond its time. 

“There’s nothing else to be done, Padfoot,” Remus said gently. _I’ve been awake all night, trying to think. I’ve walked in the bitter cold, trying to freeze my heart._ “What you’ve found. . . this is it.” He sighed, his breath escaping him in a light rush, more than just breath.

“This is what I have to do.”

* * *

Harriet _really_ hated traveling by Floo.

Professor Dumbledore smiled at her and sent her on her way to breakfast—“Which I hear is the most important meal of the day." She was glad he didn’t ask her if she’d had a nice time, because it would have been easier to lie that Hermione had a terrible memory or Snape a charming personality. 

She realized it was still very early. Hardly anyone was awake at this hour on a Saturday; just a few indecently early birds catching the first breakfast. The ceiling of the Great Hall fluttered with the enchantment of falling snow.

To her surprise, the sausage-y smell wafting from the tables actually made her mouth water. She piled a few links, along with some fried eggs and tomatoes, onto her plate, and liberally coated a muffin with butter and jam. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt properly hungry, but her stomach was growling at her to hurry up and get some of those sausages down.

She had just polished off the muffin and an egg when Hermione slid onto the bench beside her.

“I found something." Her hair was wilder than usual, rioting about her head, and there were tired circles under her eyes, as if she’d had a night a lot like Harriet’s. “Something about the Second Task. It’s going to take place under water—in the lake, I think. I’m fairly certain we need to try putting the egg under water.”

Harriet blinked, half of a sausage sticking out the side of her mouth. She bit off the end and swallowed, mostly without chewing.

“Wh-what?” she coughed.

“The egg,” Hermione said, her voice firing rapidly. “The clue, the task—I found the answer.” 

“Wh— _how_?”  

Hermione swallowed, even though she wasn’t eating anything. 

“In my Potions notes.”

* * *

“Moony,” said Sirius. “Moony, this isn’t—this isn’t the answer.”

Remus wasn’t really packing, because he didn’t have anything to pack. Werewolves wouldn’t appreciate him showing up with a holdall in tow. He was lucky that his warmest clothes, which he was pulling out of the wardrobe, were threadbare and darned in places (for Sirius knew better than to try and outfit Remus with new clothing). The pack would still resent the existence of a werewolf in an anorak, but not as much as they would resent a change of clothes.

“It’s the only answer,” Remus said. His voice was still as gentle as it had been downstairs. “And I think you know that.”

“The fuck I do,” Sirius said, a desperate edge to his profanity.

“We’ve been dancing around this for a while now.” Remus shut the wardrobe door and shrugged into his least-holey wool jumper. “Ever since we knew the Wolfsbane was making me worse.”

“No,” Sirius said.

“I won’t poison myself, not knowingly.” Remus pulled on his best set of socks: a darning patch in one heel only. “And I won’t use you as a holding action. It took you _and_ James to control me when I was a great deal. . . younger and smaller.” And there, at last, was James’ name between them, and neither of them had a moment to spare to talk about it, not now. “Even if Dumbledore could seal me in here every month, I couldn’t _take_ it. It’s taken me a month to heal, Sirius. From moon to moon. I can’t keep on like that.”

It was surprisingly easy to say all this while he pulled on thick socks and jumpers; while Sirius stood hunched and motionless out of arms’ reach. It was so easy, he wasn’t sure he was really accepting it as real, even though he knew it was. It was as if his walk in the snow had frozen a wall of ice around his heart, and none of this had sunk past it.

“Moony.” Sirius' voice twisted. “You can’t go to those. . . that pack. Any of those packs. Fuck it all, d’you think I could bear to see you living like that?”

“I’ve lived in quite some bad ways, Padfoot,” Remus said, his voice as gentle as he knew how to make it.

Sirius’ eyes glittered, but not with satisfaction; with nothing close to it. He looked away, and swallowed.

“When I was gone,” he said hoarsely. 

Too close to it; too close. “I’m not going to live with them forever. Just until I figure out what this business is with the true name of the wolf.”

“If they knew anything, really fucking _knew,_ d’you think they’d be that—miserable?” Sirius said harshly. “That downtrodden? They’re almost out of their minds out there, Remus.”

“I know.” _Better than anyone, I know_. “But it’s all the help I have, Padfoot.”

Sirius blinked rapidly, but no tears fell. His chest rose and fell with his breath.

“Not all,” he said tightly. “If you think I’m not coming with you, you’re out of your fucking mind.”

* * *

_I found the answer in my Potions notes._

Just like that, Harriet’s appetite ate itself and disappeared. 

“In. . . your Potions notes." Her voice sounded very stupid.

Hermione nodded, twisting the hem of her jumper.

“Why. . . were you checking your Potions notes?”

Maybe this was the wrong thing to hinge on. Hermione’s look said it was.

“For the test we’re having Monday?” She sighed, perhaps because Harriet continued to look at her quite stupidly. “You didn’t hear him mention it yesterday, did you? Never mind. But I was reading them over last night when you were. . . away, and—it’ll be easier just to show you. When you’re done with your—”

Harriet dropped her fork with a clatter onto her plate. “I’m done.” 

Hermione let out a breath, like a sigh. “All right. Let’s. . . go to the library. Parvati and Lavender are still asleep—so’s Ron. I brought my notes with me, I wasn’t sure you were going to be back, but I wanted to study them more. . . well. You’ll see.”

“Right." Her head was swimming; if she had to do a task involving the lake, she hoped she’d be able to swim half as well as her own bloody head.

No one was in the library this early, not even NEWT-obsessed Ravenclaws. Hermione spread the notes across one of the big tables at the back. The room was so cold, they could see the outline of their breath in the air.

“These are all the potions we’ve been brewing in class since the start of December.” Hermione pointed at the notes, laid out from earliest date to latest. The names of the potions were circled in bright blue ink, some of the ingredients in pink. “They’re all aqueous. They have a usage that’s water-based, and their ingredients are primarily aquatic plants.”

 _They would be_ , Harriet thought absently, remembering her abortive study sessions with Snape at the beginning of the year. “Okay, but. . . how d’you know that’s some kind of—message? Because that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That he’s—left a message.”

“I am.” Hermione wasn’t looking at her. Some lower brain function of Harriet’s picked up on this and sent a hurried message to her heart to pick up the pace; though Harriet, with higher functions sluggish, fogged, and still reeling, wasn’t sure what it meant. 

Hermione cleared her throat. “Professor Snape always assigns potions in the order they’re listed in the textbook. He jumps straight to the back of the book, to the harder potions, every year, but once he’s there, he’s never deviated. This is the first time—”

“You noticed that?” Harriet wanted to laugh, her heart feeling full. “Never mind, of course you did. What are these pink circles?” 

“I’m cross-referencing all the ingredients to figure out if there’s a message there, too. Well, just in the meantime, till you returned and we could submerge the egg. I didn’t want to do it without you. It might help narrow a few things down and direct what we investigate next. One of these potions could be our key.”

 _Our._  Harriet remembered with a fierce pang the way her mum and Snape hadn't even seemed to be friends. But _she_ had Hermione, who sat up working on Harriet's task until she was exhausted, and rose at the crack of dawn to look for her, and said _our key_. 

“And we submerge it because. . .?” 

“I think it's Mermish. The language books I’ve read have suggested it might be—and Mermish is only intelligible under water.”

Harriet had to press a hand to her head to contain the massive swell of thought caused by Hermione’s brilliance. “Why the hell didn’t the Goblet pick _you_ to be Champion?” she said weakly. 

“Because if I’d walked out in front of a fire-breathing dragon, I’d have fainted.” Hermione smiled at her—a pale, tired smile, but heartfelt. 

Harriet reached out and touched one of the notes. If Hermione thought the egg was Mermish, and Snape was having them brew a bunch of water potions, it had to be what Hermione thought. Even the Snape part of the equation said enough—this was his code, his way of telling her without actually telling her. He was brilliant and screwy; Hermione was brilliant and straightforward; Harriet was thick and straightforward. She’d have never picked up on this. It was sneaky, roundabout, and bloody over her head, the way everything was with Snape. 

So that trick he’d pulled with the Pensieve. . . that was code too, wasn’t it? Knowing Snape, it was some fucking daft means of protecting her. That’s what Snape did: messed with a person’s head while thinking he was being crystal clear, and tried to protect Harriet. He often botched it spectacularly, but he was bloody-minded about _trying_.

In her mind, her list of Pros suddenly filled in so quickly, the scroll unrolled till it hit the floor and kept rolling.

 _Daft bloody bastard,_ she thought, her heart swelling and her hand itching to hit something.

So she did the only sensible thing, and hugged Hermione, hard.

“You’re the best friend I’m ever going to have,” she said, gritting her teeth to stop a hysterical impulse to laugh, or wail, or _something_. “If anyone tries to steal you away, I’ll hex them into next Thursday.”

“You do that anyway.” Her voice was suspiciously teary. She tightened her linked hands between Harriet’s shoulder blades, as if to hold her in place.

“I won’t anymore.” Harriet sighed. It felt like all the air was leaking out of her body. “I’m. . . not over it. But I’m getting there.”

She pulled her head up, loosening the hug. Hermione studied her, eyes flicking over Harriet’s face as if she was a chapter in a book.

“You’re going to be all right then,” Hermione said, a trace of hope entwined with uncertainty.

“Yeah.” Harriet started stacking the notes, careful to keep their dates in order—careful, because they were _proof_ , and because they were Hermione's. “I will be.” 

She handed the stack to Hermione, who tucked them tidily into their folder. 

“Now,” Harriet said, and felt a genuine smile touch her mouth. “Let’s see what those Mermaid buggers have to say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wtf, a whole chapter with no Snape?? I'd better fix this pronto.
> 
> By the way, when I look at my kudos and comment count, I have to blink and rub my eyes to clear them. Seriously, you are all the greatest and I won't ever deserve you. I'd have given this thing up ages ago and contented myself with daydreams if it weren't for you.
> 
> By the way, if anyone is getting nervous about, er, stuff *cough* I beg you to place your trust in me. All shall be revealed in time.  
>  
> 
> ~~I also swear that some day we are not only going to get to the actual Second Task but also to the end of bloody GoF, so help me Jesus~~


	84. The Price of Protection

Harriet paced in front of the empty wall that would become the Room of Requirement. _We need a place to listen to the egg_ , she thought, concentrating on _water_. 

When the door grew out of the stones, it was damp to the touch and covered with moss. She pushed it open and stepped into a humid forest, dripping green and gold with summer growth and sunlight.

“Well,” said Hermione as they stood just inside the door, while it swung shut silently behind them. “I was expecting more of a . . . swimming pool.”

Harriet didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but the Room had given her a clear, wide forest pool, so large it was almost a lake. A column of golden sunlight fell through the parted trees, glittering on the still surface of the water. Birds called off in the green, and the canopy breathed in the wind. 

“I’ve been here before,” Harriet said, staring around. The sense of familiarity was nudging at her like an elbow in her side.

“When?” Hermione asked, surprised.

“I don’t . . .” 

_It was dark, freezing, the air in her throat like ice as she breathed, the ground shaking as the werewolf leapt, and the ground split apart as Snape fell—_

_The night burst open with the light of a thousand stars as the Patronus lit the water_

Harriet swallowed and shook her head, as if that could help clear the memories away. In front of her, really in front of her, the water was clear enough to see all the way to the rocks at the bottom. There was bright sunlight, not darkness and ice; there was no werewolf. Snape was all right. He’d healed, and so had she.

Something else niggled at her, but she pushed it away. They were here to listen to the egg, not to be haunted by old memories.

“Oh, look,” said Hermione, pointing at a nearby rock, where two bathing suits and towels sat neatly folded, testament to a practicality Harriet hadn’t known her subconscious possessed.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Harriet said. “I wasn’t really looking forward to skinny dipping.”

Hermione giggled, rather nervously. They had changed in front of each other loads of times, but that was in the dorm; in the forest, even if it was a magical forest, nakedness was a bit more embarrassing. Or perhaps it was the fact that Hermione was clearly embarrassed that made Harriet feel the same. When she thought about it, she didn’t care that much if they changed in front of each other, but Hermione scurried behind a tall rock that may have been the one where Harriet had found Snape lying buried under rubble he’d brought down around himself. 

This really was the same place, wasn’t it? Even though she hadn’t seen it in daylight, or the summer, or asked the room to show it to her. . . 

The sense that she was forgetting something very important pushed at her again. Something left over from the time accident? But she was _sure_ the only time she’d been here had been that night last winter, when Snape had almost died. . .

“Harriet?” Hermione called from the lake shore. 

Harriet climbed out from behind her own changing rock. Hermione stood by the water’s edge with the egg under her arm. She held it out to Harriet, who cupped it in her hands and waded into the pool. The water was cold, sending goosebumps prickling all across her skin, and the rocks were slippery beneath her feet. Tucking the egg under one arm, she floated onto her side and stroked out from the shore, Hermione paddling alongside.

Once she was deep enough that her feet didn’t touch—the water was still so clear, it looked like the floor of the pool should be right beneath her—she said, “Here goes,” and opened the egg under the sparkling surface. Taking a deep breath, she ducked under, the cold water closing above her head, Hermione following after.  

* * *

 “Sirius—” said Remus, once he’d found his voice.

“If you say ‘you haven’t thought this through’ I am going to strangle you with that holdall,” said Sirius.

Remus looked at him. The day outside was bright, the thinly overcast sky backlit by the sun, and one square of pearly light fell on the shadowed floor between them.

“Of course I wasn’t going to say that,” Remus said.

“Riight,” said Sirius, and actually rolled his eyes.

“It’s not as if you make impulsive decisions,” said Remus. “Ever.”

Sirius lowered his eyebrows, glowering. “You can’t go without me. You’re exhausted from taking a walk around the fucking house.”

That was true, but. . . “What about Harriet?” Remus asked quietly.

Sirius dragged both hands through his hair, a signal of how much weight that question really carried. His face looked hollowed out, as if everything that made him burn inside, that kept him going, had fallen to ash.

“I thought about this a lot when I first left,” he said, voice rough. “About the time I almost got her fucking killed—hell, which fucking time, you could ask, and it’d be the truth. But the _last_ time, trying to keep her from that task. And I thought, what use am I, what fucking use, out here? Where if I go into the fucking castle like this, McGonagall—or, fuck, Snape—could drop me and I’d be lucky to make it back to prison? I’m not _scared_ ,” he said, in response to Remus’ stare, “but I’m _useless_ , don’t you see? She’s got Dumbledore right there, and fuck, each time I’ve tried to protect her I’ve done worse than nothing, she’s ended up _hurt_. The most _I_ could do for her was make sure Snape can’t hurt her.”

 _And if she ever found out about that, I can’t imagine how much it_ would _hurt her,_ Remus thought, as he struggled to ignore the growing whisper that Sirius leaving with him was the better choice. . .

_He’s right, he can’t help Harriet, but he could help you._

_If you leave him here and he finds out how Harriet feels about Snape, he’ll do something very bad indeed._

_You won’t have to die alone._

He tried to quell these thoughts, to rise above them, but they circled like a wind that would not fall behind him no matter how he turned. He shook his head at Sirius and left the room, the weight of the holdall dragging at his arm.

 _The point,_ he reminded himself, _is to leave so that Sirius won’t have to see you die. There is no cure; he said it himself. This will be the end. If you survive one more month, so be it; but if you don’t, he won’t have to watch._

Sirius would make him go to the pack. Sirius would make him maintain the charade to the last, from never believing the truth. Sirius would make him hope, and that was. . .

Terrible. So compelling, it might break his heart. 

His free arm felt leaden and clumsy as he pulled his cloak down from the wall peg. Funny, that black cloak hanging behind his looked an awful lot like. . .

With a flash, he remembered Harriet huddled in the bed beneath Snape’s cloak, and her shifty expression as Remus had walked into the kitchen that morning.

 _Clever girl,_ he thought as with shaking hands moved one of Albus’ old rain-Impervious cloak’s to cover Snape’s, his heart beating hard in case Sirius should see. . .  

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Sirius asked from right behind him. It took all of Remus’ self-control not to jump. 

Sirius went on, “That guff you told Holly-berry, about me loving—about you being a substitute—a second choice. For James.”

“Sirius,” Remus said, turning his face away, panic pressing on his heart, wringing it flat.

“You’ve believed that all this time,” said Sirius. “I left you alone, believing it.”

Remus shook his head. He could barely see, for the edges of the room were dulling in front of him, the world turning monochrome in his fear.

Sirius put his hand on the back of Remus’ neck and leaned in, pressing their foreheads together, as he’d done last night, and the world sharpened into swirls of deepest hue.

“Remus,” Sirius said, his voice half a whisper, “ _let me in_.”

And at the touch of his voice, the warmth of his touch, something in Remus’ heart collapsed, falling down, down into itself, into a blackness so bottomless, somewhere it turned to gold.

* * *

“You figured everything out without me?” Ron said, and there was no ignoring the sliver of hurt in his voice. 

“You were asleep,” said Hermione, her tone somewhere between defensive and soothing, which was quite a feat, Harriet thought. “And anyway, we had to go . . . swimming.”

Her ears glowed red. Maybe it was the thought of Ron in swim shorts. Harriet thought he’d be extremely skinny, and possibly have a great many freckles—nothing to blush about. But then, she didn’t fancy him. 

She couldn’t really imagine Snape in a swim-anything. Even at a tropical beach Snape would probably be wearing black trousers and a jacket and be holding a cigarette and glaring at the sun. If she tried to picture anything else—anything _less_ in the way of clothing—she was going to suffer a near-fit of insanity. 

“It’s best you didn’t see me flailing around,” Harriet said, a bit unsteadily, because she was still trying to erase the image of Snape at a beach. “I’m pants at swimming. That should make the second task fun.”

Ron’s hurt, tinged with resentment, faded beneath his curiosity. “What d’you have to do?”

Harriet told him about the song-riddle, about retrieving some sort of treasure.

“Blimey.” He looked impressed. “Mermaids. . .” Now he sounded impressed for an entirely different reason, one that made Hermione’s ears turn red, for a very different reason of her own. Harriet wondered if she should tell him that mermaids didn’t look like Fleur in a sea-shell bikini top. (In Hermione’s book, mermaids were not pretty girls but wiry and scaly with serrated teeth.)

“It’s serious, you know,” Hermione snapped. “Harriet has to get to the bottom of the lake, which is no small challenge, and stay there until she locates them and gets back whatever they’ve taken.”

“How are they supposed to take anything of yours?” Ron asked Harriet. “Not like they can grow legs and stroll on up the Tower.”

“ _Clearly_ they’ll have help,” said Hermione, rolling her eyes.

“I wonder how they decide what to take?” Harriet asked slowly, as a terrifying notion rose up like a Hungarian Horntail. What if—what if it was some sort of spell and, oh God, it pointed to _Snape?_ To hell with Voldemort; she’d drop dead from mortification, instantaneously.

“And where do we start looking for spells to breathe underwater for an hour?” Ron asked Hermione, as well he might.

“I. . . have some ideas,” she said evasively. 

Harriet looked at her in surprise, but Hermione avoided her eye and applied herself to the stew in front of her. She was keeping the truth of Snape’s notes a secret, then? What for? 

Well. . . if Hermione thought it was best, who was Harriet to argue? Hermione always knew something she didn’t, after all.

* * *

 It was difficult trying to do Transfigurations homework when you couldn’t remember the last week of lessons. Harriet struggled with it for an hour before Hermione slapped her homework down in front of her and said, “ _This_ week you’ll do better.”

“Yeah,” Harriet mumbled. “Thanks.”

Hermione just shook her head, but her mouth quirked in a smile. Then she turned back to her Potions notes, which had steadily become more colorful as she searched for a pattern in the ingredients. (None of the potions, unfortunately, let you breathe underwater for an hour.) Harriet wanted to talk to her about the pattern, even though she clearly hadn’t found anything yet, but with Ron sitting at her elbow struggling through a Divinations assignment, it would violate their unspoken secrecy code. Instead, she applied herself to copying Hermione’s homework in a way that would make it less obvious, by changing one third of her answers to be wrong. Copying successfully off Hermione was an acquired skill.

Harriet thought about studying for Snape’s test on Monday, but then decided, as he probably wasn’t even marking her work anymore, that it didn’t matter. Instead, she and Ron ended up playing wizard’s hangman by divising various gruesome fates for him to suffer in his Divinations dream diary, which included him being dragged to the bottom of the lake by a vicious party of mermaid warriors.

“That ought to impress her,” Hermione said dryly, reading over Harriet’s shoulder. “If she’s been paying attention to the talks in the staff-room at all.”

“You’re _sure_ it’s mermaids?” Ron asked as he signed a final flourish in his diary before tossing it aside.

“Yes, Ron,” Hermione said with patience so exaggerated it was clearly high caliber impatience. “Seeing as the egg was speaking in _Mermish._ ”

Harriet tuned them out, as something had just occurred to her. . . if she were going to battle mermaids to reclaim the possession she loved most, then she would need to do more than just hold her breath for an hour; she’d need to know some spells to fight, wouldn’t she? All she really knew in the way of combat spells was Expelliarmus. . .

“Harriet?” 

Neville was standing next to her chair, with a tiny ball of grey fluff huddled on his shoulder.

“Nitwit?” Harriet said in surprise, stretching out her hand. The tiny owl hooted feebly, and Neville scooped him up and laid him gently in her palm. His fur was damp and chilled with melted snow.

“I found him trying to get in downstairs,” Neville said. “He looked like the owl that visited you sometimes.”

“Right,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward to be talking to Neville after she had, well, so completely ignored him for so long. She was really a complete twat, wasn’t she? “Thanks for that.”

“No problem.” He smiled, not looking at all flustered or flummoxed—well, not very much—and ducking his head, trotted off. 

Harriet sat down, cupping her hands around Nitwit to warm him—he snuggled into her palms—and sneaked a look at Ron and Hermione, wondering if she looked as embarrassed as she felt. Hermione’s smile had a lot of understanding in it.

“He’s going out with Hannah Abbot,” she said gently.

“What, _Neville?_ ” Ron said.

“No, _Nitwit_ ,” Hermione said scathingly.

“Oh,” Harriet said, for a moment stunned at the enormity of everything she’d missed recently, and then feeling a bone-deep rush of relief. “That’s all right, then.”

“But I thought he fancied—” Ron said, and then, “Ow!” when Hermione kicked him. 

“So, let’s see what Remus wants,” Harriet said heartily, and peeled the tightly packed letter off Nitwit’s leg. He burrowed into her lap as she unrolled the parchment, realizing, as she did, that she had never found out from Sirius what he’d learned from the werewolves.

Her heart started beating faster as she read Remus’ familiar handwriting, the _Dearest Harriet_ at the top, and the words, _I’m so sorry, but Sirius and I have to go away for a while. . ._  

* * *

  _Dearest Harriet,_

_I’m so sorry, but Sirius and I have to go away for a while. What he learned from the werewolves has made that the only option. I remember you once complaining that magic could be very unclear; at this moment, particularly, I could not agree with you more. The werewolves told Sirius that I must seek ‘the true name of the wolf,’ though as to how that’s accomplished, they did not seem to know. So that is my task for the present._

_I do not wish to leave you, but as I am now, I can be of no help to you. Sirius feels the same, but he wishes to tell you in person._

_There is a door—look on the map—that leads outside. If you tap the stones and say the password. . ._

* * *

Harriet took the stairs as fast as she could without letting the Cloak slip out from under her jumper. She couldn’t wear it with so many people milling in the halls, nor did she need it yet; but once she got downstairs. . .

The map had showed the door around to the side of the castle, where the woods grew close. She flung the Cloak on as she ducked into the last, secret staircase, which spiraled downward sharply, and yanked the hood up over her hair. The staircase (lit only by a torch in the main hall above) ended in what seemed to be a blank wall, but when she hissed the password, she passed through the stone like it was mist.

The bone-deep cold outside hit her hard, much harder than the magical lake in the Room of Requirement, but she grit her teeth and pushed forward.

“ _It’s really dangerous_ _to ask you to do this,_ ” Hermione had said as Harriet had dragged her cloak from her trunk. “ _With the threat against you—and to be_ fully _honest I don’t trust that Headmaster Karkaroff not to want to sabotage the other champions—not to mention the danger to Sirius! I can’t believe Professor Lupin would—_ ”

“ _I’m going,_ ” Harriet said shortly. “ _If they’re going to the werewolves, it’s really bad, Hermione._ ”

Hermione had stood silent while Harriet pulled on an extra jumper against the cold. When she’d turned around to go, Hermione’s eyes had been bright and her fists were clenched.

“ _If you’re not back in a half hour,_ ” Hermione had said, “ _I’m getting Professor Snape_.”

(Apparently, now that he was leaving Harriet secret clues in class, Professor Snape was an ally in Hermione’s eyes—more than any regular teacher was, at any rate.)

The snow outside was knee-deep to Harriet, lit blue-white by the moon. Though she was wearing the Cloak, she wasn’t nearly invisible, carving a trench like this. But the snow had not fallen smoothly; it clumped in peaks and valleys, full of shadows. The stars shone diamond-hard and cold in patches through the clouds. She hadn’t dressed warmly enough, but she kept going, pushing her legs to go faster, because half an hour was nothing, and if Hermione promised, she would do it. . .

Ahead of her, a shadow detached from the valleys in the snow and rose up in the moonlight—a shaggy black dog, a glow piercing its eyes in the silver light. 

Harriet lunged forward, snow crumbling around her freezing legs, and collapsed behind a mound of snow. The dog became Sirius, pulling the Cloak off her head so he could see her.

“Merlin’s balls, Holly-berry,” he said, wrapping her in a hug that should have felt warmer, “this is all you wore out here in the fucking arctic?”

“If I’d w-worn m-more, people’d have asked w-where I was going,” Harriet said through grit teeth.

“Well you can’t fucking stay out here like this. You’re going back in. Don’t you bloody argue with me,” he said, dragging the hood back over her hair. 

Her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t protest. Turning into Padfoot, he herded her back through the trench she’d dug. But the door had returned to stone, and she couldn’t force the spell past her clenched teeth.

Sirius transformed and held out his hand for her wand. “Let’s hope I don’t bring the castle down on our heads. _Fumant transmutare,”_ he said and pushed his hand through the wall. It sank into the stone without a fuss, and he pulled her through.

The narrow space at the bottom of the dark spiral staircase felt only a bit warmer than outside. Sirius wrapped his arm around her shoulders and chafed her arm.

“You were _supposed_ to wait for Moony, Holly-berry,” he said.

“I w-was?” 

“You didn’t read that far, did you?” Sirius sounded affectionate. Snape would have taken her head off. Hermione was going to go spare. “He’s saying good-bye to Dumbledore, and then he was going to get you and bring you here, where I'd have been waiting. You do remember a madman’s after you, right?”

“S-sounds familiar,” she chattered, and he laughed his barking laugh, but quietly. 

“Yeah, it would.” He sighed, then, and ruffled her hair. “We’ve got to go away, for Remus. Even if it’s fucking useless—and I won’t lie, it looks like it is—we’ve got to try. _He’s_ got to try. And I’ve got to go with him.”

“Of c-course you do.” She was warming up now, even Sirius didn’t put out heat like Remus. She rested her head against his shoulder. Her feelings about—what she’d seen in the Pensieve—were still all tangled up, but her first emotion when she’d read Remus’ letter had been panic, sheer as a cliff-face. If they left without her getting to say good-bye. . . 

She gripped the lapel of Sirius’ jacket, and his hand on her shoulder tightened in response.

“I’m less use than these fucking werewolves,” he said hoarsely. “Less use to you here. If I hadn’t—”

“It isn’t your f-fault,” she said firmly. He was probably thinking about what had happened—what he’d done—before the first task. Or he could have been thinking of anything. “If _I_ hadn’t stopped you from killing Peter—”

“That’s what your dad would have done,” Sirius said roughly. “It’s what your mum would have done. Don’t apologize for it. Wormtail is the fucking shit who—” He sighed again and rubbed her shoulder. “I’ve gone over it enough in my head. If I’d _caught_ him sooner. If I’d never convinced your parents to. . . None of that does any fucking good. Nothing I wish I’d done, or Remus wished he’d done, or you wish you’d done. It’s all done and gone. I _wish_ I could help you now, I’ve been wishing that all along. And I’ve done what I could. Some of it has been worse than nothing—no, let me finish, Holly-berry,” he said when she raised her head. “I’m—terrified, right. I’ve lost . . . Your dad was my Hermione, all right? And left to me, there’s just you and Remus, and you and Remus are everything to me, do you understand? So Remus has got to go try and save himself, and you’ve got to stay here and try and survive, and that scares the fucking shit fuck out of me. I can’t be with both of you, physically I can’t, or I’d split myself in two in a fucking heartbeat. But out there, Remus has got no one, and here you’ve got Dumbledore, and no matter what this new evil shit is trying, he’s scared of Dumbledore, I can tell you that, or he wouldn’t have rigged the Tournament to get you in it. 

“But I’m not relying on just that, d’you hear me? I’ve done as much as I could. I got Snape to swear an Unbreakable Vow to protect you.”

Harriet felt a chill that had nothing to do with just having been out in the snow. She had never heard of an Unbreakable Vow, but anything that involved Sirius _and_ Snape couldn’t be good. And the grim tone of Sirius’ voice, his tight grip on her shoulder, the dark light in his eye. . .

He was still talking. “So you’re not unprotected, do you hear me? Not at Hogwarts, not anywhere. Remus and I aren’t leaving you alone. And as soon as we can, all right, _as soon as we can_ , we’ll be back.”

Harriet nodded, as _what’s an Unbreakable Vow_ and _don’t leave I’m scared I’ll never see you or Remus again_ and _what have you done_ whirled through her mind. 

Sirius pulled her in for a bone-cracking hug, and she hung on and didn’t want to let go, even as she couldn’t stop thinking _whathaveyoudone_. Roughly he kissed the top of her head, and said, “Go up and say good-bye to Moony, now. Love you, kiddo.”

Then he was pointing her wand at the wall again; he was placing the wand in her hand; he was folding her hand in both of his and the wand in the cradle of her palm. 

He was gone.

* * *

After a night of not sleeping, a day of not eating, and far too many hours spent tangled in emotions he loathed, Severus was feeling particularly nasty—the perfect mood for devising Monday’s test. He debated whether or not to forego it after all, as it would mean more grading, but in the end decided that he would rather enjoy the fleeting satisfaction of failing everyone than have one fewer assignment to grade. (Even Granger would find _these_ questions beyond her scope.) 

Miss Potter’s test he would, of course, throw out. He hadn’t marked a single assignment of hers since the article had come out—more to the point, hadn’t even written on them. He’d always given her slightly above average marks without reading a word of what she actually handed in, but he had stopped doing even that much. She hadn’t asked after her assignments. At least she was bright enough to learn that much.

Unfortunately, it was all too simple to come up with questions too hard for fourth years to answer, but which he could effectively argue they should know. Any other professor would say he was being unfair, and unfairness had always come naturally to him. So it was very little distraction from his predicament.

He turned to writing a crescendo of cruelly biting comments on a stack of marking that had piled up; but again, this was so easy that by the time normal people, without rising Dark Lords and overly adventurous adolescent girls to worry about, would have been on their way to dinner, he had done with decimating the confidence of sixth and seventh year Ravenclaws, and had reached a stage where his own mind was becoming toxic. 

Luckily, that was when a discreet house-elf popped into the room and placed a letter on his desk before popping away again. 

 _Narcissa,_ he knew from the weight of the parchment and the faint hint of lavender as he split the seal. The letter was written in a candid yet cryptic style—so Narcissa felt the need for caution these days and was putting on a blithe front. 

 _Severus, darling, I am feeling so terribly, deathly dull. Lucius spends all his time with old friends, catching up on politics, and though you may doubt that he is always the most interesting of conversational partners, I do wish he would find something else to talk about_ sometimes _. Surely you would not be so tedious._

So, Lucius and the others who’d escaped prison sentences were making steady contact in their growing fear. He hoped they weren’t doing anything too destructive to their tenuous appearance of innocence, but it was a thin hope; they had always been diamond-grade fucking idiots. Despite her professed frustration, Narcissa was again seeking Severus’ counsel.

 _Lucius leaves me with their wives far too often, a fate which is tedious in the extreme. Irma Crabbe has positively attached herself to me, like a limpet. I may soon not be able to claim responsibility for my actions. I wish you could be here, my scowling wood pigeon, for soon I believe I shall have something that will entertain you immensely. But I shan’t give away the surprise, just yet_.

She was having luck on the Skeeter front, then. He almost smiled.

_I do hope all is well with Draco. Write to me of him, would you, darling? He tells me so little these days, I can hardly bear it. But that is a mother’s cross. All my love, Narcissa._

Draco. . . how _was_ Draco? Severus hadn’t been paying him any attention recently. Draco could have been turned into a hedgehog, and Pansy Parkinson could have been petitioning nationwide for the Weasley twins’ (or, more likely, Miss Potter’s) execution, and he’d not have noticed. 

No, he’d have noticed death threats against the girl. That was the _only_ thing he’d have noticed. So Draco had probably not been turned into any more small animals. 

He put Narcissa’s letter away for answering later. He’d need a clearer head to deal with that; plus he would have to gather a bit of intelligence on Draco. 

For the present, he’d have a wash. It had . . . been a while. Once that was done, if he were feeling particularly fortunate, he might then try for an hours’ sleep or so. It was the early evening, but that hardly mattered in the dungeons, on a Saturday.

It was in peeling off his robe that he saw what had prompted Narcissa to write to him.

The mark had turned nearly black.

He stared at it, his heart pumping painfully hard, the sound of his own blood, beating in his temples, drowning out the rush of the water running in the tub. The snake and the skull, almost as dark as the last time the Dark Lord had stood in front of them, leered in the soft lamp-light. His vision warped; the mark seemed to be turning to ink and pouring, pouring off his arm, the skull and snake staying as fresh and clear as the ink pumped out like blood from an artery, as it covered the floor, as it flooded to the walls—

He wrenched himself to lean over the tub and twisted off the taps. The water stopped running, and his breath was loud in the small room over the _drip, drip_ of the water stopping.

There was no ink on the floor as he pulled his robes back on. There was only the mark on his arm, darker than it should be.

 _Why_ _is it so dark?_

_Miss Potter—_

He slammed the door behind him as he strode from the room.

* * *

Harriet’s chilled fingers thumbed through the card catalogue. _Unbreakable Vow_ , her thoughts chanted. _Unbreakable Vow, Unbreakable. . ._

(Too bad the card catalog wasn’t like the Room of Requirement, giving you the right book you needed if you just thought hard enough. Why wasn’t it? Homework would be so much easier. . .)

There: _Common Oathes of the Pure-blood Elite_ ; maybe that would have it. _Restricted Section_ was penned in sternly at the bottom. 

She grabbed the card, rather than writing down the call number, and ducked into a nearby stack. The Cloak came out from under her lumpy jumper, and, hidden from Madam Pince’s eagle eye, she slipped over the section barrier.

The Restricted Section always seemed darker, somehow, than the regular stacks; darker and colder, the shadows stretching farther. 

 _Common Oathes_ was up high, and there were no ladders; one of the ways Madam Pince tried to control restricted books. Harriet summoned the book with _Accio_ , and in other circumstances would have been pleasantly surprised with the way it swooped into her arms like a well-trained owl. 

Crouching on the floor, she draped the cloak around the book and thumbed to the index. _Unbreakable Vow,_ she thought, as if she could forget.

Here, the page. . .

_"The Unbreakable Vow is a triple effort in its sealing, for it calls upon he who sets, he who swears, and he who binds; but it is chiefly a dual effort in its formation. For the parameters are set by he who calls for the Vow, and their absolutes determined by he who swears to them. No man can know all the shades of another creature's heart and character; therefore the Vow, to which a man pledges his life's allegiance, is to be set only by the dictates of his own conscience. But each man's heart teems with shadows he cannot name himself; therefore it is wisest to honor what he knows to be right, and to eschew what he feels to be wrong, to ensure the Vow does not rupture with a fatal consequence."_

A fatal consequence

_fatal_

“Harriet?” whispered a familiar voice.

Harriet looked up, numb, feeling like she was trying to see through a snow drift. Hermione was standing at the edge of the row. She was holding the map in both hands and squinting into the shadows, in Harriet’s direction.

Harriet reached up slowly and pulled off the hood. Hermione hurried toward her, kneeling in front of her, and whispered, “What’s wrong? You look—”

“Read this.” Harriet fumbled the book out from beneath the Cloak and thrust it at her. “Tell me—does that mean—does that mean that if you swear the Vow you die?”

Hermione’s eyes flicked over Harriet’s face, then down to the book. She read quickly, and bit her lip as she did.

“Is that what it _means_?” Harriet asked.

Hermione raised her gaze to Harriet’s face and nodded—a tiny, frightened gesture.

“So Snape’s going to die,” Harriet said, and then she burst into tears.

* * *

Dumbledore’s hand felt dry and terribly frail on Severus’ wrist. He examined the mark, obscenely vivid in the warm, welcoming light of his study, as if it were an intricate text and not a source of terror. Severus tried not to feel sick. If he felt this panicked _now_ , how would he meet the Dark Lord? Pathetic, fucking useless, what good would he be—

“When was the last time you looked at it?” asked Dumbledore.

“A couple of days.” At least he could speak normally, for the present. 

“That makes this a very recent development.” Dumbledore withdrew his hand, letting Severus tug his sleeve back into place, letting him block out the sight of that _thing_. “Nothing we didn’t already glean from the instance of Narcissa Malfoy’s letter.” 

(Her scented parchment lay face-up on the desk. Narcissa would accept Dumbledore’s having to read it as a necessary evil; she knew Severus’ role, and would never put anything in writing that she would not declare in open court.)

“You should know, under the circumstances,” said Dumbledore, folding his hands in his lap, “that Remus and Sirius have left our vicinity to seek Remus’ cure within the wolf packs.”

Fear clenched Severus’ gut cold. “And you did not think to stop them? If either is taken before the Dark Lord, the girl will go after—”

“They did not plan it in any way that Tom could already have been apprised of,” said Dumbledore. “Remus left me only just before you knocked on my door. And they are in contact with no one besides myself, Harriet, and you. No, this. . .” He nodded at Severus’ arm. “Tom has been planning something, and his confidence and power is growing. This much, however, we knew for some time. But it has made a recent and sudden jump, and that is troubling. . .”

Severus just managed not to snarl, _You fucking THINK_? 

“Where is the girl?” he demanded.

“In the castle.” Dumbledore glanced at one of the instruments on his desk, a spindly silver thing that whirred peacefully, unceasing. “I would know if she were taken without her consent, Severus. Or if she leaves of her own accord.” 

Severus knew all that, but he wanted to know precisely _where_ the brat was, at this very moment. “He put her in the Tournament somehow, and his plan has suddenly _advanced_. The Second Task is more than a month away, which means that his new plan does not _need_ to wait for the twenty-fourth of February!”

“Within Hogwarts, Harriet cannot be harmed,” said Dumbledore. “That is surely his reasoning behind involving her in the Tournament, a convoluted plan at best. . . he is desperate, and reaching. She cannot be taken from Hogwarts against her will, and I shall be warned if she leaves under her own power.”

 _I KNOW,_ Severus wanted to scream.

“Therefore, whoever has designs against her must wait till the twenty-fourth. . . and so must we.” He held up a hand when Severus made a sharp movement in his chair. Dumbledore’s eyes were compassionate, but Severus wanted to throw the gently whirring contraption between his eyes. “We cannot tip our hand, Severus, or your role will be over before it has begun. Locking Harriet in Gryffindor Tower will accomplish nothing except letting Voldemort’s true spy know that I suspect this jump forward—that you are working _with_ me, and not simply biding your time. Your cover depends on my not appearing to know everything. There is too much at stake. Harriet is protected within Hogwarts, Severus.”

 _Not enough_ , Severus thought, as visions of Quirrell’s bloody body and the massive corpse of a Basilisk and Dementors and Pettigrew and the werewolf and the glowing Goblet and a dragon’s fiery throat streamed through his memory; the girl unconscious, bleeding, dirty, falling, running, flying, nearly dying. . .

Everything was at stake, everything.

* * *

Harriet tried to get herself under control, because someone was going to hear, and Hermione was going to ask why she was crying, and Harriet couldn’t tell her, couldn't tell anyone. . .

“Harriet. . .” Hermione’s hand was warm and steady on her back. She inhaled, then closed the book. “Come on. We don’t want to talk about this here.”

Harriet nodded, wiping at her face with her sleeve. Hermione floated the book back to the top of the stack—

The tell-tale scuff of Madam Pince’s shoes hissed nearby. Hermione backed up against Harriet, who threw the Cloak over them both.

They stood completely still, arms pressed together, as Madam Pince shuffled around the end of the stack and glared suspiciously up the row. But in a moment, she’d passed on to the next, and they breathed easier. 

It was a trick, coordinating themselves to get over the barrier whilst being mostly covered by the Cloak, but apart from a flash of shoe and cuff, they managed. 

Once they were out in the corridor, and had ducked safely into a secret alcove, Harriet pulled off the Cloak and stowed it once again under her jumper. She was glad it was dim in there, the only light coming in around the edges of the hanging tapestry, so that Hermione couldn’t see her face. All the same, she bent over, as if tucking the Cloak in was a delicate process, and wiped at her sticky cheeks.

If Snape had taken a vow to protect her from Voldemort, he was going to die. 

Her breath hitched. She wanted to slap her face. She wasn’t going to sit here in the dark crying, she _wasn’t_. . . even if—

Hermione pulled out her wand and whispered, “ _Silencio_ ,” and a feeling like a thick blanket fell around them. 

Then she took Harriet’s hand and held it tight. 

“Now,” Hermione said, “what do you mean Professor Snape is going to die?”

Harriet’s heart stuttered, then started galloping. Oh fucking shit. She’d said that out loud, hadn’t she? She’d blurted out—but it didn’t have to mean that she—Hermione didn’t have to know; Hermione just thought Snape was looking after her. . .

“I. . .” Hermione hesitated. “I know—I mean, I’ve _guessed_ —that the article wasn’t exactly a—I mean, it was a _lie_ , but you—” Hermione made a frustrated noise. 

Harriet’s hand was slack in hers. Oh God, oh no—

“You haven’t wanted to tell me who you. . . fancied.” Hermione’s voice trembled like she was trying to hold it steady; her hand did tremble where it gripped Harriet’s. “The day the article came out, you set your list on fire. It seemed like—I couldn’t really see _how_ you—” She started talking faster. “But then I realized you’ve been working with Professor Snape on the task, and when I saw he’d left clues in the potions, I thought—”

She trailed off into the silence. Harriet didn’t speak. She didn’t even twitch her fingers. She couldn’t.

“Oh, Harriet,” Hermione said, and hugged her.

Harriet raised her shaking arms and wrapped them around Hermione’s back. She pressed her face against Hermione’s shoulder and wanted, _wanted_ to say, _I do, I fancy him, and it’s horrible, because he can be so horrible, and he’s been so horrible, and he’ll be so horrible again and again because that’s who he is, and he’s done things to try and protect me, even if they haven’t worked, even if they’ve blown up so fucking awfully in all our faces, and Sirius hates him and he hates Sirius and Sirius wants to see him dead, and I think Snape probably wants the same, and you should see how they hate each other, and he loved my mum, his Patronus is just like hers was, and I want him to tell me everything about my mum but at the same time if he talks about her, I think I’d die, because he still loves her or he wouldn’t look out for me, and now Sirius has got him swear a vow that’s going to kill him because nobody can protect me from Voldemort, no one. . ._

But she refused to cry, because what good had it ever done? 


	85. Beneath the Vow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harriet and Hermione each have their questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update, whaaaaa?
> 
> I'm trying a thing where I add summaries. At first I was thinking, "Hey, this will help people remember what happened last time!...maybe." But then it wound up being too coy so as to not give stuff away? Idk. We'll see how it goes ^^;
> 
>  ~~Also I am planning a Valentine's chapter, though sadly it may not be up for Valentine's Day, which vexes me, but the idea came late. Depends on my workload~~  
> 
> Have I told you all lately that I love you? ♥
> 
> ETA: we have fanart of this chapter! https://laventadorn.tumblr.com/post/148907186218/because-im-a-m-a-s-s-i-v-e-l-o-s-e-r-i-am-just

 When Harriet found her voice, she croaked, “You’ve known since the article came out?”

“Well, like I said, since you set your list on fire.” Hermione pulled back, though she sat close enough that her knees bumped Harriet’s. “As an explanation, it fit all the facts.”

Harriet thought she could hear ‘ _Though I thought it was perfectly mad_ ’ hanging above Hermione’s head.

“You didn’t say anything.” Harriet wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Like she’d been let off the hook? Like a reprieve had been denied her?

“I . . . ” Hermione’s face was dim in the greyness of their hidden alcove, but her voice was doing the equivalent of twisting her hands together. “I almost brought it up so many times but—you never said anything, and I thought you might not _want_ to talk about it . . . ”

Harriet remembered her mortification—and hadn’t she been panicked just five minutes ago? But now that it was out there, it was rather like facing the Horntail: the silence had been worse.

“I didn’t,” Harriet said. She rubbed at her eyes; there were no tears, but they felt gritty. “It’s okay, though. It’s . . . I’m just really bloody tired of everything, you know?”

“What . . . what did you mean that Professor Snape is going to die? The book you were reading—?”

“Sirius got him to swear an Unbreakable Vow to protect me,” Harriet said flatly. “And if you break the Vow, you die.”

“I. . .” Hermione sounded confused.

“Voldemort wants to _kill_ me. He’s tried it three times already, and this year he somehow got me thrown into the _Triwizard Tournament._ Snape can’t. . .” She trailed off, breathing hard so she wouldn’t do something stupid, like punch the stone wall next to her head.

“Why would Sirius ask him to do that?” Hermione asked, bewildered. 

“They hate each other.” She wouldn’t tell Hermione about the Pensieve. She knew Snape hadn’t shown her that so she could discuss it with _anyone,_ even if she was quite sure Hermione would condemn Sirius’ behavior. But she wouldn’t enjoy hearing that Snape had called Harriet’s mum a Mudblood. 

And—shit, Hermione didn’t know Snape had been a Death Eater, or that he was a spy. She would think Harriet had gone all the way round the twist if she found out. 

“But that’s—asking someone to swear a vow to the _death_ ,” said Hermione, “that’s beyond serious.”

 _Not apparently beyond Sirius_ , Harriet couldn’t help thinking. 

“I know,” she said, “but he did. He told me himself, and he wouldn’t lie about that.”

“And Professor Snape? Did he—”

“I haven’t asked him. He’s not likely to tell me, either,” she muttered. 

Hermione was quiet for a while. Harriet wished she hadn’t let Hermione shelve the book; she wanted to know everything about the Vow, to see if there was any way. . .

“Harriet,” Hermione said in a strange voice: small yet firm. “This. . . what you feel for Professor Snape. It’s been—completely one-sided, hasn’t it?”

“Why does everyone keep _asking_ me this?” Harriet groaned. “Of course it bloody fucking well is _one-sided_.”

“ _Everyone_? Who’s everyone?”

Harriet shook her head. Her first impulse, to say, _Snape_ _doesn’t care, all right? He doesn’t give two shits about me_ , stalled in her throat as she realized the full meaning of what Snape had done: he had sworn a _vow that would result in his death_ to protect her. There was no way she could say he didn’t care; Hermione would point out how unreasonable it was to say so, and Harriet would look like a liar, and lies were implicating . . .

Wait, was _that_ why Remus had asked her about Snape after the Yule Ball? Had they already done the Vow then?

“Harriet,” Hermione said, and she sounded extremely worried.

“Nothing.” Harriet frowned. “Look, Snape’s. . . there’s no telling with him, but it’s not what you think, all right? He . . . thinks he owes my parents.” _A debt to my father or loving my mother, or both._ “I don’t know why,” she said, and it was not completely a lie, because the mystery of her parents’ lives lay in the past. “But it’s not me. I don’t really matter.”

“That’s patently not true.” Hermione hesitated, then took her hand. “Harriet, your, your parents are dead.”

Harriet snorted. “No, really?”

“No, I, oh God, I mean that . . . they’re gone. But you’re here, you’re—alive. He may have started with some memory of your parents, but you’re the one he’s . . . protecting. I find it very hard to believe a vow to the dead means more than . . . well, than you.” 

Harriet shook her head, because she couldn’t speak. She yearned to believe it, yet she knew what Snape’s Patronus looked like. Surely, even more than vows and clues, that showed what was really in his heart. 

A soft aqua glow lit the alcove; Hermione had pressed the light on her watch so she could see its face. “We should really get downstairs before dinner’s over. Do—do you feel up to it?”

“Sure,” Harriet said, feeling suddenly exhausted. She’d eat something and then crawl upstairs to bed, and be done with this fucking day. 

It was hard to believe that only that morning, she’d felt almost hopeful as she’d handed Hermione her Potions notes and said, _Let’s see what those mermaid buggers have to say_.

She pushed the tapestry aside and walked out into the corridor—straight into Snape.

Hermione squeaked as Harriet bounced off him and stumbled into her. 

“ _Miss Potter_.” Snape bared his teeth. He looked bloody awful, with shadows on his face that looked like bruises, and Harriet had seen him looking plenty awful plenty of times. . . when a Basilisk had been stalking the school, and when Sirius Black had been supposedly stalking her, and when her name had come out of a smoking goblet. . .

“Harriet,” Hermione moaned behind her, clutching her jumper.

“What?” Harriet asked. 

“I _asked_ , Miss Potter, what you thought you were doing up here,” Snape hissed, practically vibrating with not-so-suppressed emotion.

Harriet frowned. “It’s the library corridor.”

“ _That’s_ not the library,” Snape snarled. “ _Unless_ it has somehow shrunk and relocated.”

“No, this is an alcove.” (Hermione’s grip trembled against her back. Right; crush or no, hearing Harriet talk like this to a teacher was probably about to send her into a fit.) “We were on our way to dinner.”

“Then you’d best _get going_.”

Harriet shrugged and headed off. “You look like you could use something to eat, too,” she said over her shoulder as she departed, towing Hermione after her.

Snape did not say anything in reply, but Harriet could feel his stare curdling the air behind her. And the corridor was icy. 

“I can’t believe you,” Hermione said faintly once they were out of earshot. 

“He can’t feed me to the mermaids, he’s got that Vow to keep.” 

“I think we’re going to have to steal that book again.” Hermione’s voice gained strength as she returned to the realm of her mightiest power, studying. “I really want to know more about this Vow. . .”

Harriet hummed. That made her wonder. . . Was the Vow reason he was helping her through the Tournament? But did he need a reason for that? He’d looked out for her since first year. And since that was true. . . why had he bothered to swear the Vow at all? 

_I guess I’ll just have to ask him._

She sat down at Gryffindor table, deep in thought. 

“Harriet?” A hand waved in front of her eyes.

She blinked at Hermione. “Yeah?”

“She’s been calling you for ages, mate,” said Ron, who was sitting across from her. 

“I made you a plate,” Hermione said, adjusting it fussily in front of Harriet: shepherd’s pie and a helping of trifle, Harriet’s favorites.

“Thanks,” Harriet said, rather gruffly, because she was suddenly feeling rather teary again and she refused to burst into tears at the bloody Gryffindor table. 

Hermione smiled. Over her shoulder, Harriet saw Snape stalk into the room and up to the high table. Professor McGonagall looked taken aback to see him, but he didn’t seem to notice her: he was glaring at the Gryffindor table. Harriet scooped up a big bite of shepherd’s pie. 

She really didn’t know how to feel. . . except for wanting to march up there and make sure he _ate_ something. She thought back to the summer before last, when she’d stayed next door to him. Had she ever seen him eat? He showed up for meals, but as for putting real food in his mouth. . . She didn’t think so. It would be just like him to live on coffee and cigarettes and taking house points from Gryffindor.

“ _Harriet_.” Hermione shook her by the shoulder.

“Eh?”

“I asked if everything was okay with Snuffles,” Ron said, looking worried. 

“Oh.” Harriet grimaced, even though the pie crust was especially flaky and buttery. “Snuffles, yeah, he’s fine. Not so much with Moony.” Dinnertime on weekends was always rather less crowded than on weeknights, as the house-elves served for a longer period; the nearest Gryffindors were several arm-lengths away, and nobody was paying her, Ron or Hermione any mind. Well, except for Snape.

She told Ron and Hermione about Remus’ and Sirius’ journey in a low voice. Hermione put her hands over her mouth and her eyes grew bright with tears, while Ron actually laid down his fork, looking grim. 

“Poor Professor Lupin,” Hermione whispered. 

“That’s messed up,” Ron said. “The potion, I mean. . . how long d’you think it’ll take him to find the, what, name of the wolf thingy?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to say _It had better be fast._ Neither Ron nor Hermione had seen Remus lately. They didn’t know how ill he’d got, or how frail and exhausted he looked, like another moon might. . . 

Shit. After Sirius had told her about the Vow, she’d run straight to the library and not to find Remus—wherever he’d been waiting. What if that had been her last chance—?

“D’you still have the Map?” she asked Hermione, dropping her fork with a clatter. 

“Of course.” Hermione pulled it out, and holding it beneath the table, Harriet activated it. She searched all the floors for a _Remus Lupin_ , but she didn’t see him. . .

She’d have to send Hedwig after him—fast.

“I need to run to the Owlery,” she said, stuffing the Map into her pocket. “I’ll see you two later.”

“Ah—can I borrow—” Hermione dropped her voice. “The Cloak?” 

“Right. . .”

More sneaky trading beneath the table, and Harriet was off.

She tore up seven floors to Gryffindor Tower, then up the final, spiraling flight of stairs to her dorm. There, she grabbed Remus’ letter from her bedside table and scanned it. Sure enough, in the paragraph under the one she’d stopped reading, he’d asked her to wait for him at a statue of a one-eyed witch on the third floor. 

Knowing it would be futile, she scanned the Map for such a place. There was the witch, clearly penned in (a tunnel marked ‘to Hogsmeade’ ran underneath), but no ‘Remus Lupin’ dot. _Shit._  

She tore a piece of parchment off a roll from her trunk and started scribbling. Hedwig could find them, wherever they’d gone. . . 

* * *

 

It was not good, stalking the girl around the school. Someone would notice—and even if Dumbledore would know the reason, such nasty suspicions were more than Severus needed.

But the _Mark_. . .

He hadn’t intended the stalking to start again; he’d only set out from Dumbledore’s office to find her. And she’d literally run into him, coming out of some alcove with Granger. (What need did they have to lurk in such a place? The obvious answer seemed unlikely, for those two.) 

She’d been cheeky, but not. . . disgusted. He had expected loathing, hatred, resentment. She’d _seen_ what he’d said to her mother. She _had_ frowned as she looked at him, but he knew what disgust looked like, and she had not. . .

Little fool—what was she _thinking_?

He’d gone to dinner only to keep an eye on her. And then she’d run off alone, leaving Granger and Weasley to huddle together.

He recited Gloucester’s opening monologue from _Richard III_ in his head, an old measure he’d devised for biding time, and then left the Great Hall. 

Where would she have gone?

(She had paled, with panic he thought, and asked Granger for an item that was passed not-surreptitiously-enough beneath the table. And a second clandestine trade had happened immediately before she’d left.)

What were they up to _now_?

(He pressed his hand against his sleeve, where the Mark burned dark beneath)

He would start with Gryffindor Tower.  

* * *

 

Clutching a sloppy letter to Remus in her hand, Harriet ran out of her dorm room—then immediately back, because she’d left the map lying in plain sight on the bed.

As she went to snatch it up, she noticed a dot in front of the Fat Lady’s portrait.

The dot was labeled Severus Snape.

Harriet stared, then narrowed her eyes. The dot was backing off and moving down the corridor. Now it was stopping. Harriet knew that from there, you could see anyone that came out or into the common room.

So, Snape was following her around. . .

 _You really have gone mad_ , said a Hermione-like part of her. _Your first reaction to being followed, by_ anyone _, shouldn’t be satisfaction!_

But it was, because this would make it easier to confront him about the Vow. Snape was going to make that a bloody uphill battle to the moon as it was, but if he was willingly putting himself less than seven floors away from her—head start for her.

She wouldn’t try it in front of Gryffindor Tower. Somewhere they’d be less likely to be overheard. . .

 _You should not be plotting this kind of thing involving a teacher!_ said her Inner Hermione.

 _I’m not plotting a snog,_ Harriet thought, her face boiling from just thinking the word. _This is life or death business._

Shoving the Map and her letter into her pocket—and her Inner Hermione into a mind-box—she walked down to the Fat Lady’s portrait and paused to prepare herself. Snape could be particularly inventive when it came to getting students in trouble. If his goal was, for example, to keep her in Gryffindor Tower, he’d find a way. She had to think ahead.

Luckily, she had. She suspected Snape wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself. So all she had to do was . . .

She threw open the portrait (ignoring the Fat Lady’s indignant squawk) and charged off toward the Owlery.

Thinking it unlikely that Snape would run, Harriet huffed to a stop a few floors away and checked the map for his dot.

It had moved. . . slowly in her direction.

Grinning, while her Inner Hermione wrung her hands, Harriet resumed her jog.  

* * *

 

Where the bloody hell was she headed in such a hurry? 

He followed what was the most logical path through the castle, fervently wishing that matters of life and death did not make him feel like a pedophiliac stalker. He did not ask the portraits if they had seen a student running by; though they could be prevailed upon in _obviously_ dangerous situations, the portraits had always been enchanted to guard against being the means of spying on students. The castle protected its children. 

On the fifth floor, as he lingered at a split in the corridor, wondering which was the most likely route she could have taken (supposing he hadn’t already lost her), it occurred to him: the Owlery. Black and Lupin had, according to Dumbledore, recently left. That could put her in a desperate rush.

And the Owlery, detached from the school, too filthy to be a private spot for student liasons, too cold for loitering in this weather, would be all but abandoned at this hour. . .

He took the right-hand corridor at a stride. 

* * *

 

“On second thought, maybe I should’ve chosen a place less fucking freezing,” Harriet muttered.

Hedwig hooted at her admonishingly, because Harriet’s frozen fingers were taking too long to fix the letter to her leg.

“Sorry, girl.” Harriet petted her feathers. Hedwig had flown straight down when Harriet had stepped into the Owlery, squinting against the light of her Lumos, and she knew better than to ask Hedwig if she wouldn’t rather Harriet use a school owl. Anyone who didn’t think a magical owl had their pride was madder than Harriet.

“I don’t know where Remus will be. . . but you can find him anyway,” she said, feeling stupid. Hedwig hooted at her, still chiding, and nibbled her ear. 

The letter was tied, _finally_. Harriet carried Hedwig over to the open window.

“Happy flying,” she said as Hedwig pushed off her arm.

The clouds had cleared a path in the sky for the moon, and its argent light flooded the night with deep patches of shadow. A stream of silver glittered on the lake, but the forest was pitch against the shore. Hedwig flew east, a bright, gleaming dot across the sky. 

Harriet fumbled the map out and checked it, shivering. She hoped Snape had followed her closely enough not to lose her, because she didn’t fancy hanging out here for long. Even in the icy winter air, owl droppings were no fine fragrance.

The Snape dot was positioned at the foot of the stairs that spiraled up to the Owlery. 

That was perfect. . . if only he didn’t bolt when he heard her coming down. 

She’d just have to make sure _he_ came up.

She started down the icy steps, keeping her hand on the snow-crusted balustrate, and flicked glances at the map as she made her careful way down. Snape couldn’t hear her yet. She had to wait. . . wait for it. . .

His dot was moving off. He could hear her now. _Good_.

“GAH!” Harriet cried, and ground her shoe hard into some snow that had collected on the stairs. This was going to be the rough part. . .

She dropped herself to the stairs, like she’d fallen. “Ow!” she said, not entirely faking it. “Fuck!” Stairs were bloody hard, turned out. 

Sitting with her butt freezing on the ice, she checked the map. Snape’s dot had paused but wasn’t coming up the stairs yet. 

 _Git_ , she thought indignantly, _doesn’t he care if I’ve fallen and hurt myself?_

“Owww,” she tried, making it a piteous moan.

And _finally_ , Snape’s dot started up the stairs toward her.

Grinning, Harriet stuffed the map away and bent over her ankle, and tried not to hold her breath. 

* * *

 

Never mind the Dark Lord’s plot, the girl could find trouble on a fucking staircase. And the Dark Lord was too dramatic to send someone to push her; no, entering her in the Tournament to be roasted by a dragon or drowned by mermaids was much more his style. _This_ was Miss Potter’s talent for injuring herself.

Severus rounded a curve in the staircase and found her huddled on the steps, shivering and rubbing her ankle. Was it the same one she’d twisted on the hillside last night? Had Lupin failed to perform a fucking simple charm?

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he snarled. 

Miss Potter gave him an impertinent look that showed no trace of surprise. “Falling on the stairs. What’s it look like?”

What indeed? She should have been surprised to see him. . . she had been earlier, in the library corridor. In fact, she should have been _more_ surprised to see him now. One run-in was a coincidence. Two was deliberate; two should not have happened. Even she should know that much.

“Far be it from me,” he narrowed his eyes, “to suspect you of ulterior motives. But did you, perhaps, know I was here? Did some enchanted object such as, say, a _map_ light my way?”

 _Now_ she looked appropriately stunned, but recovered quickly. “That’s your reaction to finding me lying on some icy stairs? That I did it on purpose to talk to you?”

It _was_ ludicrous. But Miss Potter flew with dragons and faced down Basilisks. She ignored the threat of shadowed murderers to throw herself at Severus’ locked doors when she wanted to have a conversation he did not. “Because you’re so very timid, yes.”

“Well, that would be daft. I could’ve really hurt myself. I hate the hospital ward, you know. I wouldn’t _plan_ to put myself there.”

“Then you’re fine to stand.”

“Think so.” She stood, brushing off the seat of her jeans. She looked up at him, moonlight frosting her glasses for a moment. “Guess I’m okay. By the way, Sirius told me you swore an Unbreakable Vow to protect me.”

Well.

Of all the things he’d been expecting

that had not been one of them.

* * *

 Snape had done that thing where he went completely still, like he’d been frozen in time. Harriet did not find this surprising. He tended to do this when she flung secrets in his face. 

She waited, politely, for him to become perhaps a little less out of it.

In the moonlight and the shadow, it was not as obvious how unwell he looked. Lamplight showed the crags of sleepless nights and too few meals, but the moon brought out the darkness of his eyes. His hair bled into his shoulders like ink; his face was chalk-white. He looked exactly like the kind of person who would swear a vow to the death and join a Dark Lord; a menacing, frightening, unyielding person. He did not look like the sort of person whose Patronus was a silver doe. But he was both that person and the other.

A sighing wind dragged between them, swirling snow and frozen bits of broken leaves around their feet. Still Snape did not speak.

“And I figured out what the Second Task is going to be,” she said. “You were leaving clues in the Potions notes.”

Snape blinked once, slowly. Though he still didn’t move, his eyes fixed on her, really _fixed_. It felt a lot like being pierced in the throat.

“You’ve been busy,” he said, like his voice was coming from someplace deep, dark and cold. 

“Busy day, yeah.”

Snape didn’t look away. His gaze, too, seemed to come from someplace dark and cold and deep.

“Why did you do it?” she asked quietly.

“Your progress toward the Second Task seemed to have fallen victim to your incompetence.”

“Right, yeah,” she said, and almost rolled her eyes. “Thanks for that. I meant the _Vow_.”

“Has it occurred to you that your godfather is a liar?”

Harriet ran this through her Snape-to-English translator. “Maybe. That doesn’t mean he lied about _this_.”

Snape’s sneer was like a knife in the dark. “How can you _know_?”

“Because it seems likely he really did ask you to swear a vow that would kill you if you broke it.”

The wind pulled at Snape’s hair, spilling inky blackness across his face. He was standing only a few steps below her. She could have put out her hand and touched him, but she would never, because he was a million miles away. Did he ever get closer?

“You already protect me from—things,” she said, frustrated, something more than frustrated. “You almost _died_ last year. Why did you need to make the bloody Vow too?”

“If you believe I was already willing to go that length,” Snape said coldly, “you should have your answer.”

“I do believe it, yeah. Not just last year—you came down into the Chamber of Secrets where there was a bloody _Basilisk_ because I was down there. I may not know fucking Mermish but I can figure out a thing or two after a few years, if it’s right in front of me.”

Snape did look away, then. He folded one arm across his body, pressing his right hand against his left forearm, then wrapping his hand round his elbow.

She wondered why he hadn’t left. When she confronted him in his quarters or office, he couldn’t throw her out fast enough. He’d never had trouble coming up with a way to get away from her. Any excuse would do.

Well, she’d take advantage of this strange compliance, too. She had to know—no, to ask. He probably wouldn’t tell her. But she’d ask.

“Is it because of my mum?”

Snape lowered his head. His shoulders slumped. Keeping his right hand gripping his elbow, he pressed his left hand over his eyes, like he was trying to fold himself up.

“Not this again,” he said, sounding bone-weary yet at his core, unsurprised.

“Your Patronus is a doe like hers.”

He dropped his hand, then, his eyes swallowing black. “Asked Black and Lupin, _did_ you?” 

“No.” (He didn’t look any less angry.) “They told me what hers was like, and I’d seen yours. I don’t think they know about it.”

Snape dropped both hands to his sides. “Miss Potter,” he said, weariness back in his voice. “Black may have told you of his part in the Vow, but he did not tell you mine. And I do not wish to tell you,” he said when she tried to speak.

Tears suddenly stung Harriet’s eyes, sharp like icicles in the cold. “What if you _die_?”

“If you think I wish to outlive you,” he said, “you are an abominably foolish child.”

Harriet stared at him. Her shock enraged him, if the way he bared his teeth meant anything. 

“What do you think this is?” he hissed, his face twisting. “Do you think I risk my life on a whim? That I have nothing better to do than await the rise of a dangerous madman whose goal, for the past thirteen years, has been to murder a child? I do it because I _have no choice_. There is no world in which you die and I wish to survive. Swearing my life, as if it was worth anything beyond the service of _this_ ,” he gripped his arm, “did not even require thought—was not even worth regret. You’re a great little fool if you think I live for anything but to keep you alive. Now _get inside_ ,” he snarled, “before the madman who _entered you into a deadly contest against your will_ decides it’s not worth the wait.”

Numb—was this what he felt like when she asked those questions?—Harriet stepped forward. Her legs felt like she was walking along the bottom of that clear forest pool where the mermaid’s voice had sung to her. Her sole slipped on the edge of the stair.

Suddenly she was moving so fast, time was streaking past her. Snape was right in front of her

and she was hugging him.

“ _You’re_ the stupid one,” she whispered.

And then she was running down the stairs, the ice in the air stabbing into her heart, her head full of light and darkness like the moonlight and the shadows.

* * *

 Severus stood still, listening to the fading _crunchcrunchcrunch_ of the girl’s footsteps. Then he slumped against the wall and leaned his forehead into the frozen stones.

“What is it going to take,” he muttered, exhausted. “What. . .”

Yes, Vow or no, that girl was going to be the death of him.

* * *

 

 “I was hallucinating,” Harriet mumbled. “ _Tell_ me I was fucking hallucinating just now.”

“Well!” said the Fat Lady, puffing up indignantly. “ _I_ ’d certainly like to know what you’ve been up to, young lady.” (Had Harriet really walked all the way back to the Tower, already? The last thing she remembered was hugging Snape. _Hugging Snape, for the love of everthing_. But that was all in her head, right? Nothing had really happened since she’d left the Gryffindor table.)

Oh _God_ she’d seriously hugged Snape. What he'd said had been so horrible and heartbreaking that she'd fucking  _hugged him_.

“—nearly throwing me out of my frame, and now coming back in this horrid state—”

“You can’t be thrown out,” Harriet said. “You’re a bloody painting. _Ad astra_ ,” she snapped as the Fat Lady sputtered; the painting swung open, and Harriet clambered inside.

Ron was alone in the common room—well, sans Hermione; the room itself was quite crowded. The wave of noise made Harriet realize how exhausted she was, but she didn't want to go up to bed. She doubted she'd sleep, and she did not want to be alone with Snape's last words looping through her head.

She didn't even know what to  _think_  about. . . what he'd said.

For now she would prefer not to think about it at all.

“Where’s Hermione?” she asked Ron as she slumped down beside him.

“Some secret library mission,” said Ron. “Get your letter off all right?”

“Yeah, thanks.” _Please please please don’t make me think about it._

“Fancy a game of chess? Hermione said she might be a while.”

It probably would take Hermione a while to smuggle out the book, what with Madam Pince about and Hermione so cautious. She must’ve been extremely worried about Harriet to have ventured into the Restricted Section earlier without the Cloak—even _with_ the map, someone could have seen her. 

Hermione returned in the middle of their second game. She looked pale and unhappy, but she had an ancient-looking text tucked under one arm. Harriet felt immediately guilty; _she_ should have been the one to steal the book. Rule-breaking upset Hermione too much.

“What happened?” Harriet and Ron asked as Hermione drew up to their table.

Hermione only shook her head. “Just let me put this upstairs,” she said, subdued, and left them.

“Madam Pince didn’t catch her, you think?” Ron said, watching her go.

“I think she’d be loads more upset if she had,” Harriet said. _Hysterical, more like._

Hermione returned after a bit longer time than it should have taken just to put a book away, but Harriet reckoned she was hiding it (and the Cloak) safely. Whereas Harriet would have just thrown it in her trunk, Hermione probably had enchanted her wardrobe to have a secret box within a secret drawer or something.

When Hermione joined them again, she was clearly trying to be more cheerful, but not having much luck. “No, she didn’t see me,” she said when they asked. “Nobody saw me. It was fine. I’m fine,” she added when they wanted to know what was wrong, then. “ _Really_.”

This was, to use her own words, patently untrue, and Harriet could see Ron knew it as well as she. But since Hermione didn’t want to talk about it, they stopped asking, and talked about the Second Task instead.

“I’m going to need to learn more defensive spells,” Harriet said. “If I’m going to be fighting mermaids.”

Hermione looked surprised, approving, then thoughtful. “And whatever else is in the lake. We know about the giant squid, but there must be more than that. I wonder if there have been any studies done on what's down there?”

“It’s not in _Hogwarts: a History_ , then?” Ron said innocently. “No, can’t be—if it was, you’d know the answer already.”

“And we’ve still got to figure out how I’ll breathe underwater for an hour,” Harriet sighed. “Lucky we’ve got over a month.”

By the time Hermione had drawn up a satisfactory list about what all they would need to begin researching tomorrow, the common room was clearing out as people headed up to bed. Bidding Ron goodnight, she and Hermione went upstairs. Lavender and Parvati weren’t in the dorm, but their bath things were gone. Harriet would have a bath in the morning; she was just too tired tonight.

“Harriet,” said Hermione. “I have to tell you something.”

Harriet’s stomach sank, like she was surely going to do during the Second Task. Hermione’s voice had wavered, and she was twisting her hands together. 

“Hermione, I am _really_ bloody tired, so unless this really can’t wait. . .”

“I talked to Dumbledore about—you and Snape.”

Yes, this is what Snape must have felt like when Harriet threw those dark secrets in his face. Everything sort of stopped. . . and then started spinning. She staggered and grabbed onto her bed-post. Hermione made a worried movement toward her, but Harriet held up a hand to stop her. The hand was shaking.

“I didn’t just hear you say that,” she said. Her lips felt numb. 

“I _had_ to,” Hermione said. “I—Harriet, it doesn’t make _sense_. I _know_ he’s been very brave, and for your sake, but he isn’t kind, or anything like it! He doesn’t treat people well at all, he borders on cruel at times, and you would come back from his study sessions practically in tears! And he’s an _adult_ and your _teacher_ and he isn’t supposed to be helping you with the Tournament at all—”

“You _want_ me to fail the bloody thing?” 

“Harriet, of _cours_ e not.” Hermione had tears in her eyes. “This Tournament is almost cruel and I’m scared for you every moment, I’m _terrified_ , but why should Professor _Snape_ be doing it? Why not Professor Lupin—”

“Who’s _also_ an adult!”

“He is, but he’s practically your family, he loves you—”

“So it’s okay for Remus to care about me, but not Snape?”

“Professor Lupin is in love with Sirius,” said Hermione, which nearly threw Harriet around again, because _she_ knew that, but (if she was honest) only because Remus had told her. Hermione had spent hardly any time with them in comparison and she knew.

“So because Snape’s, what, not Sirius’ boyfriend—” 

“ _No_ ,” said Hermione, clearly frustrated, “but _you_ have feelings for him, and he’s helping you in ways that would be _very_ bad if anyone found out about them, and he follows you around the school!”

Harriet’s mouth open and shut. 

“He only came to dinner tonight because he followed you there,” Hermione said, “and when you left early, he did too. He waited a bit, but he didn’t eat anything the whole time, I was watching.”

Harriet thought numbly that Snape had better improve at this hiding-his-feelings-stuff or Voldemort would figure him out and he'd never get a chance to test that horrible vow. 

Hermione took a hesitant step toward her. “I knew you’d be angry, but I had to—”

“And?” Harriet asked, voice hard. “What did Dumbledore say?”

Hermione dropped her hand, which had been reaching toward Harriet. “He said that Professor Snape had not done anything that he was not aware of, or that he felt compromised his integrity.” She swallowed, clenching her hand into a fist. “So I told him about the Unbreakable Vow.”

Harriet put her hand over her face, like Snape had done.

“He—went very quiet,” Hermione said. “I—I’m still not sure if he knew. But he said—he said that he had complete confidence in Professor Snape, and that Professor Snape must have made the Vow because he’d die before hurting you. And then he told me,” Hermione swallowed, “that Professor Snape had been a, a Death Eater and turned spy at, at ‘great personal risk,’ and had never once given him cause to doubt his loyalty or his heart. He s-said that was still true.”

Harriet blinked a few times. Hermione was trembling.

“You kn-knew,” she said, her voice breaking. “That h-he’d been a Death Eater. . . didn’t you? You _kn-knew_. . .”

“Sirius told me ages ago,” Harriet said.

Hermione put her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide. Tears spilled over her lashes and dripped down her face.

“I’ve been through this, you know,” Harriet said. “I’ve felt horrible enough without you making me go through it again.” Her heart spiked painfully. “I wish I’d never told you anything about it.”

She turned and climbed into her four poster and jerked the curtains shut. In the darkness, she pulled her legs against her chest and buried her face in her knees. 

She stayed that way for a long time. If Hermione moved in the room beyond, Harriet didn’t hear it.

Lavender and Parvati came back, noisy as ever, bringing the scent of strawberry and roses. They didn’t ask Hermione what on Persephone’s green earth was the matter, which meant she must’ve retreated to her own four-poster and hidden inside. 

Harriet slumped back against her pillow—and something papery crinkled under her head.

Lighting her wand, she fumbled the note open one-handed. In loopy familiar writing, it read, _“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. Don’t be too hard on her, my dear—and don’t be too hard on yourself. Where there is love and honesty, no evil can grow. A.P.W.B.D.”_

Harriet struggled for a moment, as a war raged in her heart. Then she sighed and sat up.

(Parvati, who was braiding her hair, jumped when Harriet yanked open her own hangings. Lavender was smearing cream on her face. Their lives were so normal.)

Harriet went over to Hermione’s bed and pushed the hangings aside to crawl into the bed.

Hermione was curled up facing away from her. When she breathed in, it was clear that her voice was full of tears. She did not turn around.

Harriet lay down—after carefully nudging Hermione’s bushy hair out of the way—and threw her arm over Hermione’s shoulder. For several long moments, Hermione lay still. 

Then she curled her fingers around Harriet’s hand and held on. Longer moments later, her rigid shoulders relaxed. She sniffed, thick and watery, and gripped Harriet’s hand harder.

Harriet closed her eyes.


	86. Hide Love from the Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am pretty sure this is my longest chapter yet. 
> 
> As a reminder, I've dispensed with writing out Fleur's accent.
> 
> You all left me more of your amazing comments because you are the sweetest people in the whole damn world ♥
> 
> ETA: You may have noticed I've updated the archive warnings. This is for the very distant future and does not apply to this chapter.

_Holly-berry,_

_We got Remus through the moon. He’s asleep right now. We put ourselves up in a cave, and it’s pretty posh all things considered. I’ve transfigured some things to furs, and I’m going to work on getting some actual skins, because magic is great but no substitute for the real thing. Good thing Remus likes rabbit. (Don’t feel too bad for the rabbits, there’s always more where they came from. Do you even like rabbits? Now I’ve written all this I really fucking hope not.)_

_Werewolves aren’t too sold on the idea of living amongst humans, and they’ve got a pretty strong mistrust for the ones that have tried it, so we won’t be able to owl much while we try to cozy up to the surly fuckers. These buggers talked to me when I showed up—after a lot of kowtowing on my part—but now Remus is here they’ve belted up. Won’t say a word to either of us._

_Well, Remus can get blood out of a stone, so he’ll have it out of them eventually. But don’t worry yourself too hard, all right? He’s already not as miserably peaky now he’s had a chance to run around last moon._

_He’s sad he missed saying goodbye, but when he found out why he got way more fucking angry with me for telling you, so he’s hardly had time to really feel sad. So don’t fret about that, either._

_I’ll write you after the next full moon._

_Love. [signed with a muddy paw print]_

 

Harriet sighed and folded up the letter. It fell neatly into its well-worn creases, from all the times she’d read it in the past three weeks. She glanced up at the sun, both soft and bright in the February sky, surrounded by streaks of silvery cloud.

The next full moon would be in the sky soon.

She squinted at her watch. Lunch was almost over; she might as well head back inside for afternoon classes. . . But the day was nice, the courtyard almost pleasant, shielded from the breeze and positioned to catch the sunlight.

Besides, here she was alone.

She closed her eyes and tilted her face back to catch the warmth. It was nice to be by herself, not to worry about. . .

A shadow fell across her eyes, and a lilting voice said:

“’Arriet Potter?”

Harriet looked up—at Fleur Delacour. She was wearing a powder blue cloak with white fur trimming, and looked beautiful enough to stop a stampeding herd of Blast Ended Skrewts.

Harriet opened her mouth, but had no idea what to say. She couldn’t remember Fleur ever speaking to her, even when they’d been standing next to each other for photographs all those months ago. And now Fleur was smiling at her, as if Harriet was a charming old acquaintance who wasn’t doing an impression of a blowfish.

“I hope your letter is good news,” Fleur said, nodding at the folded parchment in Harriet’s lap.

“Ah. . . yeah,” Harriet said, because it was better than learning Remus had died. “Thanks,” she added feebly.

Fleur gestured at the bench. “May I sit?”

“Oh yeah, sorry. . .”

Harriet scooted down, and Fleur sat next to her like a queen, well, sitting on a bench. She brushed back her hair, sending a wave of sunlight rippling down to her waist. Harriet gazed at her enviously, wishing she had hair like that, instead of her hedgehog-Devil’s Snare-Pygmy Puff hybrid.

“I wish to speak to you,” Fleur said, “about the feast of St. Valentine.”

Harriet blinked. “There’s a feast?”

“No.” Fleur made a moue of distaste, as if she didn’t like to think about it. “Not at ’Ogwarts, there is not. But at Beauxbatons.” She smiled again. “It is of ’Ogwarts and Beauxbatons that I wished to talk. You are ’Ogwarts champion.”

“Yes, well. . . so’s Cedric?” Actually, he’s the much more champion-y one.

Fleur waved her hand, as if shooing Cedric away. “Cedric is a boy. This is about the girls.”

“The girls?”

“At Beauxbatons, you see, we have a tradition. The girls, we collect and deliver the Valentines—we are the messengers of the romance. It is very elegant, very romantic, and so much fun. I would like to do the same at ’Ogwarts this year.”

“O. . . kay,” Harriet said blankly. “Sounds. . . good?”

Fleur rolled her eyes a little; but still she smiled, which made the effect rather charming. “I am asking you to help me.”

“Me?” Harriet had a sudden vision of herself in a pink tutu, holding a bow with heart-tipped arrows.

“You are ’Ogwarts champion,” Fleur repeated, as if Harriet were a rather slow but sweet child who needed her patience. “It is your school. Therefore I ask you.”

“I don’t think Dumbledore will have a problem with it,” Harriet said, “but maybe you should talk to the Head Girl. . .”

“The Head Girl is not ’Ogwarts champion. You are my equal, not she. You must do the tradition with me. No other will do.”

Harriet blinked several times. Then she said, “Okay.”

Then she said, “Wait, what?”

* * *

“You agreed to do _what_?” Ginny said. Her eyes were wide, but Harriet knew the signs of an impending giggle-fit.

“I think I had a temporary fit of insanity,” Harriet groaned. “Or—d’you think that Veela magic works on anybody if she wants it to?”

Ginny snorted derisively. Then she did giggle, for a while.

“So you’re going to help me, then,” Harriet said. “Good job, thanks—takes a load off my mind already.”

“I never said that!” Ginny eyed her shiftily. “Not that I’m interested. . . but what’s it about, anyway? Just so I know exactly how much you’ll be suffering.”

The Beauxbatons tradition went back quite a ways—several hundred years, if Fleur was to be believed. To Harriet’s untrained eye, Fleur had seemed more preoccupied with her own role than the reason it had started, but she said ‘several hundred years’ quite impressively. It involved delivering messages and gifts to the beloved (Fleur’s words) as a proxy. There seemed to be an element of secrecy involved, which, Fleur assured Harriet, made it _très romantique._

_“We shall need volunteers,” Fleur had declared. “The girls from Beauxbatons, they shall help me. And we shall need to involve girls from ’Ogwarts. We shall put on flyers, yes?”_

_“Er,” said Harriet, “how many are you thinking. . . ?”_

_“As many as we need. Yes, it is a school-wide function!”_

“Wow,” said Ginny, eying Harriet as if she’d underestimated her masochistic streak.

_“Do not worry,” Fleur had said magnanimously. “I have done this before, at Beauxbatons. I know exactly what we shall need to do.”_

“Too bad it’s not happening after the second task,” said Ginny. “You could’ve faked a terrible injury.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad?” Harriet said gloomily. “Fleur doesn’t look like she’d think a pink tutu would be in very good taste.”

“Valentine’s Day is just a couple weeks away, though—seems like a lot of work.”

“Hence our army of Valentine-delivery girls, I guess.”

“And you two have got the next task coming up,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “You don’t think this is an attempt to sabotage you, d’you?”

“Who’s attempting to sabotage you?” Hermione asked from behind Harriet.

She slid onto the bench on Harriet’s other side and pushed a stack of books on the table. Harriet saw that one of them was the Mystery Book--a, well, very mysterious book Hermione had been reading for about three weeks now, and which she refused to discuss with anyone. It had no title, only a plain cover, and she never let anyone look inside. Even now, she covered it with her bag.

“Allegedly, that is?” Hermione added.

“ _Mademoiselle Fleur Delacour,_ ” Ginny said, shaking her hair back like Fleur did. “Beauxbatons’ reining Veela champion.”

“She asked me to help her with a Beauxbatons’ Valentine’s tradition,” Harriet told Hermione.

“Saying she needs a champion,” Ginny said. “And no one else will do—seems a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”

Hermione frowned. “Well. . .”

“’Arriet!”

Fleur came sweeping along the Gryffindor table toward them, turning boys’ heads as if she held them on an invisible string. Her blue satin robes gleamed, and her silver hair shimmered. She was beaming.

“Come, come,” she said, “we must speak to the Headmaster, your Professor Dumbledore—he shall give his permission, yes?”

Somehow, Harriet must have agreed, because she found herself being swept toward the High Table on Fleur’s arm. Oh God, she was walking next to Fleur and everyone was going to be staring at them.

(Snape wasn’t at the High Table tonight. He hadn’t turned Hermione into an otter or stripped Gryffindor of every House point, so Harriet supposed he’d never found out that she’d sussed him.)

Fleur propelled Harriet along behind the High Table to Dumbledore’s chair. “Good evening, ‘Eadmaster!”

“Miss Delacour, Miss Potter. What can I do for you two?” Dumbledore asked, twinkling.

Fleur may have insisted Harriet’s help was vital, but she didn’t seem to need it yet. She explained about Beauxbatons’ traditions in great detail, and asked for Dumbledore’s permission with winning charm, while Harriet stood mute but conveniently hidden from the room’s scrutiny by Fleur’s and Dumbledore’s much taller forms.

“It sounds marvelous,” said Dumbledore. “My permission you have in spades. The Tournament is meant to foster international relations, after all. This sounds like just the thing.”

Harriet hadn’t been able to hope he’d disagree. Even though Hogwarts lacked any kind of Valentine’s tradition besides sending obnoxious singing birds and Honeydukes’ chocolates, which ended in stomach aches and more bird droppings than usual, from the moment Fleur had mentioned it Harriet had thought a big to-do had sounded like it was right up Dumbledore’s street. He’d been delighted with the Yule Ball, after all.

Fleur thanked him prettily, then swept Harriet off again.

“We shall need the flyers next,” said Fleur. “They shall have to go up by tomorrow. Marguerite has been working on a design.”

“I . . . know someone who can draw,” Harriet said slowly, as they passed the Slytherin table. “But her sister hates me—and she’s really shy—so I think we’ll need to plan how we go about it. . .”

Fleur, who, it seemed, had an almost Hermione-like appreciation for planning, wasted no time. She dragged Harriet to the Ravenclaw table and plonked her down in the midst of the Beauxbatons’ girls, who were in deep-discussion over several intimidating-looking folders packed with lace scraps and pressed flowers. From the Gryffindor table, Hermione and Ginny were staring; Harriet shrugged at them helplessly. There was no going back now.

She explained her idea to Fleur, who listened raptly, while the five Beauxbatons’ girls eavesdropped with varying degrees of interest.

“Can we be sure she is a good draw-er?” asked a girl with curly auburn hair, skeptically.

“I’ve got a card she drew me, if you want to see,” Harriet said.

Fleur waved the offer away. “We shall have her draw up a flyer for the test—she must be able to work quickly as it is, for we do not have ages. Now, tell me which one is her sister.”

Once she had Daphne in her sights, Fleur was off again. The Slytherin table looked surprised to see her bearing down on them, and several boys immediately fell into a familiar blank daze. Harriet spotted Asteria sitting next to Daphne, but she was not speaking to anyone. Her chin was resting on her hand as she swirled her spoon through her pureed carrots. Fleur was getting close to them now—Tracey Davis was looking up at her—

“Oh, hi, Harriet,” said a sweet voice.

It was Cho Chang, who was just sitting down to dinner. Harriet took a moment to envy Cho’s straight, long black hair, which was styled with a jeweled clip resembling a vine with purple flowers.

“Hi,” said Harriet, feeling extra awkward and shorter than ever surrounded by all these grown-up looking girls. They were just somehow different from Ginny and Hermione, or even Angelina, who was two full years older.

“It’s good to see you,” Cho said, looking curious. “What are you doing over here?”

When Harriet had explained, Cho looked far more openly intrigued than Ginny had. It prompted Harriet to add a somewhat feeble, “Want to join? Fleur’s looking for volunteers. . .”

“Sounds fun, count me in. Can I invite my friends?”

Harriet didn’t know, but none of the Beauxbatons’ girls were jumping in to shout “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” so she said, “Sure—the more the merrier.”

Harriet returned to spying on the Slytherin table. Tracey’s expression was always so aloof it was hard to tell what she thought, and Daphne was frowning. Fleur’s back was to the Ravenclaw table, but Asteria’s spoon had stopped tracing through her carrots. Harriet couldn’t see her face, because she always kept it turned down, and stupid Pansy Parkinson’s cow head was in the way now—

“Harriet?” said Cho, touching her shoulder. “Marietta has some questions about the tradition, do you think you could—?”

Harriet was annoyed, because she’d much rather be watching Fleur’s progress with Daphne than trying to satisfy a bunch of Ravenclaws on the particulars of a tradition she’d only learnt about that day. Harriet had been pathetically easy to rope in, but Daphne might not be so simple—

“She has agreed,” said Fleur, sitting back down beside her.

“Eh?” said Harriet. “Asteria? Already?”

“I did not talk to her, as you advised me against it, but her sister agreed to join us, and the friend of hers with the air of ennui, and Asteria will work on the flyer and send it to me tonight. She seemed most eager to be included, your friend.”

Fleur looked pleased with herself. Harriet was impressed, too. She’d thought Daphne would go down fighting anything that involved Asteria spending even a second with Harriet. Apparently that Veela charm really did work on anyone.

* * *

Without looking at the clock, Severus knew the house-elf was late.

Miss Potter’s schedule was regular, almost tedious, a fact which should have soothed his mind yet provoked only more worry. If someone wanted to do her harm, they’d have plenty of opportunity to plan it around her predictable schedule.

(He reminded himself again that the Dark Lord was a grand-stander, that pragmatism was not in his repertoire, and that Miss Potter’s involvement in the Tournament was further proof of this. A plan that culminated in the end of the Triwizard Tournament, held for the first time in centuries, suited him; pushing the bust of Paracelcus over on Miss Potter as she walked up the stairs on the way to the library at 6:45 PM did not.)

(And yet the Mark was now almost the color of fresh ink. The third task was months away. If the Dark Lord waited for it, then why were his powers growing so soon? What new plan was he setting in motion?)

The question could not be answered, but Severus could not dispense with it, or with his fear. So he’d set the girl’s devoted house-elf to follow her about and report back to himself.

It was past curfew now. The library would be closed. She nearly always went to the library after dinner, with Granger and Weasley, to research defensive spells for the Second Task. It was a mark of such good sense that if he hadn’t loathed crying, he’d have shed tears of relief—as soon as he got over the shock.

As the hand on the clock (now he could not look away) ticked past the fifteen minute mark, the house-elf popped into his room and bowed.

“Dobby is here, Professor Snape Sir, to report!”

“What took you so long?” Severus snarled. His hand cramped as he released the arm of his chair for the first time in a quarter of an hour; he flexed his fingers to bring the feeling back into them.

“Harriet Potter went to carriage of Beauxbatons School,” said the house-elf, unflinching. He was so used to being snapped and snarled at that he accepted any rudeness as his due. “She went with Ravenclaw Cho Chang and the visiting French witches, Fleur Delacour, Marguerite Verruil--”

“Skip the names, get to the point,” Snape snapped.

“Harriet Potter stayed late, and came back with Ravenclaw Cho Chang.”

Severus frowned. Miss Potter, while friendly enough when necessary, was no social butterfly. He couldn’t recall her choosing to spend time with anyone but Granger, assorted Weasleys, and the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Now she was rubbing elbows with Cho Chang, Fleur Delacour, and the Beauxbatons’ girls. No, they were the opposite of her type.

“What was she doing there?”

“Dobby did not follow inside the carriage, Professor Snape Sir, but Cho Chang and Harriet Potter is talking about Valentine’s Day as they is going back to the castle. They is doing a project with Fleur--” He caught Snape’s expression and finished, “--with the visiting French witches.”

Severus was more confused than ever. “What the blazes for?”

“Dobby does not know, Professor Snape Sir,” he said complacently. _Why do wizards do anything?_ seemed to be his opinion on the matter.

It might be as simple as ‘Strange fancies of teenage girls’ except Miss Potter did not have any kind of teenage-girl-fancy he’d encountered in all his years of being around teenage girls, himself being the prime example.

“Keep an eye on it. She’s safe in Gryffindor Tower now?”

“Cho Chang walked her up, Professor Snape Sir, and saw her safe inside.”

Walked to her dorm by Cho Chang, hiding in nooks with Miss Granger—Miss Potter had better luck with the girls than most boys in the castle, Severus thought snidely.

“You may go. Find out more about this. . . Valentine’s scheme.”

Dobby bowed and vanished.

Severus tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. He pushed to his feet and stalked in front of the fire. In spite of these worthy actions, neither the Dark Lord nor Miss Potter began making any sense.

“Valentine’s Day,” he said, and wanted to spit.

With a pang of horror, he stopped mid-pace. _Please, dear God, don’t let her plan anything involving me._

His heart might collapse if she did. His ability to handle Miss Potter, such as it had ever been, was vanishing, like a sand castle built too close to the water, when the tide rose and swallowed it. He’d set the house-elf the task of tailing her in part because an elf could keep a more sedulous eye on her, but also because being within sighting distance of the girl made him feel like something was crushing his ribs. Nastiness and cruelty, which had served him so well all his life, and which had so effectively driven everyone away, had no permanent effect on her. Resolute, she returned, over and over—not for more of his malice, but with increased determination to cut through it, as if, should she come back one last time, she would find a core of shining brightness.

But that was Miss Potter’s folly, believing there was anything good within him.

* * *

“How are you getting on with your clue?” Cho asked Harriet as they climbed the many stairs to Gryffindor tower. “For the second task, I mean.”

“Oh. . . good, thanks,” Harriet said. “Er. . . how’s Cedric doing with his?”

“Working his way through it. Don’t tell anyone, but he asks me for tips.” Cho grinned. “But he had an idea to take a bath with his, and it’s really paid off.”

Harriet felt it would be bragging to say she had figured it out a month ago, and possibly unwise to mention that Hermione had really been the one to do everything. Even if Cedric asked Cho for tips, Cho surely wasn’t figuring out the whole thing for him. He’d been chosen honestly, after all.

“Good night, Harry—see you tomorrow,” Cho said, waving good-bye at the corridor junction.

“Good night,” Harriet called, and climbed through the portrait hole in a thoughtful mood.

“Bugger,” she muttered as she almost dropped the gigantic planning notebook Fleur had pressed on her.

Hermione looked up from her book as Harriet kicked open the door, her hands full of planning notebook, her bag sliding down to the crook of her elbow. Hermione started to set her book aside and help, but Harriet flapped her hand and said, “I’m fine. Really,” and fell face-first onto her bed.

“I was going to say, so there’s no getting out of it, then,” said Hermione. “Only that was three hours ago.”

“Fleur invited me and Cho to the Beauxbatons’ carriage.” Harriet rolled over and rubbed her squashed nose. “It looks like Marie Antoinette decorated it. Pastels, and gold leaf everywhere. We had this bloody amazing chocolate thing for pudding. . .”

In their own place, the Beauxbatons’ girls had shed some of their hauteur, showing Cho and Harriet around, and laughingly locking the boys out of their half of the carriage. Fleur had presented both Hogwarts’ girls with rosettes to wear: real, gilded roses preserved with a charm. Cho’s was snow white, Harriet’s blood red. And the chocolate thing had had buttercream filling inside and sugared roses on the outside.

“You had fun, then?” Hermione asked. “I didn’t think you liked Fleur.”

“I didn’t think she liked _me_ ,” Harriet said, because prior to today, Fleur had acted like Harriet was some blight on her existence the few times they had been near each other. But suddenly she was perfectly charming; Harriet’s floundering answers and hedgehog hair had not seemed to be sins against the greater universe; her status as a fourth champion was a boon. Fleur had even firmly changed the subject when one of the Beauxbatons’ girls had mentioned “that professor” with a sly look at Harriet. Then, while Cho had been tying on her scarf as they’d prepared to leave, Fleur had pressed a little amber bottle into Harriet’s hands and said, “This potion, it is very hard to get beyond France, but it gives one’s hair the greatest shine,” and she’d kissed the air near Harriet’s cheek as a good-night.

“Turns out she’s actually pretty nice,” Harriet said.

Hermione peered at her. “Is there any particular reason you agreed to this . . . project? It doesn’t really seem like your thing.”

“It’s not, really.” She was certainly not thinking about Snape--at least, not beyond wondering if there was a unit of measurement big enough to gauge how much he surely loathed Valentine’s Day. The planning notebook had a lot of very pink ideas. If there was anything Snape hated more than his students, it was probably the color pink.

But despite that one girl trying to have a go at her, Harriet had enjoyed herself. Fleur had been an excellent hostess and Cho very sweet. She would be able to spend time with Asteria again without worrying she’d get her killed.

“Dunno,” Harriet said, staring up at her canopy. “I think. . . maybe it’ll be fun.”

“Well,” Hermione said, “I hope you do have lots of fun with it. You deserve a break from thinking about. . . all this. You’ve really got the hang of Stupefy and Reducto and all the other spells we’ve been practicing.”

“In case I need to blast my way through a party of mermaid warriors or a menacing patch of seaweed,” Harriet sighed.

“You’re doing really well,” Hermione said firmly. “And we’ve got the Bubblehead Charm in reserve—though I do think there’s something in the. . . the notes that I haven’t worked out yet.”

“Right,” Harriet said, and they both pretended, for each other’s sake, that “the notes” had nothing to do with Snape. Despite what she’d told Dumbledore—and Harriet—Hermione did seem certain that Snape’s had an interest in getting Harriet through the tournament alive.

Harriet wished Snape’s interests included taking care of himself. He haunted the castle like a corporeal ghost, his glare like a scythe and his eyes staring out of two black pits. She wished she could do something nice for him, but he would surely rather die than accept any sort of Valentine’s gift of hers. (After all, she had actual proof he’d probably rather die.) She’d like to send him a proper meal, at least, but if he knew it had come from her, he’d never touch it—probably set it on fire for good measure.

It was funny—odd—odder than she ever could have imagined—to have someone so desperate to protect her, he’d declare a willingness to lay down his life, while at the same time stalking off in the other direction if she looked his way. She wasn’t stupid; since that night on the stairs, Snape had been keeping away from her. The hug had clearly scared him off.

The thought of Snape, who sent Hufflepuff first-years off in tearful fits with a look, being scared of _her_ , made her strangely want to do something kind for him more than ever.

But she wouldn’t, because he’d never accept it.

“You coming?” Harriet asked Hermione. “To the Valentine’s thing.”

“I don’t think I’d be much help. Ron and I will keep on researching the Second Task. You go,” she said, smiling. “Have as much fun as you can.”

“Ron’ll make sure you don’t study too hard,” Harriet said with sly innocence, and had the satisfaction of seeing Hermione glow Valentine pink. She picked up her mystery book and hid behind it, though Harriet could still see a strip of her blushing forehead. 

* * *

Morning did not dawn in the Slytherin dorms beneath the lake. “Morning” came late, marked by green wavering light that seeped toward the shadows in the corners, as afternoon sunlight filtered through the water beyond their windows. Before noon, the windows of the Slytherin common room remained black.

In the fourth year girls’ dorm, only one lamp was permitted before Pansy was awake, and it had to be kept on its lowest setting.

“I can’t believe you agreed to let her go,” said Tracey in a low voice, so as not to awaken their self-elected queen.

“Don’t shake your head.” Daphne tugged a piece of Tracey’s hair. “Not while I’m braiding it.”

Tracey pursed her lips at her in the mirror, then grinned. . . slyly. “Going to such primping lengths today—are we perhaps jealous of Potter? She of the Pygmy Puff hair?”

“I have better sense than to be jealous of Potter,” said Daphne coolly. “I have eyes. But the Beauxbatons’ girls. . .” Tying off the plait, she rested her fingers on the nape of Tracey’s neck. Tracey turned her head, letting her hair swing across Daphne’s wrist; Daphne shivered, and cleared her throat. “There’s no reason not to show Hogwarts to its best advantage, just because Potter hurled herself into the spotlight.”

“I’m going to keep asking until you tell me why you agreed to this,” said Tracey. “You know that, I hope.”

Daphne held her breath for a moment. She didn’t know why she’d agreed. Fleur had been so elegant, so graceful, and Daphne had felt a flare of pride that it was _she_  and her own sister whom Fleur had come to speak to personally--pride that clashed against the fierce jealousy of seeing Potter, gormless and talentless, walking with Fleur, receiving all the attention. . .

And Asteria, her eye peeping from behind her hair, had been so bright and hopeful. . .

From behind her bed curtains, Pansy groaned and threw a pillow at them. “Would you two shut _up_? It’s  _Saturday._ No one wants to listen to you cows yammer at the best of times.”

“Sorry, Pans,” said Tracey genially, making a rude gesture at the bed.

“Don’t be sorry, just shut up,” Pansy snapped.

“Right you are,” said Tracey, and she grabbed Daphne’s hand and steered her out of the room before Pansy could throw anything harder than a pillow. “Have a good morning!” she hollered, and slammed the door.

“I hope Draco sends Potter a Valentine,” Tracey muttered as they headed for the second-year girls’ room. “I’d deliver it myself, just to see the look on Pansy’s face.”

* * *

“So,” said Fleur, looking like a general standing before her troops, if generals had waist-length silvery locks and Veela genes, “this is what we shall be doing. The messages and the presents, they shall be given to us. We shall be known by our badges.” She pointed to the red-and-white rose pinned to her robe. “And the lovers, they shall bring us the gifts and tell us what they wish to be done. We shall tell no one, not even each other, for whom we make the message or send the gift, for it is to be a contract of the utmost delicacy. The heart, it is a tender thing, so easily crushed!

“But if you need the help, of course, do not be afraid to ask one of your sisters here. We are here for you. If you are not sure if perhaps it is the prank, I shall tell you what I think. At Beauxbatons I have been our head messenger for four years.”

She paused a moment to preen, then went on:

“Some of the lovers wish the gift or message to be entirely the secret. Others wish for it to be given with the name. And some, they arrange things so that on Valentine’s Day, there is a big display and the beloved shall see it only then. They will let you know their _préférence_. They may refer to this,” she held up one of Asteria’s flyers, “if they are not sure. But they must be quick! For we must plan to make their Valentine the best they can hope to deliver.”

Harriet, forced to sit up at the front of the room next to Fleur, with the Beauxbatons’ girls arrayed around them, tried to pay attention. Her mind kept drifting back to a silly dream from the night before, where Snape kept spelling all their Valentine’s decorations black, and Fleur told Harriet she had to do something about it, because he kept running away from her when she tried to use her Veela magic on him. Harriet had got on her Firebolt and flown after him, knowing that was the only way to catch him; but on the way, she’d seen both Ron and Krum fighting over Hermione, so she’d swooped down and Hermione had jumped on the broom behind her, and they’d flown over the Forbidden Forest, looking for Snape. _Is that him?_ Hermione had asked, pointing down between the trees, where something silver and glorious and bright stood waiting for them at the edge of the lake where they’d listened to the egg. 

Harriet studied the sea of eager faces turned toward Fleur. Even though Harriet was up front with her, no one was looking at her. This was fine with Harriet. Cho had brought a small pack of her friends and assorted Ravenclaws, including Parvati’s twin sister, Padma; Hannah Abbot was accompanied by her friends in Hufflepuff, who spanned a couple of years; Lavender and Parvati were hanging on Fleur’s lips; and Asteria was peeking out hopefully from behind her sister, who was much too short to be an effective hiding place for her.

(After one searing look—though not Snape quality, not by a long shot—Daphne had been pretending Harriet didn’t exist. Tracey had not acknowledged her at all. That, too, was fine with Harriet.)

“We will learn about your specialties today,” said Fleur, “so that we may make best use of them. We shall also be assigning the general duties. Form lines before each one of us,” she skillfully gestured to her Beauxbatons’ friends, leaving Harriet out of it, “and tell us what you can do. If you have a skill to show us, this will be best. Let us begin!” She clapped her hands together.

Harriet was relieved she’d asked Fleur ahead of time if she could be in charge of handling Asteria, whom they were tactfully referring to as “art direction.” It gave her something to do now instead of standing around like a numpty.

Armed with the hasty sketch Asteria had owled them last night, Harriet wove around the forming lines toward the Daphne-Tracey-Asteria corner.

To Harriet’s surprise, before she got close to them, Tracey grabbed Daphne’s hand and said, “Come on, then—let’s pick a line and get on with it.”

“What?” said Daphne, looking like Harriet when confronted with a jar of Sleekeazy’s; but Tracey lugged her off, leaving Asteria alone and clutching a wooden box to her chest.

“Hi,” said Harriet, smiling. Asteria beamed, shyly.

“Hi,” she said, just as shyly.

Harriet held up the flyer, which had sent Fleur into rapture and silenced even skeptical Auburn Curls.

“Ready to get working on some of these?”

* * *

Snape emerged from the dungeon with trepidation, scanning the entrance hall for signs of . . . pink.

A flash in the corner made him wince, but it turned out only to be a passing Hufflepuff in a sickening cardigan.

Then his gaze caught on something pinned to the wall—some sort of flyer?

It was not pink. That was a relief.

A sketch of a man bowing over a woman’s outstretched hand took up most of the page. Their features were only suggested by quick strokes of charcoal; lines like mist surrounded them. The words ‘For whom does your heart yearn?’ faded out of the mist, and the colors were pale and ghostly. Smaller print at the bottom advised one to look for the red-and-white roses of the messengers. 14.02 had been printed at each corner.

So this is what Miss Potter was up to.

(Why?)

He stalked into the Great Hall, but the Gryffindor table was Miss Potter-free. Damn; now he was sentenced to the tedium of pretending to eat in here, without the proper trade of being able to keep an eye on her.

The staff table was not, unfortunately, Dumbledore-free.

Severus took a seat at the edge of the table, several chairs down from him. The headmaster smiled and raised his glass in greeting, but allowed Severus his distance and privacy. But that had been Dumbledore’s modus operandi since that night Miss Potter had accosted him outside the Owlery.

It bewildered Severus, but he let it alone. Dumbledore’s behavior was puzzling at the best of times. As long as Dumbledore wasn’t nagging at him, he could tolerate it a new foray into eccentricity.

Dumbledore had never been of help with regards to Miss Potter, anyway.

* * *

Harriet and Asteria spent an easy, quiet morning sketching ideas for decorations next door to the large (noisy) room Dumbledore had allotted Fleur for the project. The Gryffindor common room was always loud, so Harriet was used to racket, but she’d thought Asteria would appreciate something less chaotic. Harriet was nowhere near bored. It was mesmerizing, the way lifelike shapes grew from the tips of Asteria’s pencils.

When Harriet’s stomach started to growl around noon, she left Asteria working out a final draft of a flower arrangement for the grand staircase, and waded into the chaos to speak to Fleur. Cho and her friends were folding parchment missives in the shape of hearts; Hannah Abbot was running a catalogue of all the magical plants in the greenhouses that could be put to use; Padma was reading aloud from a book of love poems, while her group made notes on which were the most romantic.  

“’Arriet!” Fleur stretched out her hand; Harriet didn’t know what to do with it, so she took it like a handshake. Fleur smiled and squeezed her fingers. “How does it go for you?”

“Good, I think. This is what Asteria’s done so far.” She passed over the finished sheets, and Fleur’s eyes widened. Her friend, Marguerite, leaned over her shoulder to look, and whispered something in her ear.

“Your friend, she has the serious talent,” said Fleur, “a great eye for beauty. _C’est magnifique_.” She passed the pages to Marguerite, who whisked them away to the flower group. “I must tell your friend that she has our gratitude and admiration.”

“I think she’ll like that,” Harriet said. _Although she might turn into a blushing mess._ “Is anyone hungry? I can bring up some lunch.”

Fleur approved, so Harriet collected lunch orders. While she was jotting down Lavender’s (which she changed three times as Harriet was writing), Asteria shyly appeared at her elbow with the final sketch. Spotting her, Fleur swooped over—but when Asteria hid behind Harriet (with no success; she was more than a head taller), Fleur merely smiled and excused herself again. It was done so gracefully that Harriet admired her intensely, then.

Daphne watched them with narrowed eyes. She refused to give Harriet her lunch order—ostentatiously ignored her—and Asteria pressed her lips together and said tremulously, “Let’s go, Harriet, we know what everyone wants—I think?” Then she took Harriet’s hand in a ginger grip and walked off—not towing Harriet, for her grip was so light that Harriet’s hand would have slipped out if she hadn’t obediently followed.

“I—I’m sorry about Daphne,” said Asteria, glowing bright pink as they made their way down the corridor.

“It isn’t your fault,” Harriet said. She didn’t want to bring up what Daphne had said at the ball—that she was afraid Harriet would get Asteria killed—so she said, “Fleur was coming to tell you how much she loved your designs. She said you had ‘the serious talent’ and it was ‘c’est magnifique.’”

Asteria turned so red she could have doubled as a heat source, and ducked her head so that her pale yellow hair swung across her face. Harriet couldn’t get a word out of her until they got to the kitchens, when she raised her head and said shyly, “Oh, I remember this place.”

The elves were delighted to see them, as always. Dobby wasn’t among them, but the elves happily took Harriet’s lunch list and set to.

“Why is that elf so sad?” Asteria whispered to Harriet, as the elves bustled around them.

Harriet looked where Asteria was pointing—at Winky. She sat on the same stool in the same place as last time, though she’d grown so filthy that she blended into the sooty wall behind her. Food stains caked the front of her blouse, and she was swaying back and forth, clutching a mostly empty butterbeer bottle. Misery radiated from her the way embarrassment had radiated from Asteria only minutes ago.

“She. . . had to leave her family,” Harriet muttered.

“Oh,” Asteria said, biting her lip.

Harriet had no idea what she could say or do. Winky looked so desperately unhappy, but doing something for her was beyond Harriet.

“Do you have a house-elf?” she asked Asteria.

Asteria shook her head. “Our family hasn't been wealthy enough for a long time. House-elves . . . sometimes get sold off when there are . . . troubles.”

She was blushing again. This was exactly why Harriet didn’t want to speak to Winky; she could stumble across an uncomfortable topic while just trying to have a normal chat. The last time she’d spoken to Winky, she’d set off a crying fit. Maybe Fleur could give her tips on how not to make an arse of herself.

Then she wondered, if house-elves were this unhappy at being dismissed from their families, what did they feel when they were sold off? She was glad Hermione wasn't here to hear this.

“I grew up with Muggles,” Harriet said. “They’ve got machines to do a lot.” And when they don’t, the Dursleys used me. At least she knew better than to bring that up.

“Where did you grow up?” Asteria asked.

“Surrey—suburbs. Not that far from London—not that we ever went, my aunt and uncle hated London—too many degenerates.”

“Did you ever go to the Continent?”

“Too many foreigners for my aunt and uncle,” Harriet said, and Asteria giggled.

“We have a place in Switzerland,” Asteria said, like this was normal.

Harriet blinked. “Like a house?”

“Well—a bit like a castle, really—it’s quite old, it’s been in the family for generations. Often our properties can’t be sold off, you see? They’re entailed on the family line. We go there sometimes, but it’s rather cold and drafty, not like Hogwarts.” She started twining a lock of hair round her finger, her voice growing softer. “Daphne wants Mamma to take us out of school and move there permanently. . . she says we’ll be closer to Leto there, but I think. . . I think she’s thinking that it’s too dangerous here.” Asteria’s eyes swept the kitchen. “There are. . . things said in the Slytherin common room that. . .”

“Here is the lunches you have ordered, Miss and Miss!” said a house-elf, materializing with a couple of its co-workers, who were each carrying a tidy little basket. Harriet figured magic must have been used to enlarge the insides, because Valentine’s planning had made that lot upstairs really hungry.

She and Asteria took the baskets with thanks, and were bowed happily out the portrait.

As they lugged the baskets upstairs, Harriet thought about what Asteria had said: whispers in the Slytherin common room, Daphne afraid. . . Snape increasing his surveillance and haunting the school like death. . .

Even though she’d always trusted Snape’s paranoid assumption that she’d been entered into the tournament for Voldemort’s sake, she felt a new chill grip her spine.

 _Maybe you should go,_ she thought, glancing at Asteria as they climbed the stairs, her long yellow hair swinging. _Maybe you should get out of here while you can._

She gripped the handle of her basket, but they returned to the room together in silence.

* * *

Armed with Asteria’s designs, the Valentine’s brigade infused the castle with Valentine’s spirit over the following days. Hannah provided (harmless) magical plants, while others conjured regular flowers. Cho knew clever charms for making garlands to wrap around the banisters and boughs to drape above doors. Asteria’s flyers were copied in scores and pasted around the castle, and boxes were set up to receive the Valentine’s messages. Harriet had a momentary fear that they would remain empty—but she needn’t have worried; by the end of the first day, they were getting messages handed to them directly by furtive boys and giggling girls, because the boxes were overflowing.

Harriet happened to see Snape one day (when she was walking behind a screen of roses) looking at the Valentine’s message box and the flowers with horrified disgust. She had to stuff her fist in her mouth to stop the hysterical giggles. Ron wanted to know if she was okay, and when they sat down at Gryffindor table, Hermione was giving her an unreadable look.

In spite of the success of Fleur’s club, Harriet felt perfectly useless. The most she ever did was tag along with Asteria, who was doing all the important work. While it was quite a lot of fun, she wished she could really _help._

In the end, she owed her deliverance to Fred.

“Harry old girl!” He slung his arm around her shoulder. “Might I have a word?”

Asteria, as she usually did when someone other than Harriet or her sister spoke to her, hid behind her hair.

“Meet you upstairs,” Harriet told her, and watched her scuttle gratefully out of sight. “What’s this word you want?”

“Well, turns out it’s not so much about a word and more about your spectacular skills.” He tapped her between the eyes with a folded bit of parchment.

She swatted his hand away. “I haven’t got any skills. Wait, is that a Valentine?”

“That it is.” He clapped it into her hand. “One only you can deliver,” he intoned. Then, ruffling her hair across her eyes, he left whistling.

“Plonker,” Harriet said without rancor, unfolding the parchment. A little packet of gold dust fell into her hand. Frowning, she turned to the parchment. . . and felt her eyebrows climbing her forehead as she read.

“ _Brilliant_ plonker,” she said.

* * *

“Oh, but that’s perfect!” Asteria said when Harriet showed her Fred’s valentine.

“I’ll need to practice to get the letters right,” Harriet said. “I’ve never tried writing anything before. I guess loopy letters would be best?”

“Like this, maybe?” Asteria slid a piece of drawing paper from her notebook and sketched out Fred’s message.

“Yeah, exactly, that’s ace.” Harriet frowned at the bag of golden powder. “I don’t want to use this up practicing. . . I wonder where I could get something like it?”

“Can I see it?” Asteria dipped a fingertip into the powder, rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger, and sniffed at it. “I think we could use ground puffapod seeds with glitter for practicing. This is probably longer-lasting, so she’ll be able to see it.”

Mixing the powder got them covered in glitter, but they made a huge batch because Harriet doubted her ability to get it remotely right on the first dozen tries. Fred’s instructions said to coat the tail of her broom in the powder, and it would form the words like cloud trails as she flew. That was easy enough, but it turned out that writing in the air was bloody hard. The loops were fun, but making the letters readable, not to mention remotely the same size, was a right pain in the arse.

“Good thing he gave this to me early,” Harriet said, looking at the wobbling message that completely misspelled Angelina’s name, and was not nearly readable on the word valentine.

“It’s only your first try,” Asteria said consolingly. “And you’re a mag-nificent flyer, I’m sure you’ll get it.”

Her voice stumbled like she was embarrassed, but the bluebell light of the flames she held for warmth cast her face into planes of shadow. Harriet’s own face was numb from looping around in the wintry air for an hour and a half. The night sky was studded with stars around the moon; the snow glowed blue-white on the grounds; the frost glittered on the hoops of the Quidditch pitch. It was a world of black and silver, and bloody cold. The wonky letters of Fred’s valentine’s message dripped apart above their heads, falling in glittering specks into the dark.

“For Angelina’s sake, I hope so,” Harriet said, grinning at her.

* * *

Miss Potter turned up to dinner in the company of Asteria Greengrass. They both had green glitter smeared on their foreheads and cheeks in haphazard swipes, and seemed to be in fine fettle. Fleur Delacour hailed them from her position at the Ravenclaw table, where she was holding court amongst her fellow Beauxbatons’ students and handful of Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and Gryffindors--and even two of his own house. Daphne Greengrass watched with a neutral face while Miss Potter and Asteria sat down together next to Delacour.

“Delightful, isn’t it?” said Dumbledore to Severus’ right.

“What is?” Severus muttered. (Miss Potter laughed as Delacour scrubbed at the glitter on her forehead with a wet napkin.)

“To see such seamless cooperation.” A glance at Dumbledore showed him likewise gazing at the Ravenclaw table and the happy group of girls who were coating the castle in Valentine’s nauseating spirit. “Between nations, schools, houses. . . neither the Yule Ball nor the Tournament’s tasks themselves have achieved such harmony.”

Severus had nothing to say, so he grunted. Dumbledore smiled, as if Severus had set forth some bit of wisdom.

“I must commend you,” Dumbledore said, “on your assignment to Miss Potter last year. Asteria is much improved.”

(Asteria and Miss Potter were talking animatedly with each other. Asteria did not even appear to be aware that she was surrounded by other people--nor did Miss Potter seem to notice that Daphne was trying to bore a flaming hole in her skull.)

“I knew she’d manage it,” Severus said dismissively.

“You have a great measure of faith in Harriet,” said Dumbledore, loud enough for Severus to hear, but quiet enough so that the noise of the Great Hall swallowed the words beyond them.

Severus’ fingers tightened on his goblet. He felt panic pressing on his throat, as if Miss Potter were looking at him; but she was now talking to Cho Chang, showing no awareness of him.

“I have great faith in her ability to get herself in trouble,” he said, curling the words with a snarl. “Her success with Asteria Greengrass is merely a statement of the obvious.”

Dumbledore hmm’d thoughtfully. “True. And yet, we often need the obvious explained to us. So much escapes the most intelligent eye, the most powerful intellect . . . but I think less escapes the heart.”

“I’ve told you,” Severus said, ignoring the cruel irony of his own heart beating in his chest, tapping out a painful rhythm of anxiety, from a source he could not name. “I haven’t got a heart. I had it replaced with a steel trap years ago.”

Dumbledore only smiled, his face an echo of that night Miss Potter had so shaken Severus on the Owlery stairs. A light touch to Severus’ hand, and he turned away, to speak to Minerva on his other side.

Severus turned his eyes back to the Ravenclaw table.

Miss Potter was staring straight at him. In her bright eyes he saw something as complex as the featherweight of Dumbledore’s hand. His chest clenched with searing pain; his arm burned with malice thrumming.

He could not stay. He pushed back from the table with a clatter. His attention grazed across Moody as he turned to leave, the electric blue eye and the black fixed on him. Severus bared his teeth, but passed him without a word.

He pressed his right hand against his left forearm as the chill of the dungeons folded around him. The Mark did not burn. It was all in his mind.

Or, as Dumbledore would believe, in his heart—the Dark Lord’s legacy fused to his soul.

* * *

_His ribs still searing with the imprint of Miss Potter’s fleeting collision, Severus banged his fist on the door to Dumbledore’s study. When no answer came, he tried the doorknob; it opened easily._

_The room beyond was warm and bright and inviting as ever. Dumbledore sat in his chair beside the fire, staring into the flames. He gave no sign he’d heard Severus’ knock. His phoenix was perched on the back of his chair, black eyes bright, feathers afire in the light._

_“Headmaster?” Severus drew toward his chair._

_Dumbledore looked up. He did not seem to realize whom he beheld. Severus felt a sick, cold clench in his gut._

_“Severus,” Dumbledore said, something in his gaze clearing, then clouding over again, like a hand brushed through a reflection on the water._

_“What’s the matter with you?” Severus asked. “What’s happened?”_

_Dumbledore shook his head. “Nothing has happened to me—or to anyone else. Rest easy, my boy.”_

_“Something’s wrong,” Severus said. “I’m not a fool.”_

_Dumbledore smiled through his beard. Severus had never seen that kind of smile from Dumbledore before; it spoke of shattering pain, of heartache. He wanted to take the old man by the shoulders and shake him until he gave up the truth—even though Dumbledore never would._

_“Indeed,” said Dumbledore, wistfulness stretched cobweb-thin across a shadow of grief, “I believe the fool is no one but myself.”_

_“You’re not making any sense,” Severus said, with brutal disregard for this attempt at wisdom, or whatever it bloody well was meant to be. “Do you need medical attention?”_

_“Thank you, my dear boy. It is nothing medicine—or magic—can cure.” He reached up, and his phoenix, with a lift of its wings, descended to his hand, nuzzling against the fingers he raised to his beak. “It is only my weight to bear.”_

_When he closed his eye, the firelight mapped a glistening trail down his cheek._

_After a long moment of standing foolish, helpless and lost in the silence, Severus left him. He felt as cold and raw as if Miss Potter had brushed against him on the Headmaster’s stairs._

_He heard her whispering, “See? You really are the stupid one.”_

He could not disagree, then or now.

* * *

Harriet watched Snape bare his teeth at Moody and sweep out of the Great Hall.

She did not stand up and go inspect his plate, even though she itched to. She’d bet, if he put any food on it, he’d just moved it around without eating.

Surrounded by laughter, she felt suddenly sad.

If only there was a way to make Snape look out for himself, the way he tried to look out for her.

* * *

“She did _WHAT_?”

A jar on the shelf behind Severus cracked; the room was filled with the tinkling of glass as his shelves rattled.

Dobby folded his ears down. “Harriet Potter went flying tonight, Professor Snape Sir.”

“Went _flying._ Out _side._ In the _dark._ ”

Dobby nodded, ears still folded. Rudeness had no effect on him, but he could tell that Severus was angry, and anger to house-elves was. . .

“And you didn’t think to report this to me?”

“Professor Snape Sir said to fetch him if Harriet Potter was in danger. Harriet Potter was not in danger, Professor Snape Sir.”

While Severus knew, intellectually, that the house-elf was correct, and that house-elves always followed instructions to the letter, he was still fighting the urge to pick Dobby up by the scruff of his neck.

“The next time she does anything so foolish,” he hissed through grit teeth, “you will notify me. Now get going!”

Ears curled against his skull, Dobby bowed and vanished.

Severus stood for a few moments, fighting the destructive thrumming in his limbs. Then he slumped into a chair and put his hands over his face.

_You have to get yourself under control. How will you function when the danger is real, if this is how you act when it is not?_

But he knew how to deal with real danger—how to lie to the Dark Lord, how to parcel out the valuable information from the seemingly significant, how to obliterate in their presence the emotions his enemies would use against him. His own reputation assisted him, for how could anyone believe he harbored any value for those who would not get him what he wanted? He was base, cruel, cunning, ruthless, malicious, repulsive; his worth lay only in his abilities, and everything precluded his being the sort of person who made sacrifices for the sake of something better. All those qualities had served him well, as a spy. They would serve him well again, if the Dark Lord did not kill him first.

He could not fight an enemy that would not show itself.

* * *

The days melted toward Valentine’s Day. In the star-studded twilight, beneath the light of the growing moon, Harriet practiced and practiced Fred’s message, while Asteria sat in the Quidditch stands holding a jar of bluebell flames, and praised Harriet’s every feeble attempt at sky-writing.

Coming back to Gryffindor Tower windblown and frozen the night before Valentine’s Day, Harriet saw Ron sitting by himself, trying to work his way through a Potions essay.

“Have you done this bloody thing yet?” he sighed as she plopped into the chair next to him.

“Not yet,” Harriet lied, because the essay she had written contained a lot of information about why getting regular meals and a good night’s rest was important.

“Antidotes,” Ron said. “He has us right about poison right before Valentine’s Day. If he wasn’t such a git, I’d think he had a sense of humor.”

It hurt to hear Snape called a git, even though she’d called him a git many times. He was rather an enormous git.

“His sense of humor might tend toward actually poisoning somebody,” she said.

Ron snorted. “Too bloody right.” He chucked his quill and parchment into his bag. “How’s the practice coming?”

“If I can just remember how to spell ‘Valentine’ tomorrow, I should have it in the bag.”

Ron grinned, but dropped it as he fiddled with a broken quill nib. “You seen Krum?” he asked with labored casualness.

“At dinner earlier, yeah,” Harriet said, confused.

“No, I mean . . . out there. Flying. Doing . . . that kind of thing.”

“I haven’t seen Krum flying, no.”

“I mean the kind of flying you’re doing. D’you think he--” Ron’s eyes darted furtively around. “D’you think that’s the kind of thing. . .”

Oh. Harriet felt stupid for only feeling the penny drop now. Hadn’t she dreamt about this days ago? Rescuing Hermione from a squabbling Krum and Ron. On a broom, no less.

“I don’t think flying Valentines are really his style,” she said truthfully. “Too flashy. Suits Fred, but not--him.”

Ron looked relieved for all of two seconds, then gloomy again. “D’you think he’s going to . . . I mean, has anyone in the group gotten a . . . you know,” he groaned. “C’mon, you’re a girl, don’t make me spell this stuff out.”

“What’s me being a girl got to do with you being un-articulate?” Harriet said, amused.

“Girls are supposed to be good with, you know--feelings and things.” Ron said ‘feelings’ the way he might have said ‘spiders.’

“I don’t think that’s particularly true.” Harriet thought of how terrible she was at helping Hermione, Snape, Remus, Winky. . . “I’m not doing all that well now, am I? Besides, the Valentines are all secret, except to the person delivering them. Though sometimes even then. It’s not like mind-reading is part of being a girl.”

Ron groaned and buried his head in his bag. “Kill me now.”

Harriet patted his shoulder. “There, there.” Her hand lingered on his arm. “Ron . . . did you want to send a. . .”

“Hi,” Hermione said breathlessly, dropping into a chair across the table and spilling about fifteen books across the table. “Oh, sorry!”

“What’s all this?” Harriet thought she did a much better job at fake-casual than Ron, who rocketed upright and snatched his bag to his chest.

“Herbology books. I’m thinking aquatic plants.” She beamed at them. “How’s your group going? Tomorrow’s it, isn’t it--the big day?”

“Yeah,” Harriet said. “You two going to read about aquatic plants all night, then?”

“The task is only eleven days away,” Hermione said.

“And how could we pass up a chance to read about aquatic plants?” Ron asked. The tips of his ears were very red.

It occurred to Harriet, as she took her broom upstairs (passing Fred, who winked), that perhaps doing the club without Ron and Hermione was her best gift to them both. Ron might not care for studying, but he and Hermione got each other all to themselves.

* * *

Next day, Snape hit their class an extremely nasty pop quiz on poisons and antidotes. Part of Harriet thought this was funny, but the other half cringed because Snape never threw out grades, and Hermione was practically in tears by the end of class. She glared at Snape as she stormed out, and Ron called him a lot of names that Harriet could not disagree with. Yet each insult felt like a splinter driven under her skin, despite how much she’d like to march down to his office and rip those quizzes in half.

“It’s fine, Ron,” Hermione said gamely. “It’s just a quiz, it’s just one grade. Now can we please stop talking about it?”

Her eyes darted toward Harriet as she said it, like _she_ was worried about _Harriet_.

It was unbearable.

She and Ron made an effort to cheer Hermione up all the rest of the day, and Hermione made an effort to appear cheered.

But in spite of Snape’s attempt to ruin the day for everyone, Harriet still had a job to do. Saying good-bye to Ron and Hermione after their last class, she ran up to Gryffindor Tower to fetch her Firebolt.

Asteria was waiting for her on the Quidditch Pitch, still carrying her school bag. Harriet opened the Marauder’s Map and checked the lighted window where Angelina and Fred should be waiting with a clear view of the pitch. To her surprise, they were right on time.

She kicked off from the ground. The icy air knifed through her hair and dropped crystalline fragments on her tongue. She inhaled, and it prickled, and she grinned with the familiar feeling of the world dropping away beneath her.

The golden words looped behind her in the air as she flew. She hoped Angelina thought it was funny and perfect.

When Harriet alighted on the packed-down snow next to Asteria, the words, ‘ _Let me be your ridiculous Valentine, Angelina xForge_ ’ hung glittering gold in the air, the setting sun setting them afire.

“That was brilliant!” Asteria said, clapping her mittened hands together. Harriet grinned, pleased but embarrassed.

“Thanks--I don’t think it looks half bad.”

Asteria shook her head rapidly. “It looks _perfect_.”

They stood a few moments beneath the light of the moon, admiring Harriet’s handiwork. Harriet hoped Remus was all right--that he was warm, and Sirius was taking care of him. But of course Sirius would take care of him. Sirius loved him.

“Fancy getting in to dinner?” Harriet said, shouldering her broom.

“Y-yes,” said Asteria, but she didn’t move. “Yes. Erm. These are for you!” she squeaked, and shoved something into Harriet’s chest.

Harriet swallowed her _oof_. Asteria had hit her with two packages: a larger, soft one, and a much smaller one.

“What are these?”

“V-valentines.” Asteria’s face glowed like the  sun setting behind her. “Th-they were delivered secretly. I s-said I’d give them to you.”

Harriet felt embarrassed, bewildered, pleased. Who would give her Valentine’s gifts?

Not Snape.

Leaning her broom against the Quidditch stands, Harriet peeled the wrapping off the soft one first. A lace scarf fell around her hands. It was hard to see in the fading light, but it seemed to be studded with pearls.

“It’s—it’s pretty,” said Asteria in a high, wavering voice, halfway hidden behind her mittens.

An idea niggled at Harriet. She held up the scarf, examining the intricate lace in the last glowing rays of the sun. It looked old—reminded her more than a bit of Daphne’s dress from the Yule Ball. . .

“It’s bloody gorgeous, is what it is,” Harriet said. “I wish I knew who to thank for it. I don’t think they should’ve given me something so valuable. . .”

“If they gave it to you, they m-must have wanted to you have it,” Asteria said, looking shyly down at her feet.

Harriet smiled. “You’re probably right.”

She draped it over her shoulders. Asteria glowed.

The second package was much smaller: the paper fell away from a lacquer box. Harriet prised it open, and a little bulbous glass bottle, full of pink liquid that glowed, slid into her hand.

Asteria gasped.

“What is it?” Harriet asked.

“It’s—it’s _Persephone’s Kiss_ ,” Asteria said. “I’ve grown up hearing about it, but I’ve never seen any before. . .”

“Why not? What’s it do?”

“It’s incredibly rare—I don’t know how it’s made, but . . . pure-blood women use it, you see,” Asteria said. “It’s sort of a—well, it’s a weapon. They coat their hairpins and their jewelry—in fact, some of the jewelry has, you know, kinds of secret compartments where you can store it. And if you get in trouble or need to . . . well.” Asteria twisted her mittened hands together.

“It’s poison?” Harriet stared at the rose-colored liquid inside the bottle.

“Well, yes,” said Asteria, sounding embarrassed.

“Someone’s just given me poison.”  

“It—sounds awful, I know,” Asteria said. “But it’s . . . for a secret gift, it’s . . . magnificent, really.”

Harriet closed her fingers over the little bottle. The first thought that sprang into her head, that it was from Snape after all, she knew to be madness. He might approve of her arming herself with poison, but a poison used by pure-blood women for coating jewelry—that didn’t strike her as being Snape’s style. But who would send her something like this?

She scooped up the wrapping from the snow-crusted grass and turned it about, looking for some clue. “There was no note?”

“I--no. Well, not with the package--I received a note, addressed to me, telling me where to find it hidden. It was stuffed inside a suit of armor in the disused part of the third floor. I--figured whoever sent it, they must have been embarrassed. . .”

Harriet frowned. “Something this expensive, and they just left it inside a suit of armor?”

“I don’t suppose people normally look for things in there?” Asteria said helplessly.

“Maybe not, but sending something like this, they’d want to know if it got delivered, wouldn’t they? They were probably hiding nearby, watching to see that you’d get it . . .” She gripped her wand. “I want to see if they left any clue behind. Can you show me where--?”

“Of course!”

Harriet appreciated that Asteria didn’t point out that her mystery Valentine would hardly have been likely to stand around carving their initials on the walls while waiting for her to show up. It was unlikely they’d find anything, but Harriet couldn’t just leave it.

 _And if you don’t find anything, you’ll have an excuse to take it to Snape and ask him what he thinks,_ her self whispered slyly.

Outside of the Quidditch Pitch, the wind had full reign, and buffeted them from all sides as they started across the wide, open ground to the castle. The sun had fallen beneath the horizon, but the snow, combined with the moonlight, threw off enough light to see. . . and illuminated a set of footprints on the white ground.

The straggling prints lead from the Quidditch pitch directly toward the Forbidden Forest. They looked fresh--the other footprints criss-crossing the beaten-down snow were muddy, or iced over. But these were a clear imprint.

“Harriet?” Asteria asked, turning to look at her.

Harriet hesitated. The Forbidden Forest was just over there, a dark uninviting mass. And someone was definitely after her. And Asteria, clutching her bottle of flames, was staring at her with wide, worried eyes--

_“You're dangerous, Potter. The Dark Mark showed itself at the World Cup! You're the enemy of the Dark Lord. Do you think Asteria would be safe were she friends with you?”_

“Come on,” Harriet said. “Let’s get inside, yeah?”

Then, far off in the black screen of trees, someone screamed.

Harriet froze, heart beating hard, as Asteria gripped her arm.

“Get back to the castle,” Harriet said, pushing her with one hand, the other raising her wand.

“B-but--” Asteria stammered.

“Go and get someone, I have go to see who that was--”

Harriet jumped on her Firebolt and kicked off, spattering snow, and streaked toward the Forest.

* * *

Severus glared at the stack of quizzes sitting on his desk.

Miss Potter had sent him a burning look on her way out the door today. He knew she didn’t care about the pop quiz, but Miss Granger had been grey in the face.

_Don’t be a pathetic twat. What difference should it make if a pint-sized celebrity is angry with you? Her best friend is a desperate over-achiever who can’t bear to fail at a single thing. It’s a good lesson for her, that you can’t always get what you--_

“Fuck it all to hell,” he hissed, and threw the quizzes in the fire.

A _crack!_ split the air, and Dobby appeared, tennis-ball eyes wide as they could go.

“Professor Snape Sir! Harriet Potter is flying toward the Forbidden Forest, for she has heard someone screaming!”

Severus’ insides turned to ash.

“Get Dumbledore, now!” he snarled.

On the stairs to the entrance hall, he nearly ran into Asteria Greengrass.

“Professor!” She was white and trembling. “H-harriet heard a scream in the woods--”

“Get to the common room and _stay there_ ,” he spat, and crossed the Entrance Hall at a run.

He marveled that Miss Potter had had the sense to send someone to fetch him, and swore that he would wring her neck for going off alone.

* * *

The trees rushed at Harriet, looming black into the night sky as the Firebolt streaked toward the forest, the canopy growing until it blotted out the stars.  She heard branches snapping in the undergrowth, and something, some pale movement, flashed in the bushes--

“Stupefy!” she cried, and a jet of red light shot from her wand, unerringly toward the trees--and struck something, which fell with a crash.

Jumping off her broom, Harriet dived into the bushes, branches snapping at her cloak, her face, her legs--

And she tripped over Draco Malfoy. He lay sprawled on the ground, his eyes rolled back in his head, his normally sleek hair falling across his forehead. For a split second, Harriet was terrified she’d killed him.

 _Shit, shit, SHIT,_ she thought, and tried another new spell: “Ennervate!”

He stirred, eyelids fluttering, his face contorting into a grimace.

“Oy, Malfoy, wake up!” Harriet said, wanting to shake him.

He froze in reaching up to touch his head. His eyes flew open, and he stared at her in horror.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Harriet asked, resisting the urge to give him two.

“You Stunned me!” Malfoy said.

“Well, your memory’s okay.” She frowned as he sat up, cradling his head. “Why did you scream?”

Malfoy looked mortified, but tried to cover it up by pulling on a sneer. “What? Your wits have gone begging, Potter--”

Harriet rolled her eyes. “So it wasn’t serious then. Good to know.”

“I can’t believe you _Stunned_ me,” he said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go walking in the Forbidden Forest at night. What are you doing out here, anyway?” She distinctly remembered him running away when they’d been detention-ing out here three years ago.

Perhaps Draco was remembering it too, because he scowled at her. “None of your business, Potter. But if it was,” he said after the tiniest pause, “I’d be hiding from Pansy.”

“Try sending her a package of rotted maggots for Valentine’s.” She stood, brushing snow and dirt off her knees. “Might scare her off.”

“Don’t know her very well, do you,” Malfoy muttered.

“As much as I wish. . . to. . .” Harriet stared at her hand. Something dark and wet and sticky had come off her knee. “Malfoy, are you _bleeding_?”

“What?” Malfoy sounded as shocked as she felt. He started patting himself all over, and his hand flew to the back of his head--and came back stained dark like hers.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he said blankly. “And how would it have got on your. . .”

They both stared at the ground. Harriet lit her wand and extended her arm.

The black was hard to see in the dark, but the shadows ran away from the light. The black. . . glistened.

Malfoy grabbed her arm like Asteria had done. “L-let’s get out of here, Potter.”

“If you didn’t scream, then this must be from--”

“I did scream, all right?” Malfoy said, talking very fast, his voice going high and thin like Hermione’s when she was nervous and afraid. “Something brushed up against me and I screamed. But that’s _blood_ and we do _not_ want to find whatever it is that’s--on the other end of that! We have to go, now!”

Harriet was going to agree with him--she really was.

But she looked up, and she saw it.

Professor Karkaroff.

He hung on the trunk of a tree.

A spike had been driven through his heart. His face was contorted in terror, his eyes bulging, his mouth hanging open.

The forest spun in silence around her.

Someone’s hand gripped her shoulder. Harriet’s arm swung up, no spell on her lips, just gripping her wand like a knife--

Snape was looking down at her.

He kept his hand on her shoulder. He put his other hand on her other shoulder and turned her away from Karkaroff nailed to the tree. He put a hand on Malfoy’s back and pulled him up from where Malfoy had been bent over retching.

Harriet stumbled out of the trees.

The snow glowed, the stars gleamed, and Harriet’s heart beat a sick rhythm inside her. Snape kept his hand on her shoulder. He was speaking--she could hear the cadence of his voice--but she couldn’t understand him.

The castle swam around her as they climbed the stairs. Snape was taking them to Dumbledore’s office, she realized.

The office was warm and bright. Dumbledore was not there.

“Sit,” Snape said, pointing to two chairs. He said it almost gently--for him.

Harriet slumped into a chair, Malfoy into the one next to her.

“I hope you two realize you could have been killed,” Snape said, sounding calm. It did not sound right for Snape to be calm. Harriet would have expected him to be screaming.

“He brushed against me,” Malfoy said numbly. “The--the _murderer_.”

“Tell me what happened,” Snape said, still not screaming yet.

“Potter hexed me.”

“Hexed you,” Snape said, looking at Harriet.

“I Stunned him,” said Harriet. “He screamed--I didn’t know it was him, but someone in the forest screamed--so I sent Asteria for you--”

“Yes,” Snape said, now with an edge of anger. “Instead of coming for me yourself.”

“Yeah, and if I had, Malfoy might be dead now,” Harriet said, and as she said it, she realized it was probably true.

“I might be _dead_ ,” Malfoy said.

“Yes,” said Snape after a moment. “You might have been.”

“ _Karkaroff’s_ dead,” Harriet said.

“Oh Merlin, he’s _dead_ ,” said Malfoy.

“ _Really_ fucking dead,” Harriet said.

“He had a _spike_ through his _heart_ ,” Malfoy said. “And his blood got on me!”

Snape just looked at them. After a moment, he said, “And you didn’t see anyone. Not who brushed against you.”

Malfoy shuddered but shook his head. “It was d-dark--but no one was there.”

“Disillusioned,” said Snape. “Or perhaps using a Cloak of Invisibility.”

“Why’d they do it now?” Harriet said. “I mean. . . someone could have seen them. Malfoy almost did.”

“We are clearly not dealing with a sane person,” said Snape, flatly.

Harriet hesitated. Snape noticed, for he said, “What is it?”

“I . . . got this.” Harriet fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the pink potion. “As part of the Valentine’s thing. It was sent to me as a secret gift--Asteria picked it up for me.”

Snape took the bottle from her with the tips of his fingers. “Do you know what this is?”

“Persephone’s--something--Asteria said it’s a poison.”

“It is--if it’s truly Persephone’s Kiss. I will make sure.”

Harriet nodded. It wasn’t like she needed it--the only jewelry she wore regularly was her best friends’ necklace. And what if she accidentally poisoned someone? Though. . . it might be good to have, given what she and Malfoy had just seen. . .

She wondered if some of her mum’s jewelry had secret compartments, like Asteria had said.

“Why would someone want to kill Professor Karkaroff?” she asked.

“A good question, Miss Potter,” Snape said quietly. “One that remains to be seen.”

“Who kn-knows why madmen do what they do,” Malfoy muttered.

“Who indeed,” said Snape, looking at something far away, within himself. “Yet everyone has a reason--whatever they do.”

* * *

Severus checked the children over, but neither of them was injured. The shock of seeing a mutilated corpse went deeper. Draco looked sickly, a sheen of sweat stretched across his face, and he kept shivering. Miss Potter looked calmer, more collected, because she had seen terrible things before--but she was distant, as if she’d retreated far beneath her skin, to a place of protection.

When he moved, the little bottle of potion knocked against his ribs. He closed his eyes for a moment. Draco, the bloody little fool. . .

Severus could add it all up. Miss Potter had been out flying for her ridiculous Valentine’s project; Draco had followed her, watching to see how his secret gift had been received; and when she and Asteria had left the Quidditch stadium suddenly, he had seen in his panic that the distance to the forest was shorter than the distance to the school, and hidden himself in there till the girls had passed. Now he sat alternately looking like he was going to be sick, and shooting confused looks at Miss Potter.

He must have stolen the poison from Narcissa. Its price was astronomical, for the key ingredient was exceptionally rare and the recipe jealously guarded. Narcissa would certainly notice it missing, would likely guess that Draco had stolen it--probably had their new house-elf (procured by blackmail) fetch it for him--and  would probably suspect to whom he’d given it.

(Why had Draco chosen _t_ _his_ gift for Miss Potter?)

But he had greater things to worry about at present.

The door clicked open as Dumbledore returned. Draco, who had been relatively open with only Severus and Miss Potter, closed up, like a flower shriveling.

“Well?” Severus asked, and then, because the children were here, he tacked on, “Headmaster?”

“I found no trace of the killer,” said Dumbledore. “Professor Karkaroff is most certainly dead.”

With a look, he asked a silent question of Severus: Did they see anything of the killer? Severus shook his head.

Dumbledore looked down at the children. Miss Potter’s attention was on the headmaster, but Draco was staring at his knees.

“I commend your bravery,” said Dumbledore with utter seriousness. “Both of you,” he said, and Draco looked up in surprise, then quickly down again. “It is no little matter to see such horrors.”

Dumbledore looked grave. The firelight cut crags across the wrinkles in his face, aging him by decades from one flicker to the next. Even his assurances that Miss Potter would be safe for ten more days at least must be crumbling. Karkaroff’s murder was proof that the Dark Lord’s plans were escalating. . . or that his proxy was branching out on his own.

“Madam Pomfrey is on her way,” said Dumbledore, “to ensure you two are unharmed. Before she arrives, is there anything you wish to share with me--anything at all?”

Miss Potter and Draco both glanced at Severus, then shook their heads.

“My study is always open to you both. Please avail yourselves, at any hour of the day or night,” said Dumbledore. A knock on the door made him turn, calling, “Come in. Thank you for coming, Madam Pomfrey,” he said as she bustled in.

“What have you been getting up to now, Miss Potter?” Madam Pomfrey asked. “Mister Malfoy, is this _blood_?”

“I will answer your questions shortly, Poppy,” said Dumbledore. “The children have had a terrible shock. Severus, may I have a word in private?”

Severus caught Miss Potter’s eye as he turned to follow Dumbledore from the room. She had just been forced one severe foot forward into adulthood. He yearned for the childish simplicity of her anger that afternoon, her resentment for the sake of her friend.

* * *

After Madam Pomfrey had checked them over and pronounced them well, with a tight-lipped look at Professor Dumbledore, Snape escorted Harriet back to Gryffindor Tower. She wished Malfoy wasn’t tagging along, but in fairness, she knew why Snape was keeping them both in sight.

She just wished she could say something to Snape. . . anything. Even something stupid would have been comforting, somehow.

But there they were at the Fat Lady’s portrait, and Snape was ordering the painting to open. And all Harriet could say was, “Good night. And thanks,” and all she could do was climb into the common room and stare at the back of the Fat Lady’s portrait once it had closed.

She really hoped Fred wouldn’t mention the Valentine, but he wasn’t in the common room (neither was Angelina). Nor were Ron and Hermione there. In that moment, she was all right with that--it gave her some space to think.

She went upstairs to her dorm, which was empty. A folded note sat on her pillow. It was from Asteria.

 _Are you all right?_ she’d written in a slanted, uneven hand.

Experimentally, Harriet wrote, _I’m okay. It was just Malfoy. Are you okay?_ Then she folded the note and set it back on her pillow, where it vanished.

“Huh,” she said listlessly.

Karkaroff’s face burned in her memory. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw spots.

Karkaroff’s face was still there.

“Dobby,” she croaked.

With a soft pop, he appeared.

“Harriet Potter is safe!” Dobby cried.

“Yeah, I’m fi. . . Wait.” She dropped her hands to stare at him. “I’m safe? How did you know?”

“Dobby is watching Harriet Potter,” he said, eyes shining. “Professor Snape is asking Dobby five weeks ago. He is telling Dobby to come and fetch him if Harriet Potter is in danger.”

Five weeks ago Harriet had hugged Snape outside the Owlery.

Harriet pressed her hands against her stinging eyes for a long time.

“I just. . .” she said shakily. “I just wanted to know if you would do something for me. . .”

* * *

Once Dobby had gone, Harriet lay back on her pillow. A note crunched under her hair.

Asteria again. _Professor Snape ordered me back to the common room. I’m happy you’re all right--I was so scared._

Harriet wrote back that she was fine, then erased it and wrote that she wasn’t hurt. _Malfoy screamed because something brushed against him in the dark. I Stunned him by accident._

She traded notes with Asteria for a long time, and felt slightly less alone.

Hermione came back to the dorm late. She was smiling to herself, and blushing a bit, and clutching that mystery book to her chest. When she saw Harriet, her smile widened--and then dropped away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

“I’m . . . not ready to talk about it yet,” Harriet said. She read Hermione’s expression and sighed. “It’s nothing to do with Snape.”

Hermione bit her lip, then came and sat on the end of Harriet’s bed. She took in a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears. It sprang forward again, too bushy to stay put.

“Professor Dumbledore sent me this about a month ago,” she said, pushing the mystery book across the bed. “After I. . . went to him and told him about. . . everything.”

Harriet lifted up the cover and flipped to the first page. _‘When love beckons to you follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. . .’_

“I’m not getting it,” she said.

“They’re love poems.” Hermione was blushing, but she kept her head up. “He asked me to come to his office and he gave this book to me, and said it might help me understand a . . . difficult subject. One of life's greatest mysteries, he said.”

“You’ve been reading this nonstop since then,” Harriet said blankly.

“I wanted to understand--what you were feeling.” Hermione twisted the hem of her skirt in her fingers. “I’m--I’m not any good at. . . this sort of thing. I couldn’t tell you that I l-liked Ron, I can’t tell my parents that I’m jealous of a baby that hasn’t been born, I. . . I’m just no _good_ with this sort of thing. And you’ve been so unhappy, and I couldn’t help with that either, and I’ve wanted to, so badly, but--I’ve _tried_ , with these poems, but I don’t understand what they’re _saying_. I don't understand how they're supposed to help.”

“I didn’t think you read poetry,” Harriet said, feeling very stupid.

“I can’t stand it, honestly.” Hermione looked at her, helplessly. “I’m sorry I’m not better at this.”

Harriet shook her head and leaned her forehead against Hermione’s shoulder, and felt Hermione's cheek press against her hair.

Harriet was no good either, not even with her own feelings. But if she’d had to write a poem just then, she’d write about the letter her mum had left in the jewelry boxes; about Remus’ eyes when Padfoot rested his muzzle on his knee; about Hermione reaching for a wand with a trembling hand in Ollivander’s shop, the day they had met; and she’d wonder what Snape looked like when he was casting the silver doe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit:
> 
> The love poem in Hermione's book is from Khalil Gibran. So is the title of the chapter, which is, in full: 
> 
> Darkness may hide the trees  
> and the flowers from the eyes  
> But it cannot hide  
> Love from the soul.


	87. Measures of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Valentine's feels uncomfortably like a spike through the heart. Tangled threads of affection are knotted together more tightly than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, a million years ago, Fleur swept Hogwarts with Valentine's spirit; Snape started plotting with Dobby; and Harriet, recipient of two mystery gifts, discovered a dead body, saved a Malfoy in distress, and asked Dobby to do something secret for her. (Who will she rescue this time?) 
> 
> This chapter picks up after Snape drops Harriet off at Gryffindor tower. 
> 
> I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG. Work blah blah blah, but really I think I just get super fucking nervous the further I step away from canon. Taking off those training wheels and getting out of my comfort zone - it may result in some flops, but if Asteria can give her crush a Valentine, I can be brave too!
> 
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧♥: ･ﾟ✧♥*: ･ﾟ✧♥･ﾟ to you all

Draco was silent as Severus led them to the dungeons. Severus was grateful, however, it because it let him think of own course of action without having to divide his attention.

He had been foolish, supposing that time was his when it came to Draco. He had put off thinking of the boy, believing Miss Potter the more pressing matter to twist his imagination into dark futures. There was no reason Draco should wait, simply because it was inconvenient for Severus to worry about  _him_  too in the midst of trying to keep Miss Potter out of reach of the Dark Lord.

For a moment Severus allowed himself the comfort of rage and resentment, that Draco should nurse his fancy for Miss Potter against every dictate of common sense. This was not some tragic love story; it was both deadly serious and thoroughly ridiculous; and not for the first time, Severus wished there was a hex to cure someone of adolescent stupidity. How dare Draco compromise Miss Potter's safety  _further_  with his impertinent fucking  _feelings_?

But the rage burnt itself to ash quickly, for the danger to Draco now was great.

As was the danger to Severus himself.

He  _could_  reach out to the boy and tell him to what side he truly belonged, inviting Draco to place his trust in Dumbledore, for Draco was extremely unlikely to trust Dumbledore without any support.

But Severus did not have the luxury of revealing himself. If Draco should decide that sharing the truth of Severus' loyalties would serve him and his family well in the Dark Lord's service—if Draco should even be indiscreet, without malice—then Severus could not protect Miss Potter.

He had made his choice long ago.

Draco hesitated as Severus took a different turn at the corner than should have led to the dorms. "Sir. . .?" He sounded not confused, but wary.

Severus turned to look at him. In the shadows that breathed in the torchlight, Draco was almost someone he had never seen before.

"I did not kill Karkaroff," Severus said quietly.

Draco swallowed and looked away. His fingers flexed as he made fists and then tried to relax his hands.

"I will not force you to come with me," Severus said. "You may return to the dorms if that is what you wish. Or you may follow me. The choice is yours."

He resumed walking toward his quarters and was not sure whether to feel relief when, after a long moment, Draco's footsteps echoed behind his own.

 _Well,_ he thought as Draco looked around his chambers with childish interest,  _now Miss Potter isn't the only invader I've allowed._

He slipped the bottle of Persephone's Kiss out of his pocket and placed it on the fireplace mantel, then gestured for Draco to take a seat.

Draco eyed the bottle as he sat. His hands were clenched in his robes on his knees.

"Who do you think gave that to Potter?" he asked, with a reasonable pass at casualness. Then he added a bit too quickly, "Or—no, you wouldn't have any idea, would you? D'you think it's the real thing?"

"I'll have to test it, won't I?" He rapped on the armchair table next to him. "Hot chocolate."

A tea service popped into being as Draco said, "Hot chocolate? I'm not a child, you know. Sir," he added, a beat later.

"So you've forgot that chocolate has medicinal properties?" Severus asked sardonically, but he summoned a bottle of whiskey that he kept on hand. Never for his personal use; but possessing no alcohol was regarded as an oddity. He added a dash to Draco's cup and handed it over.

"You're not taking any?" Draco asked as Severus sealed the bottle.

"I'm not the one who's had a nasty shock."

"I'm not—" But the boy didn't know how to finish. He took a gulp of chocolate instead, pursing his lips at the taste but taking another drink.

"Surely you don't think there is anything abnormal in being deeply affected by the sight of a murdered corpse?" Severus said flatly. "I assure you, a  _lack_  of reaction would be disturbing."

Draco fidgeted with his cup. "Father says. . ."

Severus waited.  _Yes, what shining display of logic and wisdom has Lucius imparted to you?_

"He said. . . things are coming that. . ." Draco swallowed. He seemed to shrink in his chair, clutching his cup. ". . . and I must be strong."

"And what do you think strength is?"

Draco glanced up at his face, then shrugged. Severus let the sound of the fire popping take the place of their voices.

"You told me. . ." said Draco. "That what happened at the World Cup-that was real."

"It was."

"People are saying. . . in the common room. . ." Draco shivered. "He's coming back. Their parents have said. . . not directly, but they're getting advice like Father gave me. Be strong, wait, be patient, keep your eyes open. . ."

"'Trust no one,'" Severus said quietly. Draco glanced up again, then nodded.

Severus fell back on the old habits that had kept him alive the last time he'd held this position: tell the truth as much as possible, for it was easier to remember.

"I was your age the last time the Dark Lord rose. Many of us were swept into the . . . excitement of the thought of joining a cause bigger, greater than ourselves. He offered us. . . many things we believed we could find nowhere else—things we were denied everywhere else."  _We were desperate, deluded, self-aggrandizing fools, and the Dark Lord cleverer than us all._

"And you joined him," Draco said, trying to hide the anxiety in his voice. "Along with Father." Then he frowned. "What did Father—"

"That is a matter of private record," Severus said, cutting him off, because he was not ready for a frank discussion about Lucius' motives.

"That Skeeter woman alluded to it," Draco said.

"Skeeter alluded to a lot of things," Severus said coldly, and Draco cringed. "I will not say anything that would put you in the position of having to inform against me to. . . anyone."

Draco swallowed and put his cup aside very carefully.

"Do I have a life debt to Potter now?" he asked. "If she really s-saved my life."

Severus wondered what would happen if he said "yes"-what it might lead to; what it might serve or injure. But he couldn't predict anything so uncertain, so he had to go with the truth. "Unlikely. Life debts are shaped by intent and circumstances. We cannot even be certain your life was in danger."

"Do y-you think it was?"

"Yes. If the killer thought you had seen him. It is also likely that this is the same person who threw the Dark Mark into the sky at the Cup and entered Miss Potter in the Tournament."

"W-what? But-how-"

"Karkaroff was a Death Eater. When the Dark Lord returned to power, Karkaroff did not intend to return to him."

"But-why not?"

"Every one of his followers who escaped prison after the Dark Lord's downfall," Severus said coolly, "did so because they made deals or denounced him publicly. His most loyal followers are in prison-such as your Aunt Bellatrix."

"But-if they all went to prison," Draco said, bewildered, "then the murderer has to be someone who stayed out, too, haven't they? Last year, when Black broke out of Azkaban, we all knew-there haven't been any more breakouts, h-have there?"

"If there have been they've kept them extremely quiet. It's possible the Dark Lord has recruited someone new, as he recruited Quirrell."

" _What_?" Draco bleated.

"Quirrell was attempting to help the Dark Lord return to human form. He failed, because of Miss Potter," Severus said, letting no inflection take his voice. "Just as he failed two years ago, when he attempted to take control of the school through an old artefact of his-only to be stopped by Miss Potter again."

"No wonder he wants to k-kill her," Draco said weakly. His skin looked waxen in the ruddy firelight.

Severus said nothing. Draco had seen murder; had sent a Valentine's gift to a girl marked for death by a man to whom his family had sworn allegiance, and of whom, if he had any sense, he was terrified. Perhaps it was best to leave it here.

But his instincts whispered to give it one last push.

"Death follows the Dark Lord," he said, "wherever he goes." He set aside his cup. "I will take you back to the common room."

Draco got up, his movements clumsy. Severus led him from the room and along the corridors; watched him mutter the password to the stones and slink into the common room beyond. Then he returned to his rooms in silence to think.

He would not see Dumbledore again tonight. He did not care who would be notified of Karkaroff's body or what the Durmstrang students (or Hogwarts' own) would be told. He did not care what this would do to the Tournament, to Krum's chances, to the morale of the champions. He cared for the fates of only two children in this school at present, and he had seen them both to safety for the night.

He knew what Dumbledore would say of Draco: keep an eye on him; watch for signs that he would throw in his lot with the Dark Lord; watch for signs that he might be persuaded to remain neutral and seek protection within the Order; but never compromise Severus' own position, his role; never reveal the shifted course of his own allegiance.

Severus leaned against his own door. He felt suddenly, terribly tired and. . . alone. Dumbledore could advise him, but Dumbledore could not feel what he felt. Severus had known Draco all his short life. More than fifteen years ago Narcissa had come to him for help with a potentially lethal spell that would assist her in conceiving a child. He'd agreed, because he trusted her to know what she couldn't live without.

He knew what _he_ could not live without. Should Miss Potter die, even his death would lose all meaning. The fate of the world mattered less than her life. Dumbledore  _cared_ , but he would go on if Miss Potter did not. The Headmaster would continue to fight for the Greater Good, which was worth, to him, more than any single person.

More than any two children.

Severus trudged into his sitting-room, scrubbing a hand across his face. . . and banged into the door-frame in his surprise.

Set up on his little table, in place of the hot chocolate, was-a meal. A basin, containing a thin, steaming porridge, an omelet cooked from egg-whites, garnished with parsley; a bowl of blueberries. Simple fare, the kind of thing that would not upset his stomach.

Dumbledore never sent him meals (he wanted Severus to eat with the others). The house-elves would not dare do what they were not expressly commanded. Someone had ordered this on his behalf. Either someone was hoping to poison him, or. . .

His heart was beating oddly quick and fast for the heaviness of his limbs.

He closed his eyes. "Dobby," he said, tiredly.

After a discreet pop, the house-elf asked, "Professor Snape Sir?"

"This came from Miss Potter."

Dobby was silent. Severus opened his eyes to see Dobby twisting his ears. "Harriet Potter is telling Dobby that Professor Snape Sir does not eat," he said carefully. "She is giving very special instructions-"

"Go," Severus said, closing his eyes again.

Another soft  _pop_  and Dobby was gone. Severus sank into his armchair and lay with his head against the back of the chair for several long moments in the silence, caressed by the gentle noises from the fire.

Then, with a long sigh that drained him to his core, he reached for the spoon and started eating.

Halfway through the basin, an idea struck him with blinding significance.

He let it settle as he finished his dinner; and then, the dishes disappeared, sat thinking as the possibility grew into itself, while the fire burnt to ash.

* * *

Harriet's dreams ran with blood and darkness, like a poisoned river. She woke to a note . . . from Snape.

It crunched under her ear as she rolled over. Rubbing her eyes, she groped on her bedside table for her glasses, pushed them on with a yawn . . . and then sat bolt upright, heat flooding her face.

_Snape had VOLUNTARILY sent her a NOTE._

It was probably ridiculous to be this worked up about it. She hadn't even bloody read it yet.

She straightened her glasses and combed her hair out of her face, trying in vain to tuck it behind her ears, in an effort to pretend like opening the note wasn't  _the most important thing_  she wanted to do right now.

Sod it. She pulled the note open.

_My office after breakfast. Prof. SS_

She couldn't stop the sensation of sinking disappointment, even though she knew it was stupid. What else had she expected him to write? "I hope you're doing well"?

She heard a shuffling step next to her bed. "Harriet?" Hermione whispered.

Shoving the note beneath her blankets, Harriet pulled her hangings aside. "Yeah?"

Hermione's expression mixed relief and worry. "I wasn't sure if you were awake. Are you coming down to breakfast? Ginny says that Professor Dumbledore wants to make an announcement to the school and would like as many to come who are able."

Harriet's heart settled like a rock between her ribs. She knew what that was about, didn't she.

"Yeah," she said tiredly. "Let me get dressed."

Hermione hesitated. "This is about. . . whatever happened last night. Isn't it?"

Harriet shrugged, then nodded.

Hermione was silent as Harriet swung her feet down to the icy floor. Harriet could feel her thoughts churning out of her like sea foam folding over waves.

"Want me to wait for you?" Hermione asked eventually.

"I'll catch you up," said Harriet.

With a hesitant nod, Hermione - already fully dressed - left the dorm. Parvati and Lavender, absorbed in their usual morning routine (applying liquid eyeliner was apparently the absolute devil), were in a world of their own.

Harriet opened her wardrobe and pulled out a pair of jeans. When she reached for a t-shirt, her eyes lingered on the lacy blouse Parvati had once suggested she wear instead of her baggy jumpers.

Annoyed, Harriet dragged a tartan button-down and a woolly jumper off the hangers and banged the wardrobe door shut. But when she went to brush her hair, she found herself staring at Fleur's hair-smoothing potion.

 _Bloody hell, I am losing my bloody mind_ , she said. She was not dressing up to see  _Snape_. It was one thing to feel her heart speed up, beating fast and sticky, because he'd sent her a fucking note; it was another thing to ever think he'd care what she  _looked_  like.

Dragging the brush a few times through her hair, she chucked it back in the drawer and stomped out of the room.

* * *

She forgot to feel annoyed with herself when she reached the Great Hall.

There were more students than she'd ever seen at breakfast on a Saturday morning. The Beauxbatons' lot were there-Fleur waved to her-but the Durmstrang students were absent. Karkaroff's place at the High Table was empty. It would always be empty now.

 _Who's going to judge for him?_  she wondered, but she didn't really care. The Tournament hardly mattered. It _didn't_ matter, except that she'd like for it not to finish her off. She was so far from giving a single fuck anymore if she made a fool of herself in front of everyone.

As she made her way along Gryffindor table to Ron and Hermione, she found her attention pulled to Slytherin like a lodestone. Asteria was watching her anxiously, and smiled a tight, worried smile when Harriet nodded at her.

Then Harriet glanced along the table, looking for a flash of white-blond hair.

But Malfoy wasn't there.

Ron and Hermione had saved her a seat between them. As if Professor Dumbledore had been waiting for her, he stood, and a hush rippled across the hall, like rain falling on the surface of a pond.

"I am glad to see you all here, safe and sound," he said. "I wish that I could bid you good morning, but I must instead bear terrible tidings . . ."

Harriet tuned him out. Instead, she watched Snape.

All the teachers knew what had happened, she could tell by their grim, set expressions. Snape always looked grim, but today he looked like some dark light was shining out of him, radiating from his sallow, waxy skin, tainting the air with something sinister.

As if sensing her attention, Snape focused on her. He did not move anything except his eyes, but they fixed on her like a knife thrown to a target. She felt a shock to her skin as his malicious ferocity settled around her . . . but it was the shock of receiving a blanket when you were cold and had expected to freeze. Snape was always at his most frightening when he was worried or upset.

She knew when Dumbledore told them that Karkaroff was dead, because the hall gasped and cried out. Hermione turned her face sharply to Harriet, and a moment later seized her hand in a fierce grip. Harriet looked away from Snape into Hermione's wide eyes. But she didn't say anything, only continued holding onto Harriet's hand.

Harriet returned to looking at Snape. Now he was staring at the table in front of him.

Dumbledore sat down. The hall bubbled with anxious noises around her.

"Blimey," Ron said in a low voice. "Bloody  _hell_. Karkaroff dead . . . shit."

Harriet pulled a bowl toward of her and tipped some cornflakes in.

"I wouldn't have put it past the Durmstrang lot to murder someone," said a sixth year a few seats down the table, "but to be the  _victim_?"

"No wonder they haven't held the tournament in over a hundred years," said one of his friends. "Bloody vicious sport."

 _After breakfast_ , Snape's note had read. Harriet would finish her cornflakes and then go see him.

Hermione had let go of her hand so they could eat, but she'd inched closer until her leg was pressed against Harriet's. She didn't speak, and neither did Ron. Perhaps he and Hermione had traded a silent look, made a mental agreement to leave their remarks and questions until they were out of the hall. If so, Harriet was grateful. She didn't want everyone knowing she and Malfoy had been the ones to find Karkaroff nailed to a tree.

Her spoon tinged against the bottom of the empty bowl. The cornflakes were gone.

When she pushed her bowl away, Ron and Hermione did likewise. As one, they got up and left the hall.

Harriet glanced at Snape as they walked past the High Table. His eyes followed her like a shadow cast by an eclipse.

Once they were outside the Great Hall, Harriet led the way to the first disused classroom on the corridor and pushed open the door.

"You knew," Hermione said once the door was shut. "You-that's what happened last night, isn't it?"

"What? What happened last night?" Ron asked, looking between them.

"I was the one who . . . found him," Harriet said.

Hermione covered her mouth with her hand. Ron paled beneath his freckles.

"Fucking hell," he said, and Hermione didn't even chide him for his language.

"Oh, Harriet," she whispered, looking like she was about to cry.

"I'm fine," Harriet said.

"Mate," Ron said, while Hermione looked like Harriet had hexed her, " _no one_  would be fine after discovering someone who'd-I bet he wasn't lying there peacefully, either. Those sixth years were right, weren't they? Someone - bumped him off." He clearly couldn't bring himself to say  _murdered_.

Harriet shrugged. "Snape thinks so, yeah."

" _Snape_?" said Ron and Hermione together.

"He found me. It was last night, after I did Fred's valentine. I just . . . found him."

"Harriet - you need to talk to someone," Hermione said.

"Didn't you hear? Snape  _knows_."

"I don't mean you need to tell someone, I mean you need to  _talk_  about it. This - that would have been a horrible experience, I can't even imagine how horrible, and just keeping it to yourself will only make it worse."

There were few things Harriet wanted to talk about less. Ron was rubbing the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable, but he said, "She's right, Harry. Not that I'd really know," he finished, embarrassed; Hermione pressed her lips together, exasperated, but appealed to Harriet with a look.

This was exactly why she hadn't wanted them to know. Thankfully she had an escape plan. "I'm supposed to meet with Snape now, actually. He wanted to see me after breakfast."

"That's . . . good," Hermione said, like she wasn't sure. "We'll wait for you in the library. I-I think I've almost got your solution for the Second Task."

"Right. Thanks," Harriet said. Hermione smiled feebly in reply.

Harriet slipped out of the room, wondering how she'd convince them that she was getting all the help she'd need without having to talk about it with anyone.

* * *

This time, Harriet did not dither outside Snape's office door. She felt a little jump of nervousness in her chest, but that was only because she was about to see him - talk to him. She raised her hand and knocked.

"Enter." His voice came through the wood cold enough to bite.

When she opened the door, he looked up, raising only his eyes at first, so that he gazed at her through the black bars of his hair. Then he tilted his face, the hair falling back, and straightened his posture.

With a cut of his wand, he magicked a chair into being.

"Sit," he said.

She sat. They watched each other. The room was dark and windowless; fire lit to one side of him drew shadows on his face, fathoms deep. His cheekbone, the scimitar curve of his nose, were precipice-sharp.

"Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?" he asked, so abrupt it seared.

Harriet blinked. "No."

He glared at her, as if she was being deliberately unhelpful. She tried not to roll her eyes.

"I'm fine."

"You saw a man  _violently murdered_ ," he said. "Don't insult my intelligence by feeding me that platitudinous pap."

" _Fine_ ," she said, annoyed. _"_ I'm not hurt."

"I am not talking about _physical injuries_ ," he said, and she heard something snap.

She stared at him, horrified-had he  _broken_  something?

Face rigid, he threw a broken quill to the side impatiently, as if it had interrupted him. It fluttered ineffectually to the desk; he ignored it with a rigidity that suggested he was trying very hard not to just set it on fire.

"I am talking about the need to -  _evaluate_." He sounded like Hermione.

"If you want me to see Madam Pomfrey so badly, perhaps you should've written your note to send me there instead of here," Harriet said, nettled.

"Perhaps you _should_  take yourself there," Snape said, viciously annoyed.

This was stupid! "I don't _want_ to go to Madam Pomfrey." She would rather be snapping at Snape and enduring his snarling personality than be  _evaluated_  by Pomfrey or Hermione or anyone.

Then she realized, like the knowledge had been shouted in her ear, that Snape barking at her to see Madam Pomfrey. . . was his way of asking her how she was doing. Well, of  _course it_  was. Hadn't she thought not half an hour ago that being scarier than usual was how he expressed concern?

"I don't know how I'm doing," she said.

The steady drill-press of Snape's eyes faltered and flickered away.

"You've . . . seen dead people, right?"

The fire popped as a log settled; the shadows sluiced across his face, hiding his left eye. "Yes."

"When did you . . . first see someone who was dead?"

"At seventeen."

Harriet hesitated. "What . . . was it like?"

"The situation was completely different." 

Harriet felt an instinct whisper to her, the same one that had shouted in her ear with certainty, that translated Snape into Harriet-speak: an instinct to  _wait . . . wait._

Snape's head dipped, as if he'd taken a sudden weight; but when he spoke, his voice was light - no, hollow. "It was my father."

"Someone _killed_  him?" Harriet said, horrified.

"In a manner of speaking. He was hit by a car." Snape's voice was flat flat flat.

"Shit." Harriet bit her lip. That wasn't an acceptable response, surely? "I'm sorry."

"How is it to be _your_  fault?" he said, voice low yet scathing.

"I'm not apologizing, I'm just saying it's - shite that that happened." She shrugged, then wished she hadn't. She just wasn't any good at this.

"Life is frequently shite." His fingers curled over each other, one hand closing over the other fist.

"Did you see him get hit?" Harriet asked, because Snape had said he'd seen his father  _dead_. She didn't think he meant "in a coffin."

"I was called to the hospital to identify the body."

"Was it . . . hard to believe, at first? Like. . . you didn't believe it had really happened?"

Light reflected off his eyes as he looked back at her. "Yes. Every day for a time I had to remind myself."

Harriet couldn't imagine it. It was strange enough to think that Karkaroff was dead when she'd barely known him.  _Her_  parents were dead, but she couldn't remember any of her life with them, except when spells or Dementors pulled it out of her. She supposed it would be like if Aunt Petunia had died . . . but she hated Aunt Petunia. It might feel odd, but she couldn't imagine being  _sad_.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"You needn't be," Snape said, like she was being thick. She frowned.

"Sure I do. It's your  _dad_."

"This isn't about me," Snape said after a long moment. "It is about you, and how this - circumstance might affect you."

Harriet kicked at the leg of her chair, then made herself stop, because it felt childish. "I don't want to talk to Madam Pomfrey, I barely know her. No one else will understand."

"Draco would. Though," he added with a dash of scorn, "I understand not wanting to have a heartfelt chat with him about it."

"Or about anything," Harriet muttered.

"Well, you can't just. . . bottle it up," Snape said, which Harriet thought was quite rich coming from him, since he was about ten tonnes of repressed  _everything_.

"Who'd you talk to about your dad?"

"I repeat, this isn't about me," he said, the shadows on his face merging into a scowl.

"You had to talk to  _someone_."

"Or perhaps I didn't, and this bitter arsehole in front of you is the result." His scowl deepened, the shadows growing jagged. "Enough. If you wish to discuss Karkaroff's death with me, you may. But we will not be discussing  _myself_  any further."

All right, then. "Why do  _you_  think Karkaroff was murdered?"

Snape looked at her-looked deep down inside her, it felt like. She wouldn't look away. She could beat him at this game. He'd  _told_  her she could ask.

She was so busy trying to out-stare him that she didn't notice he was unbuttoning his sleeve at first. But he was definitely unbuttoning his sleeve, yes. What the bloody hell was he doing? Oh God, now he was holding out his arm, it was Snape's  _arm_ , oh  _shit_ -

It was pale and skinny and ropey and there was something on it-a tattoo? A big, dark tattoo like a skull with a snake. . .

The Dark Mark.

She'd known he had one - Sirius had said Snape had shown them - but she hadn't known what it  _looked_  like. But that was the same symbol, here on Snape's arm, that she'd seen floating in a twisted burst of green and gold in the sky at the World Cup.

"Karkaroff was a Death Eater." Snape's voice drove into her ears like rusted nails. "He sold out too many of his brethren when the Dark Lord fell thirteen years ago. . . he never intended to return when the Dark Lord called. The agent killed him - on orders, or perhaps acting of his own accord. The Dark Lord despises traitors and cowards."

Harriet blinked as the black mark began to disappear. Snape had pushed down his sleeve and was tugging it into place with jerks of his long, thin fingers.

Cold horror clenched in her gut. "Is he going to come after  _you_  next?"

Snape paused in buttoning his sleeve. "I am no coward."

What did that have to do with anything? "But you're not a Death Eater anymore-you changed sides." She saw it then: Snape nailed to a tree, blood on his lips. "What if with Karkaroff taken care of he comes after  _you_  next? What if-"

"You are worrying about the wrong thing entirely," Snape said, looking at her like she was mad.

"Karkaroff was  _nailed to a tree_!" she nearly shouted. "And you just said you don't know why-"

"I am far better able to defend myself than Igor Karkaroff," Snape said, like she was insulting him. "Anyone who tries to murder  _me_  will find himself with more than he bargained for."

"Yeah, except you don't know who it is," Harriet snapped.

"I am suspicious and paranoid to trust no one."

"It could be me, for all you know!"

If he hadn't been Snape, Harriet was sure he'd have rolled his eyes. "Don't be absurd."

"They could Polyjuice into me," she argued.

"I would still be quite aware that it wasn't you," he said impatiently. " _You_  should be on guard against tricks-what if someone had disposed of me and taken my place?"

Harriet was certain that no one be as Snape as  _Snape_ , but she didn't think she should point that out. "Fine. We should have a secret code."

"A ' _secret code_ ,'" he said in a tone that told her what he thought of that.

"Yeah, you know," Harriet said with a pointed look that told  _him_  what she thought of that tone. "Something we can say to each other so we know it's really us."

"I know what a secret code is, Miss Potter."

"Then you should agree it's a good idea."

Snape stared at her, flat as a knife blade, and then rubbed a hand over his forehead. Harriet got the impression that he was trying not to bury his face in his hands.

"I'll think of one," she said, "and let you know."

". . . Fine," Snape muttered. "You do that."

"Thanks, I will."

Snape rubbed at his forehead a moment longer, then dropped his hand. "That's not what I wished to talk to you about." His eyes narrowed. "Asteria Greengrass."

"What? Is she okay?" Harriet asked, alarmed.

"She is fine - well." Snape was glaring now. "Thanks, in large part, to your . . . efforts."

He said it like Harriet had pushed her down a flight of stairs and broken her leg. Harriet suspected that this might be a compliment, or praise. She blinked several times.

"Okay," she said.

"You seem to have a  _talent_  for this sort of thing," said Snape, like he might have said Harriet had a talent for tormenting small, fluffy animals. "I want you to consider doing it again."

"Doing what again? Asteria and me are already friends," Harriet said, bewildered.

"Not Asteria; keep being  _friends_  with her, by all means," Snape said, like friends were nothing good but he washed his hands of it. "I'm talking about reaching out to other members of her house."

"You want me to be friends with Slytherins," Harriet said. She couldn't really be hearing this. Snape couldn't be asking her to start a Harriet-Slytherin friendship club.

"Nothing so puerile." Harriet didn't know what 'puerile' meant, and Snape's tone was so at-odds with the conversation that she couldn't tell if it was really something bad or not. She'd have to ask Hermione. "But Mister Malfoy is now the only other student we know of who has witnessed a murder, or near enough."

"I don't want to be friends with Malfoy," Harriet said, horrified.

"I'm not asking you to be. I'm asking that you - " Snape made a faint noise, like he was frustrated. "Mister Malfoy probably sent you this." He reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out the pink bottle of Valentine's poison. Harriet stared at in horror. Knowing it was poison was nothing next to learning it came from  _Malfoy_. She'd been entertaining the thought of keeping it, but not if it had Malfoy cooties.

"What?" she bleated.

Snape put the bottle back in his desk and snapped the door shut.

"Forget Malfoy," he said. "It's the reason he sent it to you that I wish to discuss."

Please, please let them not about to be talking about the fact that Malfoy  _fancied_  her. Harriet would drink the whole bottle of poison if he brought that up.

"You are not to repeat any of this to anyone," Snape said. "Not even Miss Granger. If you wish to discuss it, you will talk  _to me_."

"Okay," she said immediately.

Snape narrowed his eyes at her, like he suspected her of lying. He clenched his hands on the desk, then slowly uncurled them, laying them flat, then folding them over.

"The air in Slytherin now is . . . tense."

Harriet remembered Asteria saying the same - her sister wanting them to move to a faraway family castle in Switzerland to get away from everything.

"Slytherin is a house that looks after its own." Snape wasn't looking at Harriet; his gaze was flickering around his office. "We do not deal well with . . . lapses in unity. The Dark Lord knows this. He exploited it before. He will do so again."

Harriet had no idea what he was driving at. As if sensing her confusion, Snape glared at her like she'd failed to answer a question about hellebore.

"Okay," she said.  _And?_

Snape's hands clenched again. " _You_  could do for the others . . . what you did for Asteria Greengrass."

"Be friends?" Harriet said. "No, wait, you already said that's pwerile - "

"They need support that does not come from within. Support whose loyalties they do not doubt. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Slytherin supports the Dark Lord because-" He stopped, breathing sharply in, and then pressed his fingers over his eyes.

"Asteria said something about that," Harriet said warily. Asteria hadn't exactly, but she'd made it clear something bad was going on. And if Malfoy was sending Harriet fancy poison . . . Well, setting aside that it was a  _Valentine's gift_  from  _Malfoy_ , it was almost considerate. A warning, kind of.  _Look after yourself._

"But . . . what am I supposed to do?" she asked Snape, who hadn't taken his hand away from his face.

"You were better able to assist Asteria on your own merits than from anything I could provide _. Think_  about it." He jerked his head toward the door. "You may go."

Wait, what? "You haven't explained anything!"

"Just because I haven't given you a detailed chart doesn't mean I haven't been quite clear," he said, very snottily in her opinion.

"Right," she said, "except you  _haven't_  been clear."

"It's hardly my fault if you weren't paying close enough attention to catch my meaning."

Of all the bloody  _gits_. "Maybe I'll just ask Asteria," she shot back. "Or Malfoy. They'd probably be as much _help_." She hoped 'help' sounded as sarcastic as she'd meant it to.

"A  _stupendous_  idea," Snape said, with mint-condition sarcasm.

Harriet placed her palms flat on the arms of her chair and stood with as much dignity as she could muster. Snape did not seem impressed, nor did he change his mind and ask her to please take a seat again, he'd explain  _clearly_  this time.

She found some more dignity, laced it with righteous annoyance, and left before she could call him any of the names on the tip of her tongue.

* * *

Miss Potter was gone, but Severus still felt jittery and off-kilter.

"Well,  _that_  was a spectacular failure," he hissed.

If he came apart like this when he met the Dark Lord, he'd be dead even if the Dark Lord was mad enough to spare him.

He'd not anticipated a simple fucking conversation would go so awry. It should not have been so difficult to say what he'd planned to a person with such ridiculous hair.

But that was the way things always went with Miss Potter.

(She hadn't slept well. He could tell.)

He'd told her the truth about his father. He'd thought about lying, but as with Draco, he'd fallen back on the habits that had kept him alive fourteen years ago. He never talked about his father, but in response to Miss Potter's subdued question, he'd been unable to think of a justification for lying. Besides, though Miss Potter was secretive, she could sometimes be induced to  _trade_  secrets. And what did the story of his father's death matter, really? He could easily barter something so useless.

He should have remembered that she always came at him with more questions. (What did it matter whom  _he_ 'd talked to?) He had not, in fact, talked to anyone, but he had better sense than to say as much to Miss Potter. But there'd been no  _reason_  for him to talk to anyone. He'd been an adult by wizarding law; he hadn't actually seen it happen; it hadn't been a murder committed by someone out to get him. The circumstances were entirely different, if only Miss Potter could be kept on track.

He'd really bungled that conversation about Slytherin. Last night the idea had seemed so tidy in his head. He'd have to try again. Perhaps in letter form.

(Maybe he  _was_  a coward.)

"A  _secret code_ ," he muttered.

Miss Potter worried about  _entirely_  the wrong fucking things. He could look after himself. He'd been doing it longer than she'd been alive. She could stop sending him meals and fussing that he would be taken in by a Polyjuiced assassin. The Dark Lord's hired sadist couldn't possibly project that air of an indignant hedgehog.

She ought to bloody well start worrying about herself.

The house-elf had orders to keep tailing her. He'd be reporting back late that night.

Until then, Severus had work to do.

* * *

Harriet stalked down the dungeon corridor cursing Snape, first for being an enigmatic git; and secondly for forbidding her from talking to Hermione about his enigmatic git plan. Hermione  _might_  have been able straighten it out.

She was fairly sure he'd asked her to befriend the entirety of Slytherin, except that was an absolutely  _mad_  git plan. Maybe he  _was_  an impostor. She needed to come up with that secret code right away, and it needed to include things that only  _Snape_  would know.

At least she hadn't been forced to talk much about her feelings.  _And_  Snape had even  _volunteered_  information about himself.

. . . Okay, she was definitely getting worried that that hadn't been Snape.

Making a firm decision, she swung into a nearby empty classroom and shut the door. The metallic echo added a layer of creepy-ness, but fewer people came down to the dungeons, and she didn't want to be overheard.

"Dobby?" she called quietly.

With a 'pop,' Dobby appeared in front of her, beaming. "Harriet Potter!"

"Hi, Dobby. Doing all right?"

"Dobby is always well, Harriet Potter," he said happily. Harriet figured he'd say that even if his arm was falling off. Snape was like that, only he'd tell you off for asking.

"Did Snape eat the food?" she asked, bracing herself to hear that he'd thrown it in the fire and told all the house-elves never to bring him anything to eat ever again.

"Professor Snape ate everything, Harriet Potter."

Harriet blinked. "He  _what_?"

"Professor Snape ate everything, Harriet Potter," Dobby repeated happily.

"I. . . that's—good," Harriet said, stunned. "Fantastic. Thanks. Listen. . . how much work do you have to do?"

Dobby looked blank, but then his expression cleared. "Does Harriet Potter need Dobby's help? Dobby will do anything for Harriet Potter!"

That's what she'd been both hoping for and afraid of. This was something she  _definitely_  wouldn't be telling Hermione about.

"Can you keep an eye on Snape for me? Tell me . . . how he's doing." She could tell Dobby, but she dropped her voice. "I'm worried someone's going to try to kill him."  _And that he'll kill_ himself _if he's not careful_ , she thought sourly.

The prospect of being tasked with following Snape around seemed to make Dobby feel like he'd been knighted. "Dobby will keep Professor Snape safe, as Harriet Potter asks," he whispered fervently.

"Only don't put yourself in danger," Harriet said sternly, remembering what he'd sworn last year. "You remember that, right?"

He nodded, ears flapping. "Dobby will be careful, Harriet Potter."

"Thanks." She bit her lip, feeling guilty at putting him to an extra task, yet certain it was necessary that  _someone_  look out for Snape, since he clearly had no idea how to look after himself. "Do you think he'd eat again if you brought him something?"

"Dobby will try, Harriet Potter," he promised.

"Thanks. I mean it. It's. . . it means a lot to me, to have your help," she said, meaning it wholeheartedly and wishing it didn't sound so feeble.

But it was enough for Dobby; joy and pride radiating from him, he tried to speak, but couldn't find his voice. With a low bow, he disappeared with a soft  _pop_ , leaving her alone in the dark classroom that crawled with shadows.

She . . . had a bad feeling. She'd thought it would go away when she asked Dobby for help, but if anything the shadow of the feeling had darkened, like the black mark on Snape's pallid arm in the firelight. Though it was terrible, Harriet wished there was a way she could ask Dumbledore for Dobby to stop working for Hogwarts and shadow Snape always.

Pushing up her glasses, she scrubbed at her face. Then she sighed and got to her feet, and pulled open the door.

A scuffling sound down the corridor made her heart drop into her stomach.  _Shit_. She'd thought about being overheard upstairs, but she'd bloody well fucking forgot that there were Slytherins down here.

Well, she'd have to deal with it, wouldn't she? Find out, if they'd heard,  _what_  they'd heard.

She marched toward the scuffle, and almost staggered with shock when she rounded the corner and saw Asteria and Malfoy springing apart.

"I wasn't doing anything!" Malfoy said, as if Harriet had just accused him of throwing kittens off the astronomy tower.

Just as surprising as Asteria talking to anyone, let alone Malfoy, was his appearance. Harriet had never seen his hair so . . . normal-teenage-boy-looking. He hadn't even slicked it back as usual. In fact, she had a sneaking suspicion that he hadn't slept.

"What  _are_  you doing?" she said, utterly baffled.

"H-he was spying!" Asteria squeaked, pointing a trembling finger down the hall.

"I was not!" Malfoy said, flushing. "And if I  _was_ , it's only because Potter has no business being down here."

"Oh, and it's yours?" Harriet might not be able to out-sarcasm Snape, but she could handle Malfoy. "I forgot, you own the entire dungeons, do you?"

Malfoy sneered at her, a piece of hair falling in his eye. "And if you saw me wandering about near Gryffindor, you'd think I was just out for a little walk, then?"

" _You_ , no way," Harriet said. "Asteria, absolutely." (Asteria went so red the corridor brightened.) "You okay?" Harriet asked her.

" _She_  attacked  _me_!" Malfoy said.

"Good for her," Harriet retorted. "You can have your creepy dungeon back, Malfoy, I'm off. Coming?" she asked Asteria, who nodded rapidly.

"Just a  _minute_ ," Malfoy followed them, the git, despite an actual glare from Asteria. "What  _were_  you doing in there Potter? I heard you talking to someone!"

"A mystery, isn't it?" said Harriet, heart kicking her ribs. "Too bad they got away while I was talking to you. It's like I created a successful diversion."

Malfoy's glare was more sulky than impressive. "I'll find out, Potter."

"If you're that desperate for something to do," Harriet said.

They'd come to the dungeon stairs by that point, and praise the gods Malfoy didn't follow them farther. Harriet waited till she and Asteria were several flights up on their way to the library before she asked, "What  _was_  he doing?"

"Listening at the door," said Asteria, still blushing.

Harriet stopped dead, her stomach bottoming out for a second time in too short a time. "Not the door to Snape's office."

"Is that why you were down there?" Asteria asked curiously. "No, the door to that classroom. I—I was coming down from breakfast and I saw you ducking into the room, and then D-raco coming up from the other end of the hall and stopping at the door. I t-told him to let you alone, and he told me to go away, so I went to knock on the door and he panicked and ran, but he only went down the corridor to hide, I saw when I went down that way, and then we started quarreling because it was none of his business following you about."

She said it all in one great rush that had Harriet feeling a great swell of pride.

"So you told Malfoy off?" she said, grinning. "Good for you."

Asteria's blush refilled itself from chin to hairline. Harriet wondered if it passed down to her toes.

"Listen . . ." she said, then, glancing around, grabbed Asteria's hand and towed her into a nearby empty classroom. Today was the day for conspiring in empty classrooms, apparently.

"What you said a while back—when we were getting lunch for everyone, the first day of the Valentine's club," she said. "After—what happened to Karkaroff . . . did anything change? Get . . . worse?"

Asteria bit her lip. What Snape said about Slytherin looking after its own echoed in Harriet's memory.

"I'm not looking to tell on anyone," Harriet said. "I'm just . . ."

Oh, bloody hell, why had Snape given her this assignment?  _He_  was the spy, not her.

 _He doesn't want you to spy,_  whispered her Inner Hermione.  _He wants you to look out for them, the way you looked out for Asteria. He wanted you to help her because he couldn't._

"I'm worried," Harriet said quietly. "Because something bad is coming, and we . . . you and me and the people in your house . . . we  _know_."

Asteria's eyes glistened, and she bowed her head, yellow hair hiding her face. She didn't say anything.

Harriet hesitated, then put a hand on Asteria's shoulder. She squeezed once, then dropped her hand and said, "I'm going to meet Ron and Hermione in the library. Want to come?"

"That's all right," Asteria said, her voice almost a whisper. "You've. . . you've got the second task to prepare for. I. . . won't hold you up."

Then she surged forward. Harriet put up a hand to catch her-was she fainting?-

And Asteria planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Be s-safe!" Asteria squeaked, her face somewhere far beyond scarlet, and dashed out of the room, almost bowling over a pair of passing Hufflepuffs.

Harriet was left blinking after her, hand still stretched out in the air.

". . . Eh?" she said.

* * *

Draco went back to the common room and curled up in a chair far away from everyone else. People were clumped together in their usual patterns: friends, drawing together because they were scared. But Draco didn't really have friends, so he was alone.

He would've thought he'd have to fight Pansy off, but she wasn't there. Odd; he hadn't thought Pansy had any friends either. He was fairly sure that the other girls only put up with her because they had to. Maybe Daphne was off looking for her sister-what was her name again? Astoria?

He still couldn't believe she'd come over like that. Wasn't she supposed to cry all the time and never talk to anyone? But suddenly she'd been red in the face and hissing at him to  _s-stop spying on Harriet_. It had been like a butterfly suddenly going vicious.

It was Potter, that's what: hanging around with Potter made people insufferable. And to think he'd been worrying, and sent that potion out of, well, because of—something or other. People were talking about the Dark Lord coming back, and his father was acting odd, and his mother was writing him letters every other day, and it was, well, not  _scary_ , because he wasn't a  _child_ , but it demanded caution, is what. And there was Potter, stomping around without a clue, letting strange dogs sleep under her bed and hobnobbing with those French witches, like they weren't her  _rivals_  for glory, and Granger was snogging Krum and didn't they have  _any_  sense of self-preservation?

But of  _course_  they didn't, they were Gryffindors, and Potter was the most Gryffindor of the lot. The only  _decent_  thing to do with a person like that was to put them on their guard.

Not that Potter appreciated it.

(Did she see Karkaroff when she closed her eyes, the blood staining the corner of his mouth)

He tried imagining a Potter who was not sarcastic all the time, and who didn't have such atrocious hair, and didn't swan about with Granger like she couldn't be torched by a dragon (or nailed to a) if she flew around its head. Perhaps a Potter who actually  _listened_  when you tried to say something to her, and who didn't dress like a shrunken old man. A Potter who wore nice-looking robes and painted her eyes up like that night at the ball, and wore jewelry that hid drops of Persephone's Kiss.

Except this well-dressed, self-preserving Potter kept complaining that she was going to ruin these robes when she had to do her dangerous second task, whatever that was, and she didn't have  _time_  for this because she had to teach the Hufflepuffs how to stand up for themselves, and she gave the Persephone's Kiss potion to Daphne's sister instead because she never wore jewelry anyway, she'd just lose it when outflew her next dragon.

Even in his  _head_  Potter wouldn't cooperate.

He  _would_  find out what she'd been doing in the dungeons. Somehow or other.

"Draco?"

Daphne was standing next to his chair, twisting her hands together. He hoped  _she_  didn't start hanging round with Potter, or she'd start yelling at him too.

"Have you seen Asteria?"

"Out in the hall," he muttered. "Went off with Potter."

" _Potter_?" Daphne's voice climbed; a couple of people looked round, but Daphne didn't notice. The look on her face was—

"They're friends, aren't they," he said, a funny feeling in his stomach, with her looking like that.

"Oh yes, a  _fine_  friend who—" She stopped, raising her head quickly, and cried, "Aster!"

Her sister had come into the common room, looking like she'd been hit with some stunning hex. She jumped on hearing her name shouted.

"You were with Potter?" Daphne cried, striding toward her. Oh, great, this was going to be a bloody scene. Draco was already sorry he'd mentioned it.

Asteria ( _that_  was it; not Astoria) looked like she wanted to run back out of the common room, but her chin came up. Potter did that sometimes.

"S-so what if I was?" Asteria said. (Potter was going to have to work on her challenging tone.)

"She's dangerous, Aster! Did you not  _hear_  Dumbledore at breakfast? People are  _dying_ —"

"That isn't Harriet's fault!"

The entire common room was listening now. Draco saw Tracey pushing her way through the listening people, making for Daphne, who didn't seem to realize, or at least didn't care, that their fight was now the center of attention.

"It might as well be her fault!" Daphne cried. "People are going to die  _because_  of her! I don't want you having anything to do with her!"

 _Death follows the Dark Lord_ , Snape's voice echoed in Draco's head,  _wherever he goes_.

Draco swallowed.

Asteria clenched her jaw; he could see it from his chair. "It's n-not your decision."

"Do you want to endanger yourself?" Daphne demanded. "Endanger  _me_? Our family? That's what  _happens_  when you get close to people like her!"

There was some muttering in the watching circle, just as Tracey reached them. Asteria's eyes darted around the crowd as Tracey grabbed Daphne's arm.

"Let me go!" Daphne said, but Tracey jerked her close and hissed something at her. Asteria pushed past them and ran around the edge of the crowd, almost tripping over Draco's feet, but she didn't seem to see him. She disappeared into the corridor that led to the girl's dorms as Tracey dragged Daphne off in the other direction, out of the common room, though Daphne fought her all the way.

The wall scraped shut behind them, leaving a thoughtful, dangerous silence. Everyone was probably thinking what Draco was: how right was Daphne? How dangerous  _was_  Potter?

But what Snape had said to him last night came back again: Potter had stopped the Dark Lord three times.

Potter was the only one who'd ever stopped him.


	88. The Come and Go Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recap of Ch 87: After Karkaroff's murder on Valentine's Day, Harriet received an awkward attempt at help from Snape, who spoiled the identity of her gift-giver, told her to start a Harriet-Slytherin Friendship Club, and kicked her out of his office when his feelings became too much to handle. Harriet, wise beyond her years, asked Dobby to keep an eye on Snape and make sure he doesn't drive himself into an early grave. 
> 
> Now the Second Task is coming up fast and gillyweed is on Harriet's list, but Snape has found something else to worry his steel-trap heart. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An... update?? IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
> 
> This chapter was beta-read by the wonderful sageandginger, who persists in helping me out despite my codgerly gremlin ways ♥ I added a few bits after they gave this chapter the helpful eye, so any problems are the property of me.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who is still here! ♥

In the week following Valentine's, Harriet, Hermione and Ron had taken to "studying" for the Second Task in the Gryffindor common room, where they were sure not to be overheard. Gryffindors tended towards noise, especially in late winter when Fred and George had no Quidditch practice to siphon off their excess energy. (Also, N.E.W.T.-level Ravenclaws had orchestrated a takeover of the library, and Harriet suspected Snape would consider it a foolhardy death-wish to get in their way.)

On Sunday night, less than week from the Second Task, Hermione gave a bleat of excitement and slammed her book down in front of Harriet, almost crushing her fingers.

"Gillyweed?" said Harriet, wrinkling her nose. The illustration in the book looked like a bunch of slimy rat tails.

"You're supposed to _eat_ that?" said Ron in horror, as Fred and George's Charmed Quaffle went sailing over their heads.

"It will help you breathe underwater," Hermione said excitedly.

"I'd rather eat Percy's old socks," Ron said.

'Growing gills and forming flippers,' Harriet read in the description, 'for the duration of one hour.'

"Hermione, this is amazing," she said. Hermione beamed.

"Well, I. . . had help," she muttered, her eyes darting to her potions notes, which were stuffed underneath her stack of books. Ron, clearly assuming she meant himself, turned pink. Hermione didn't notice, and Harriet pretended not to.

(What call did Snape have to turn his beaky nose up at secret codes? He should be right on board with them, considering what he'd been leaving in his bloody school assignments all term.)

"So all we have to do is get some gillyweed," she said. "I can't believe it's just. . . that."

"Well, it doesn't grow in the greenhouses—it grows in water, and Professor Sprout doesn't keep many tanks—and it's not native to Scotland," Hermione said, "so we can't harvest it. I've checked the school stores, and it's not there, either. Which means, erm. . ." She looked embarrassed.

"We have to steal it from _Snape_?" Ron's voice dropped to an appalled half-whisper. He would've been barely audible beneath all the cheers and boos from the Quidditch crowd, except for Harriet feeling like her whole body was unnaturally attuned to the sound of Snape's name.

"Bloody hell," Ron said. "I'd rather face a dragon."

Of _course_ they'd have to get it from Snape. He was probably growing a tank of it. If Harriet—well, Hermione—hadn't figured it out, he'd have probably force fed it to her on the morning of the second task. Harriet wanted to laugh hysterically and then bang her head against something.

She settled for saying, "I'll get it."

Hermione bit her lip but didn't object.

"Right, mate," said Ron. "I forgot—you already faced the dragon."

* * *

 

Harriet got ready for bed that Sunday night turning the problem over in her mind. Knowing Snape as she did, she was quite sure she could march right up to him and demand enough gillyweed to get her through the task, and after a half hour of sniping and rubbing it in that _he_ 'd thought ahead, he would weigh down her pockets with more than she'd be able to eat in a lifetime.

But—she scowled at her reflection as she scrubbed at her teeth—she didn't want to just _ask_ him and have him hand it to her. If she'd waited till the day before the Task, he'd probably have snabbled her in the hall and told her exactly what was coming, the way he'd tried to take out the dragons. Snape wasn't a passive bloke – certainly not when it came to keeping Harriet from dying.

But she hadn't solved any of the Tasks' clues on her own. Snape had told her about the dragons; Moody had told her how to get around them. Hermione had figured out the egg clue, as well as the code hidden in Snape's notes.

Harriet spat in the sink with a feeling of bitter frustration, because she hadn't done a _thing_ so far.

Snape, she thought as she wiped her mouth with a flannel, would no doubt waspishly point out that she was four years behind everyone else, stop being an idiot, hadn't he declared it his grim purpose to help her cheat her way through? But Harriet knew something else: the others had been chosen above all competitors. The Goblet had _only_ had her to choose from. She wasn't fit to be in the tournament at all.

She wanted to do _something_. Just to show she could.

So . . . she dropped her toothbrush into its cup . . . she had to figure out how to steal gillyweed from Snape.

* * *

 

Monday morning came dawned the grim knowledge that time was disappearing fast. The task was on _Friday_. Hermione was leaving Wednesday night to be with her parents when her mum had the baby; even if Harriet needed her help, she wouldn't be there to give it. So this week had to be all about Operation Gillyweed.

This translated to a lot of spacing out in class, which made Hermione fret—until she realized that Ron was doggedly taking notes in Harriet's place. Then, Hermione was so stunned that she forgot to worry, and may have experienced some paying-attention-issues of her own.

First order, Harriet decided while Ron scribbled at her elbow during Charms: she had to divine where Snape would keep the gillyweed. Knowing Snape and what he wanted it for, he'd probably keep it in more than once place. But the most likely of them was his personal storeroom, which was located in his office.

So that left only the problem of how to break into the office of the most paranoid git in Hogwarts. Not in Hogwarts' _history_ , because there'd been Salazar himself with his giant monster snake and his Chamber of Secrets, as well as whoever built the oubliette and the corridors that ended in sudden drops into an underground river, and the Bridge to Nowhere. But Snape knew about all those places, from all his prowling around underground for all those years. She wondered, for a moment, with a sharp sense of interest, what a Marauders Map made by Snape would look like—if it would help you navigate all those secret twists and traps, or if it would lead you straight into them. Her dad's map spread like ink running through water; Snape's version would unfold like a spiky web.

" _Harriet_ ," Hermione hissed, so that Professor Flitwick, who was speaking to Parvati only two desks away, wouldn't hear, "we're supposed to be practicing the _Divindus_ Charm!"

Harriet had no idea what the Divindus Charm even did. She tried to focus on Ron pointing his wand at a pincushion shaped like a tomato and saying, " _Divindus_!"

The pincushion shot backwards off the desk like a cannonball and smacked Seamus on the nose. Harriet suspected this wasn't the aim of Divindus, especially when Hermione put her hands over her face and Professor Flitwick bore down on their table with a long-suffering expression.

Harriet let her thoughts drift as Flitwick lectured Ron, who stood sheepishly silent. She could have someone—Hermione would be best, if she could nerve up—create a diversion during class so that Harriet could sneak into his office. . . But no; Snape kept such a paranoid eye on her that he'd surely notice if she was trying to leave his classroom. Harriet supposed _she_ could create the diversion while _Hermione_ sneaked in to steal the gillyweed. . . but she wanted to get it herself.

"Very good, Miss Granger!" she heard Flitwick say. "That, you see, Mr. Weasley, is the _proper_ application of Divindus. You are not a baboon brandishing a stick!"

So, not during Potions class, then. But Snape spent so much time in his office; Harriet was quite sure he only went up to meals to make sure no one slaughtered her in the Great Hall during pudding. She could go late at night. . . but if Snape found out she'd been sneaking around in her Cloak with a murderer on the loose, he'd probably stick her in that oubliette.

She scowled. She _could_ take care of herself. She'd been doing it all her life. It was nice when people looked out for her, but they didn't always, and even when they tried, they couldn't turn the danger into mist and banish it. Snape was the most realistic and at the same time the most impossible of them. He'd been a spy, so he probably knew better than anyone how Voldemort thought; but he'd see a threat if the salt cellar tipped over, and he thought Harriet was courting danger just by getting out of bed in the morning. No, scratch that; he'd probably see danger in her sleeping without her wand in hand and booby traps around her bed.

" _Ron_!" Hermione said, exasperated, as Ron turned his pincushion into a short, squat cactus. "That's _Transfiguration_. . ."

Harriet wanted Snape to be impressed, to see that she _could_ do something on her own without being (as he no doubt saw it) bloody cavalier with her own safety. Breaking into his office at night would only instigate a meltdown. She could forget all her rights to a secret code after that.

 _Dobby_ , she remembered, blinking. She could ask Dobby to help her. . .

Only that would be like everything else she'd done: let the others do the tricky work because she was only good at flying. Snape probably would approve of using Dobby as a resource (it was hard to tell with Snape, even if he was employing Dobby himself), but she wanted to do it _herself_.

"Harriet." Hermione waved a chicken-shaped pincushion in front of Harriet's eyes, setting it down on the desk in front of her. "You need to do something with this or Professor Flitwick is going to hold you back after class. Do you need my notes? Or Ron's. . ."

"No, it's fine," Harriet said automatically, even though she still had no idea what she was supposed to be doing to the poor pincushion. The chicken's black bead eyes stared over her head.

And then, as she was pointing her wand at the soft little chicken-shaped thing, it came to her. She'd have to test it to make sure but. . . she thought it would.

She smiled, and then grinned wide.

"Let us see it then, Miss Potter," said Flitwick encouragingly.

"Er," said Harriet.

* * *

 

Ron offered to do the extra work Harriet had got from Flitwick.

"You'll do her homework?" Hermione said, not disapprovingly or disbelievingly, but (Harriet was sure) with a suggestion of little hearts in her eyes.

"I get Divindus," Ron said. "I was causing a distraction, you know. So Flitwick wouldn't notice Harriet had other things on."

Hermione looked rather stunned, and the hearts-in-eyes factor increased. Harriet wondered if all those private study sessions had resulted in better study habits for Ron, like osmosis, through snogging (if they _were_ snogging), or if this was his way of trying to impress Hermione. She had to admit, it was a good strategy. She'd tried it on Snape and it hadn't worked, but Ron seemed to be having better luck.

"It was a great strategy," Harriet said. "Too bad I mucked it up. I've got an idea of how to get that gillyweed, though."

"Already?" said Hermione. Her expression was a tug-of-war between impressed and apprehensive. "It doesn't involve detonating anything in Potions, does it?"

"No," said Harriet, choosing, for Hermione's sake, not to mention that this had been an early-stage plan. "I think it's quite safe."

"Right," said Ron. "Facing the dragon. Safe as houses."

* * *

 

Severus had not even attempted to put any food on his plate. He hunched at the table, probably resembling an uglier-than-usual vulture, guarding a goblet of water and keeping half an eye on the girl at Gryffindor table.

The task was on Friday. If he were honest, he was not nearly as worried about this one. A swim in a lake was no fucking dragon. The mermaids understood the terms and wouldn't harm the students; Granger had been beavering away for weeks, and a few night-time trips to break into Pince's check-out logs revealed that Granger had clearly picked up on his clues. If Harriet didn't have the sense to ask him for gillyweed, he'd hunt her down and force a tankful on her.

No, it wasn't the task itself making it impossible to hold anything but water tonight; it was the Dark Lord.

The Mark was prickling.

It had begun in the night, stirring him from a ragged sleep.

" _Have you felt this before, Severus?_ " Dumbledore had asked, calm in his night-shirt and dressing gown, a long track of carpet scorched from Severus' eruption from the fireplace, as Severus sagged against his chair, his arm flung across Dumbledore's knees, while the old man gently held his forearm and looked at the black, prickling skull and twining snake, so loathsome and terrifying for what it spelled growing against that child sleeping only a tower away.

" _His power was at its peak when he marked me. This. . . is a return_."

If only he had some insight - if only he had made himself part of the Dark Lord's band of trusted pre-conspirators. He was enough of a pathetic shit for it, if only the Dark Lord knew. Quirrell, Wormtail, and whatever crazed soul he'd recruited to enter Harriet into this fucking Tournament, who'd murdered Karkaroff with such abandon - wizards with nowhere to go, with nothing but their lives, who had committed sins so horrific, they would rather squander the last scraps of their being to raise the Dark Lord again than repent.

If only Severus were in a position to finish him before he rose.

" _It is not your role,_ " Dumbledore had said, over and over. _"Were you to begin inquiries now, Severus, you would only place yourself in mortal danger. Your role is to make him believe you are his spy, that you have been waiting for the exact moment to return to him. We both know that each Death Eater who bears the Mark has a special use to Tom. Yours, this time, will be the weakness in my defenses. We cannot play our hand too early, Severus. I know how you loathe it, but we must wait._ "

The waiting reminded him too much of the weeks before Hallowe'en, thirteen years ago, when he had gone to Dumbledore and _waited_ to see Lily safe.

He could not bear to wait again, for nothing.

* * *

 

Ron and Hermione wanted to run reconnaissance on Snape, but Harriet overruled them.

"You've got no way to contact me," she said. "And we haven't got time to set something up."

Still, Hermione and Ron opted to stay in the Great Hall and monitor Snape at dinner, with some idea to waylaying and distracting him. _Your funeral,_ Harriet thought.

Snape pretended to be absorbed in his goblet as Harriet left, but she wasn't fooled.

Harriet paced in front of the blank stretch of wall opposite the tapestry of the dancing trolls, thinking, _I need to get into Snape's private store-room_ , on a loop, hoping it would work.

When a door materialized out of the stone, she jumped twice in triumph. Behind the door, as plain as if it hid a broom closet, was a dusty little alcove, empty and dim but not entirely dark. Light was coming from a short square set into the wall.

The outline formed a door.

Slipping inside the alcove, she pulled the door to the corridor shut, then crouched down and ran her fingers along the light line until she found the catch that opened the little door. With a click she swung it inward an inch, straining to hear any sound beyond.

Nothing but a dusty silence.

She swung the door toward her and peered around the edge. In front of her face was a barrel, too heavy to shift with her hands. She shouldered it aside; it scraped across the stones and she froze, ears pricked. But the silence stayed thick and peaceful.

She broke it again, leaning into the barrel until she could squirm past it.

Then she was out in the storeroom, at the foot of Snape's dim shelves of vials and jars and boxes rising to the dark ceiling.

Bilious light glowed within the shelves, backlighting the jars and grisly things suspended in them. She wondered if Snape actually liked this lighting scheme or if it was simply part of his menacing image.

Muttering, " _Lumos_ ," she held up her wand and peered at the labels on the jars at eye-level. Snape's spiky handwriting either abbreviated everything or indicated a language composed mostly of consonants. And whatever his filing system was, it was more complicated than alphabetical. Most disobliging of him to organize his private storeroom in a personal way and label everything so that only he could understand. It was like he didn't want anyone sneaking in here and being able to find anything.

She climbed the ladder that rolled around a track on a bar at the top of the shelves, aiming her wand-light at any jars she saw, rather than at Snape's incomprehensible labels. No tanks were in evidence, but maybe, just maybe in this lighting, she could make out what looked like slimy floating rat-tails.

She was squinting at a jar with something lumpy inside when she became aware of a change in the air. It wasn't something she could hear; it was a feeling, like the silence had thickened because you were sharing it with someone else.

Her nose was practically touching the jar. Her left arm was twisted around the ladder, holding her lit wand so she could read Snape's scribbles. She tipped her head back so she could see the storeroom doorway, where Snape was standing (a bit upside down at this angle), his arms folded across his sternum.

Her heart was suddenly rather larger in her chest, beating louder. She hadn't been one-on-one with him since he'd turfed her out of his office, after ordering her to start a Slytherin Friendship Club.

He looked as tired as if he hadn't slept in a hundred years. His hands gripping his elbows might have been the only things keeping him upright.

"I'm working on the Harriet-Slytherin Friendship Club," she said, using the code phrase she had bullied him (through notes delivered via Dobby) into accepting.

"That name gets worse each time you say it," said Snape, and she hid a smile by pretending to scratch her nose. It was the code he had (so, so grudgingly) agreed to use.

"How did you get in here?" he asked. He didn't sound particularly cross, more like (if you filtered it through Snape-translation) curious.

Harriet wasn't upset to be found—well, by him. McGonagall would've had her guts for garters if she'd caught her breaking into a teacher's private store-room. Harriet wouldn't even mind telling him about her (rather clever, if she did say so herself) use of the Room of Requirement. . . but she didn't want to seem too _eager_ about it, like she'd been half-hoping he'd learn that she'd been determined to get the gillyweed on her own.

"You didn't set off any of my spells," Snape went on, as if he hadn't expected her to reply.

That was interesting. "What are you doing in here, then?" Harriet asked, trying not to act as if the answer was of great interest to her. Wait a second, the jar in her hand—the label seemed to read "g.l.w.d." Could that stand for gillyweed?

Snape hadn't answered, just stood there with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed at her. She held out the jar. "Does this say 'gillyweed'?"

Snape's eyes narrowed a bit more, but it could have been the bad lighting getting to him. "You tell me."

Harriet unscrewed the jar lid. Her fingers didn't fall off from any nasty protection spell, at least. A smell like briny spinach hit her in the nose.

"I'm supposed to _eat_ this?" she said, outraged.

"Only if you want to swim to the bottom of the lake and get back out again," said Snape snidely.

Harriet didn't tell him that she was hardly a good swimmer. He might try to drain the whole lake and get himself thrown in Azkaban for messing about with a magical ecosystem.

Fishing out her own jar, she siphoned out some of the gillyweed. "When I find out who put my name in that Goblet, I'm going to make _them_ eat some of this," she muttered.

"I suspect that will be the least of your problems," Snape said. "Now, how did you get in here? Unless you'd prefer to explain it to Professor McGonagall."

Not for the first time, Harriet suspected Snape of being able to read minds.

"Okay, fine." Inside her pocket, her jar of gillyweed bumped against her leg as she clambered down the ladder.

"Here," she said, pointing her wand into the dark gap behind the barrel she'd shifted out.

Snape bent down and shone his own wand into the dark. When he saw the door, his eyes widened for a moment and then narrowed to slits.

"That door should _not_ be there."

"Right. I put it there," Harriet said.

It was satisfying, making Snape stare like that, even if Snape's version of shock felt like a drill press. "How?"

"The Room of Requirement, of course."

Snape said nothing, nor did his expression change, but that was enough to make Harriet realize. . . "You've never heard of it," she said, amazed.

"Explain it, then."

"Well, it's. . . what it sounds like. It gives you what you need."

The light at the tip of Snape's wand trembled, like he'd clenched his hand hard. "And if a murderous madman decided he _needed_ access to Harriet Potter—perhaps in her dorm, whilst she slept—what do you think this _room_ would do?"

Harriet felt like a weight had been swung between her eyes, at the same time she could have groaned till she felt it in her toes.

"I. . . don't know. Well, I'm no expert!" she said defensively at Snape's expression. "I didn't build the room myself, you know!"

"Then _where_ did you _learn_ of it?"

Harriet wavered. In this mood, she didn't want to point him toward Dobby.

" _Miss Potter_ ," Snape said in the voice that had brought Neville to the edge of a nervous collapse.

"I don't want to tell you. I think you'll be horrid to. . . them."

Snape's face twisted, with incredulity or scorn, but before he could explode Harriet said, "I think I should talk to—them myself. I'll ask them—"

"Forgive me for doubting that you will investigate to _my_ satisfaction."

"Well, I'm not going to tell you, unless you _promise_ not to completely"— _do your nut_ —"lose it on them."

"How curious." Snape's eyes were glittering slits again. "I did not realize my behavior was yours to dictate. This must be part of the role of a Champion I've been unaware of."

Harriet found this obscurely funny, so she just crossed her arms and tried to project an air of impassivity. Snape's expression would have liquified the insides of all of the first year class and probably most of the second, at least.

With a soft snarl, he flung the hem of his cloak out of the way so he could turn sharply in the cramped space. " _Out_ side."

Harriet followed him out into the wider office and looked around with an air of 'What an interesting place, I do so enjoy coming here.' Funnily enough, this did not seem to placate Snape in any way whatsoever.

"Fine," he snarled. "I will not _lose it_. Now tell me who told you about that room!"

"You won't lose it now _or_ later?"

Snape struggled for a moment, possibly with the urge to set something - like Harriet - on fire.

"Not. Now. _Or._ Later."

Harriet eyed him, but then decided that it couldn't help to try his temper much further.

"Before I tell you," she said quietly, "I'd like to also say that this person told me there was no point to them existing if they let me die."

Snape looked at her as if from some place very deep within himself, some very dark and terrible place. There was a lump in her throat, suddenly.

"D—"

Someone knocked on the office door.

She and Snape stared at it. A moment later, the knock pattered again. Harriet looked at Snape that time; they wouldn't know it, but whoever was on the other side of that door had better hope he didn't open it, because they might die on the spot.

Snape strode around Harriet, who nipped back into the store-room and pulled the door mostly shut. (She did still want to be able to eavesdrop.)

" _What?_ " Snape demanded.

"Good evening, sir," said a high, nervous voice, and Harriet wanted to bury her face in her hands. It was _Hermione_.

" _Well_?" said Snape. "What do you want, Miss Granger? Is it a matter of life or death?" he said before she could respond. "Have you discovered a student bleeding and unconscious in the halls?"

"No, sir," said Hermione, "it's—it's about my last essay mark—"

"Then it can wait till tomorrow, _after class_."

He slammed the door, presumably in her face.

Harriet poked her head back out of the store-room. "She's just worried about me, you know." _You ought to be able to relate._

"How _touching_. Now tell me who showed you that room!"

" _Fine_. But remember, you promised," she said sternly, and before he could reply, said, "Dobby. Can you—"

Dobby popped into the room before she'd finished.

"Harriet Potter calls Dobby?" He beamed first at her, then at Snape, whom he seemed delighted to see. His joy didn't fit Snape's forbidding office; he resembled a brightly colored painting hung in a funeral parlor. The cold, curdling, heavy atmosphere had no apparent effect on him.

"Yes, hi, Dobby." Harriet tried subtly to move so that if Snape hexed Dobby, he'd hit her first. "Dobby, Professor Snape and I had some questions about the Room of Requirement—or the, what did you call it?"

"The Come and Go Room, is the house-elves calling it." Dobby nodded happily.

"I asked you," Snape said, his voice like fury only just bridled, "to keep a watch on Miss Potter. To alert me to any potential danger. _Any_ potential danger. And the hazard of this room you did not think to mention?"

Dobby blinked his tennis-ball sized green eyes at him. The tips of his ears, which had been pointing outward the way they did when he was thrilled, turned slowly inward.

"Hogwarts will never bring harm to any student," he said, more serious than Harriet had seen him since he declared that he would die before he'd let her be hurt. "All students is to be kept safe at Hogwarts."

"Then _why_ ," Snape said, the fury breaking loose, "if the security at Hogwarts is so unassailable, can Miss Potter open a door into my _private, sealed_ store-room?"

Dobby's ears turned upward in his curiosity. "Harriet Potter needed to get in, Professor Snape Sir. The Room gives the students what they wants."

"Professor Snape wants to know if someone could use it to get to me in Gryffindor Tower," Harriet said. "If they really needed to."

"If they needed to," Dobby said, nodding.

"If they needed to _hurt her_ ," Snape said.

"The Room would not let them hurt Harriet Potter," said Dobby, shocked by the suggestion.

"This is pointless!" Snape snarled, whirling and storming into his store-room. His cloak seemed to billow up a good three feet from the ground from the violence of his exit.

"Can you tell us anything else, Dobby?" Harriet asked.

"The Come and Go Room will keep Harriet Potter safe," Dobby said. The troubled look on his face was at odds with the certainty in his voice, but Harriet thought he was more upset about not being able to answer Snape's questions to his satisfaction.

"Thanks, Dobby. Really," she said when his ears drooped, "you've been really helpful. I'll talk to you later—you can go."

Once Dobby had popped out of sight, she followed Snape to his store-room. . . only to find it empty.

Blinking, she bent down and looked at the door beneath the shelves. She could see Snape's boots and hem twisting in the alcove beyond.

"Coming through," she said, and ducked beneath the shelf, into the alcove with him.

"Outside." Snape jabbed his wand at the door that led out of the Room of Requirement. "We're going to run some tests."

"Hang on, let me check there's no one out there. . ."

But the corridor was empty. Snape shot a couple of repelling spells at either end of the corridor. She remembered, suddenly, how he'd looked that day she'd shown up late to Remus' class, when Snape had been filling in during the full moon; how he'd vibrated with tension that bordered on fury.

"Show me how it works," he said, his face tight with rage, and she knew it was fear, too.

With no clear idea of what she was asking for, Harriet paced up and down in front of the stretch of wall, gone blank again. When the bricks melted into a door, Snape wrenched it open almost before the Room had put its finishing touches on the lintel.

Snape took one look inside and went still, even rigid, like he'd been covered in a delicate film of ice. More curious than anything, Harriet stepped up next to him and stared into the room beyond.

"Do you still believe this is no security risk?" Snape asked, his voice deceptively soft as they stared in at his own quarters beneath the castle.

"Is it really—it's not a replica?" Harriet recognized the old sofa, the bookshelf, the carpet, the near-complete lack of any personal items, except for the print of the old man in the forest petting the doe.

Snape strode into his own rooms and through the door that led to the second chamber, the one that opened to the dungeon hall. When he came back, his expression was black.

"The dungeon corridor is most certainly through that door. This is _real_."

"I've used this place loads of times before," Harriet said, dazed. "I. . . wonder if everywhere it took me was real?"

She remembered the forest pool where she and Hermione had listened to the egg: a place she had been the year before, where Snape had nearly died; only the room had made it not winter, but summer. . .

"That's what you take away from this?" Snape looked like he wanted to wring her neck, only he refused to give her would-be assassin the help.

Harriet frowned, thinking. "I asked for a place you liked." She'd actually asked for a place where Snape could calm down, but she'd wisely keep that fact to herself. "Maybe you should try it—try getting into Gryffindor Tower or something."

Snape slammed the door on his quarters.

" _Well_?" he bit out, which Harriet interpreted as a request to know how it worked.

"You just walk up and down in front of the wall and think about what you need."

Snape stalked as instructed, looking so forbidding that anyone who'd wandered by might have found themselves instantly vaporized. _Good thing for repelling spells_ , Harriet thought.

Snape stopped and turned to stare at the wall.

Nothing happened. No door. The wall remained blank and bricked over.

"You really have to _need_ it," Harriet said. Snape turned a look on her that would have made a Hungarian Horntail itch. "That's how it works," she said, in a calm, it's-no-use-blaming-me voice.

"Forgive me for not being a homicidal maniac," Snape hissed. Harriet did not point out that he did a good impression of one.

"Stand _back_ ," Snape said. "We are _not_ done."

Snape continued to try and make the Room prove a danger to Harriet, but not only could he not access Gryffindor Tower, he couldn't make a door appear at all. Harriet sat against the wall and watched him become—contrary to her expectations—more bewildered as his attempts failed. She wouldn't have thought Snape took well to failing at anything. He struck her as particularly Hermione-like in that regard; only instead of being frightened of failure, she would have supposed it to drive him to newer heights of fury.

"If I hadn't seen you," he said to the wall, "I wouldn't believe it worked."

He turned back to Harriet, the scowl on his face blended with irritation and tinged with confusion, and Harriet realized he'd really been talking to her.

"Explain how it works," he said. _Tell me how you do it_ , Harriet heard.

"I dunno," Harriet said honestly, from her seat on the floor. "I just. . . think of what problem I want to solve."

Snape narrowed his eyes at the wall and began to pace once more. Three times, up and down. . .

Still no door appeared.

The dancing trolls in the tapestry above Harriet's head were all watching him. With a snarl, he shot a scorching hex at the tapestry, which bounced harmlessly off; all Hogwarts' decorations were protected against hexes. The trolls tittered in their tutus.

"Oh, shut up," Harriet muttered at them, "or I'll take you down and stuff you in a toilet."

"This is a _waste_ of time," Snape said, tight-lipped. "I am taking this to Dumbledore. You will come with me."

"I could just go back to Gryffindor—"

"What part of _security breach_ do you not understand?"

Muttering threats at him this time, Harriet pushed herself to her feet using the wall, and scuffed after him down the corridor. She was tired, and Snape's battle with the Room of Requirement would, she sensed, be drawn-out and very dull indeed, hexes and swearing aside.

"Severus," said Dumbledore, when Snape had flung open the door to his office. "And Harriet." He looked surprised and something else. "To what do I owe this unusual pleasure?"

"Are you aware of a room the elves call the Come and Go Room?" Snape demanded, as Harriet gratefully took the chair Dumbledore had offered her with a gesture. "Also known as the Room of Requirement?"

Harriet tuned them out as a plate of lemon-iced biscuits and a tea service popped onto the table next to her chair. Watching Snape's battle with the Room had made her hungry. If Snape had asked her to demonstrate the Room again, she'd probably have led them to the kitchens.

"Is this true, Harriet?" Dumbledore asked, sounding curious. "You were able to access both Professor Snape's private stores and his private quarters?"

Harriet swallowed her biscuit. "Yes, sir. I needed gillyweed-for the second task. I thought Professor Snape might have some."

"Surely you could have asked him for a pinch," Dumbledore said, but she thought she saw an amused mote in his eye. "You would have obliged, Severus, surely?"

"As it is," Snape said, ignoring him, "we've been alerted to a serious security risk."

"It does bear investigating," Dumbledore agreed, surprising Harriet, who thought he'd dismiss Snape's concerns as over-protective fussing. "But surely we need not involve Harriet. She has a task to prepare for, after all," he said, smiling at her.

"What part of _security risk_ —" Snape began, enraged, but Dumbledore interrupted him gently:

"We can hardly keep Harriet from Gryffindor while we pursue the matter."

" _Yes_ we can," Snape said. "Put her up in a different part of the castle."

"I don't want to be in a different part of the castle," said Harriet, nettled. "I want to be in Gryffindor."

"Of course," said Dumbledore. "It is your home. Severus—"

"Granger can stay with her," Snape said, rather like he was permitting Harriet to keep a tarantula for a pet.

"Hermione's not going to be here in a couple of days," Harriet said. "She's going to visit her mum and dad. They're having a baby," she explained when Snape looked as if she were talking gibberish.

" _Until_ then-"

"I don't think removing Harriet from Gryffindor and isolating her and Miss Granger will remove the danger you perceive, Severus," said Dumbledore. "No, I believe Harriet is best served by staying where she is. We can discuss it," he went on when Snape looked furious, "but for now, I believe Harriet is tired and would like to rejoin her friends."

"Thank you, Professor," said Harriet, meaning it. "Can I take these biscuits with me?"

"As many as you like," Dumbledore said, smiling.

"Bye," Harriet said, glancing at Snape, and then beat a hasty retreat with her biscuits.

* * *

 

"Is that where you've been?" Dumbledore asked curiously, once the girl had gone, toting biscuits, returning to her fatuous sidekicks, who could do nothing to help her. "Investigating this room?"

"I am convinced it poses a danger," said Severus. _Do something about it, destroy it, don't just SIT THERE SO CALM_.

He pressed his forearm against his side, feeling the prickle of the Mark. It did not burn, yet; no magic called to him, whispering a location into his subconscious. But it itched. Something was close, _he_ was close, and the girl trooped around unwitting, everyone smiled and thought nothing of it, and the Dark Lord, _the Dark Lord -_

"Professor McGonagall was trying to find you," Dumbledore was saying. "Something about a brawl in the dungeons?"

Severus give a single fuck about a brawl in the dungeons right now. "Headmaster—"

Dumbledore turned to look up at the portraits feigning sleep on his walls. "Which of you shall volunteer to keep an eye on the—where does it lie, Severus?"

"The seventh floor corridor," Severus said through his teeth, "adjacent to Gryffindor Tower."

"Just so," said Dumbledore.

"For what purpose?" asked one of the Victorian headmistresses curiously.

"We believe there may be a security risk. Who here knows of the Room of Requirement, or the—what did you call it, Severus, the Come and Go Room?"

Most of the portraits shook their heads, though several of them, who had ruled through the ages, gave some sign of assent.

"I used it to hide things I wished no one to see," murmured a medieval headmistress who had clearly died young, a single streak of white in her black hair.

"As did I," said a headmaster with mutton-chops. He chuckled. "And to judge by the level of bric-a-brac stacked up in that place, I wasn't nearly the only one."

" _I_ used it to have a bit of fun," said an Elizabethan headmistress with a severe expression and a massive ruff framing her entire head.

"We were heads of the school," said Dilys Derwent. "You don't really expect us to believe that so many of us didn't know about this place?"

"And so many of us in Gryffindor, which you'll have us believe is only a stone's-throw away!" said a headmaster wearing a powdered wig of massive curls.

"Well, how many of you would have felt the need for it?" asked Mutton-chops philosophically. "You've got to know it's there _and_ really, truly need something out of it."

"I needed to use the loo once," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "And I opened a door onto a room filled with chamber pots."

The portraits chuckled; Snape wanted to set them all on fire. This was no time to be _fucking joking._

"You were never the sort to hide things away, Dumbledore," said Mutton-chops.

Dumbledore gave an odd smile.

"But Harriet hasn't used it to hide anything," he said. "She has used it to access a teacher's private rooms and stores - Severus's, in fact."

"I was under the impression," said a sly, dry voice, "that she'd have been allowed in there anyway."

Dumbledore frowned slightly behind his beard. Phineas Nigellus, who had been keeping up the pretense of dozing long past the others, was watching them through half-lidded eyes, an invisible smile playing about his mouth.

"She stayed with you the summer before last, did she not?" Phineas asked Severus, though barely looking at him. "And you're always in here prating on about her."

"Phineas," Dumbledore said, "it's nice of you to take an interest in a student's whereabouts. Most unlike you, but welcome."

"He can _take an interest_ in whatever he likes," Snape said. "Perhaps he'll agree to your little vigil on the room—that's what this is about, I gather?"

"I have no interest in watching a blank stretch of wall become an accomplice in adolescent dramatics," said Phineas with achingly well-bred boredom.

"I will assist you, Dumbledore," said the medieval Headmistress.

"Thank you, Iveta, my dear," said Dumbledore.

"I offer my help as well," said Mutton-chops.

"It's greatly appreciated, Waldo."

"We will not report on the students' movements," said Headmistress Iveta, grave, "but any suspicious activity we will bring immediately to you, Dumbledore."

"It may _be_ a student!" Severus said. Why, why did no one care what happened to that foolhardy girl?

"It is unlikely to be anyone but an adult," said Dumbledore, "considering the prodigious skill needed to hoodwink the Goblet itself."

"There aren't any adults unaccounted for! An adult could be assuming the form and role of a student, especially from the visiting schools—"

"Agreed," said Dumbledore, frowning. "Iveta, Waldo—if you see any of the students of Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, let me know at once."

"It could be one of our own," Severus said.

"All of our students are known to us, Severus—"

"Barty Crouch, Jr., grew into a Death Eater under his father's nose. This is the Dark Lord's plot, and he has means—do not tell me we _know_ them all."

Dumbledore gazed at him a long moment, then nodded.

"Iveta, Waldo. Due to the nature of this danger, I must know the movements of everyone who accesses the Room of Requirement."

"Understood, Dumbledore," said Iveta quietly; Headmaster Waldo nodded.

"What else, Severus?" asked Dumbledore, appearing entirely earnest.

Severus felt Phineus Nigellus watching him, sly and sharp. He thought of the Vow he'd sworn to Black, of the promise he'd given in this office thirteen years gone, no less binding than one sealed by magic and threat of death.

"That will suffice, Headmaster," he said.

_It has to be good enough but it isn't_

He left Dumbledore's study, Harriet's words echoing in the caverns of his memory.

" _This person said there was no point to living if I was dead_ ," she'd said, before calling the damned house-elf.

" _Hogwarts will not bring harm to any student_ ," the house-elf had said.

Dumbledore was the only wizard the Dark Lord feared. Severus was willing to give his life. The house-elf was willing, too. The portraits of dead headmasters and mistresses had given their word. Hogwarts had centuries of safeguards woven through its stones. The girl could not leave the castle under anyone's power but her own, including coercion; Dumbledore would know the minute she left.

There were so many layers of protection around her, and yet the Dark Lord could still find his way in, as he had done thirteen years before.

And that frightened Severus beyond all else.

* * *

 

Harriet gaped at the bandage on Hermione's cheek and the tender redness of Ron's recently healed nose, at the singes on their clothes.

"You did _what_?"

"It was after Professor Snape wouldn't let me in," Hermione said, blushing. "We ran into Malfoy and his gang not too far from his office. . ."

"And got into a brawl," Harriet said, amazed. The reason she and Snape hadn't heard it was probably from being eight floors away.

"You should have seen Hermione," said Ron, the admiration in his voice making her go a bright, boiling scarlet. "She took out Crabbe _and_ Goyle. She could have got Malfoy too if I hadn't tackled him."

"Why you're always tackling Malfoy instead of hexing him—" Hermione said, exasperated but flattered by the praise.

"You haven't lived till you've actually smashed Malfoy's face into the floor," Ron said. "Harriet knows—she got Pansy. Hexing's just not the same."

"Well, the Slytherin prefect didn't seem too impressed. She hexed us both," Hermione told Harriet, "and marched us to Professor Snape's office—though there was no answer. And we didn't say we'd just talked to him, because we wouldn't have been able to explain where he'd gone, so she hauled us to Professor McGonagall, who nearly had kittens that we'd been brawling with Slytherins _again_. And _she_ looked for Snape, but couldn't find him either."

She and Ron looked expectantly at Harriet, who tried not to grimace.

So she had to tell them how she'd used the Room of Requirement, and how Snape had nearly had a litter of kittens himself.

"You did _what_?" Hermione squeaked.

"Bloody hell," said Ron, "y'mean all this time we could've been sneaking into Malfoy's dorm and leaving slugs in his hair while he was sleeping?"

"We're not doing any such thing!" Hermione said. "But Harriet—what if Professor Snape is _right_ —what if someone could use that to get to _you?_ "

"Dobby doesn't think so," Harriet said, "and nor do I. You have to really _need_ something before the Room will give it to you. We don't really _need_ to leave slugs in Malfoy's hair."

"Speak for yourself," Ron said. "Besides, Harry, isn't this person a straight-up nutter? What they did to Karkaroff. . ."

"Ron's right," said Hermione, her hands twisting in her lap. "We don't know _what_ a person like that is capable of believing. You could be in real danger."

"We'll tell Seamus, Dean and Neville," said Ron abruptly. "And Fred and George—maybe Angelina and the others—and we'll all camp out down here, with trap spells and everything, and that way even if they do use the room, they won't know where you are."

Harriet and Hermione stared at him.

"That's brilliant," they said together, and Ron's ears turned the same color as his red nose.

* * *

 

In the end, it worked out a little differently, but just as well. Lavender and Parvati, instead of becoming frightened by the idea of a killer who could penetrate the walls of Gryffindor Tower, took it as an adventure in the fight against evil. They helped Harriet and Hermione rig their own dorm room with traps—including some prototypes donated by Fred and George—and bedded down in the common room with Seamus, Dean, and the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Harriet and Hermione took Seamus' and Dean's beds in the boys' dorm and only had to deal with Neville's impressive register of snores.

It was honestly the most fun Harriet had had in a long time, next to the Valentine's club; perhaps even more so, because she'd spent the last four years with Parvati, Lavender, and the others, sharing, as Dumbledore had put it, a home. The Quidditch team, plus all the Gryffindors in Harriet's year, had now formed themselves into an honor guard of sorts, and continued on the look-out in the halls, at meals, and at night. It was more than they'd done even when she'd been declared Champion, more than when the article came out—a genuine solidarity, as if they considered the threat against her life something more real than all the rest. It _was_ , but it surprised Harriet. She wouldn't have thought the threat of murder would make them all close ranks, but it had.

Snape was on watch, too, quieter and more menacing than ever. Even the Slytherins tread carefully and spoke to him in only the most respectful way. Dobby reported that he wasn't eating anything except some dry toast.

Wednesday evening came all too soon. Moody collected Hermione after dinner on Wednesday, to take her to her parents. Hermione's face said she didn't want to go, but she whispered to Harriet as she hugged her goodbye, "Everyone's looking out for you. You'll be fine."

Harriet knew she was telling herself that, the way Snape got angry instead of concerned. Hugging Hermione back, she said, "Give the baby a kiss for me. _I'm_ its big sister, too."

"Let's get going then, Miss Granger," Moody said in his growling voice, holding the front door open. Hermione waved to Harriet and Ron, who'd followed her to the Entrance Hall to say goodbye, and stepped with Moody out into the icy night.

"A baby," said Ron as they rejoined the others at Gryffindor table. "That'll be a change."

" _You_ have a little sister," Harriet said.

"Only one year younger than me. We were babies at the same time. I dunno what it's like to be around a baby _now_."

Back in the common room, Harriet studied up on her defensive spells in preparation for Friday, while Ron tried to make it through her extra Charms homework with hindrances from Fred and George, who had somehow swapped out the text in his Charms book for a story of Gilgalad, the gregarious dragon-slayer, which largely featured risque side-quests involving scantily clad witches, fairies, dryads and nymphs.

"I'm trying to help Harry!" Ron roared.

"This will teach you both far more, little brother," said Fred.

At ten o'clock, Harriet went upstairs wishing that wizards used telephones; it would have been nice to get a call from Hermione with an update. Her mother had been scheduled for a C-section, as her doctor (for some medical reason) hadn't wanted her to go into labor, and Harriet wondered how they were all doing. Was Hermione chewing her nails off? Was she now in possession of a little brother or sister?

"Hi, Neville," she said as she dumped her books on Seamus' bed. She was glad he was still seeing Hannah Abbot, as it made him a lot less nerve-wracked around her.

"Hi, Harriet," he said, dropping his pajamas as he rooted in his wardrobe for a pair of socks and waving her off when she moved to help. "It's all right, I've got it—and you've got an owl," .

"Oh." Harriet stared at the ragged owl sitting on her bedpost. It had burning orange eyes that stared at her in a creepily fixated way, and it did not blink. Maybe it was from Remus and Sirius? They'd left Nitwit to Ron when they'd gone off to be with the werewolves, and she hadn't heard from them since the full moon on Valentine's.

As Neville clattered out with his pajamas, off to have a bath, she approached the owl. It did not move. There was a grubby letter tied to its leg, and it remained eerily still as she untied it. The owl never blinked.

The letter was wrapped around some kind of sphere. She let the sphere fall onto the bed as she turned the parchment over. It was empty, save for a single line in a handwriting she didn't recognize: ' _Pick up the ball. It will not hurt you_.'

Her skin prickled all over, like little feet had walked up her arms. Her hand was not quite steady as she closed her fingers around the sphere.

Someone's voice breathed into her ear. She jumped up from the bed, whirling around, but the room was empty.

" _Harriet Potter,_ " said the breathing voice, far-off and tinny, like it was talking into a telephone receiver. " _Listen to this message—the whole thing. If you do not. . ._ "

Someone screamed into Harriet's ear—" _No! Harriet, don't listen to—"_

" _We have Hermione Granger,"_ said the breathing voice, and Harriet knew then who it was, Peter Pettigrew. " _And you will come to us unless you wish for her to die._ "

He paused to let Hermione scream again—shouting 'no' and Harriet's name, for a long, very long time, falling into sobs.

" _You will tell no one about this unless you wish for her to die_ ," said Wormtail. " _You will go alone, down to the front gates of Hogwarts, where our agent will be waiting to bring you to us. You will do this, or Hermione Granger will die._

 _"Hurry, Harriet Potter._ "

And his voice was gone.

The sphere burned in her palm. When she dropped her hand, the sphere rolled onto the duvet and scorched a line across the fabric.

She stood in the dark silent room, her breath thick in her lungs, trying to think fast like Hermione, like Snape.

 _I can't tell him_ , she thought.

Snape would try to stop her, or would go in her place. She'd seen what Voldemort did to traitors. Karkaroff's body hung in her memory, the spike through its chest, suspended against the tree.

Snape couldn't protect her from Voldemort. She'd known that. Here was proof.

And sneaking out of the castle. . . they'd know, somehow. Especially now.

So. . . she needed to distract them.

She had to think fast, but she wasn't a fast thinker; she was a reactor.

She had to think fast, before someone came back to the room.

"Dobby," she said, fumbling under her pillow for the slippery fabric of the Invisibility Cloak.

Dobby popped into the room. "Harriet Potter—" he started happily, but Harriet couldn't wait for him to finish, she couldn't afford the time to be friendly.

"I need to know how the teachers are keeping an eye on me. Quick, Dobby."

"Professor Dumbledore has an alarm that will goes off if Harriet Potter leaves Hogwarts grounds," Dobby said promptly.

"Can you disable it?"

"Dobby cannot interfere with Hogwarts' security," he said simply, like she had asked him if he were wearing green socks today, not as if she'd asked him to be party to something deadly and alarming.

"Then I need you to distract him for me. I have to get out without him knowing. This is important, Dobby," she said when his ears swiveled in surprise. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't."

His ears trembled. "Dobby wants to help Harriet Potter. Dobby will always help Harriet Potter, as long as Dobby lives."

"This is how you can help me. And Dobby. . . how far can you Apparate?"

"House-elves is not Apparating, Harriet Potter. If Harriet Potter calls Dobby, Dobby will know and Dobby will come."

"Thank you, Dobby." She threw the Cloak over herself. "Now go distract Professor Dumbledore, please."

Dobby disappeared. Harriet slipped out of the boys' dorm and down the stairs. The common room was noisy and crowded, hot and disorientating after the silent bedroom where Hermione had screamed in her ear.

Hermione hadn't screamed for help. She had begged Harriet not to come.

Harriet skirted her honor guard, almost lost the Cloak when a first-year trod on the hem, but made it to the portrait and slithered out.

Her heart battered against her ribs as she skidded down the corridor to the tapestry with the dancing trolls. She strode up and down in front of the wall, thinking, _I need to get to Hermione, I need to get to Hermione_ , praying the Room would bring her to the place they were keeping her, as it had brought her to the forest pool in summer. Something bright and too-large was filling her head; the only thing keeping her grounded was her heart sledge-hammering inside her chest.

A door grew out of the stones, flecked with ice. Snow blew from beneath the crack at the bottom of the door.

The handle burned her scorched palm with cold as she pulled it open.

Snow scattered across the corridor and soaked into the hem of her jeans as she plunged through the door. Snow glowed in the sliver of moonlight, and the was air black. Trees carved up the night around her.

In the distance across the snow, an orange light pulsed in the dark.

The door clicked shut behind her, and disappeared.


	89. Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, the Room of Requirement presented itself as a potential danger. . . or an ally. When Harriet received a message from Wormtail that Hermione would die if Harriet did not come for her, she fulfilled Snape's fears and used the Room to leave Hogwarts to rescue her.
> 
> But rescue missions never go as planned - not for Harriet or for Snape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JKR changed "Ennervate" to "Rennervate" in subsequent printings, according to my stand-up beta, sageandginger.

 

Severus was waiting for the pull of the Mark, the burning command to transport himself instantly to the Dark Lord's side; a command he would have to resist. The Mark itched like a growing rash as he paced the length of his sitting room, hitting his wand against his leg. The urge to storm up eight floors to Gryffindor Tower pressed on his windpipe.

The shadows suddenly glittered with blue-white light. He spun round, adrenaline pulsing through his limbs, his heart near to stopping, as Dumbledore's phoenix Patronus unfurled its burning wings.

" _Severus_ ," Dumbledore's voice emanated from the phoenix, " _Hermione Granger did not make it to her parents and I cannot reach Alastor. I am headed to investigate but I fear the worst. Take Harriet to my study and remain there with her till I return."_

Severus was already moving toward the door before the phoenix had faded. They could only have taken Granger to lure Harriet, which meant -

But he did not make it to the door, for his knees buckled.

If he'd thought the Mark burned, that panic had choked him, he had been wrong, he'd known nothing of pain before now. His vision blackened; he could not think for the storm of agony crippling his heart. He was on the floor, struggling to regain control, to remain conscious. He threw a mental shield-box around his consciousness as he had learned to do, to battle the backlash of Dark magic, to keep himself sane and whole; but the effort shook him, he felt sluggish, clumsy, his command of his thoughts gelatinous.

Was it the Dark Lord? Was this his punishment for betrayal?

The pain did not abate. Severus managed to get the box around his thoughts, to wall himself off in a tiny fortress within his own mind, to seize some ragged control of his own body, some unassailed space to think.

The Dark Lord had never used the Mark this way. Severus did not think it _could_ be used this way; it was a means of identification and a practical way of calling his followers to him. But he could not unleash magic through the Mark. So what. . .

Of course.

The Vow.

The Dark Lord had taken Granger to lure Harriet, and Harriet -

Obvious, obvious. . .

Dumbledore - he had to recall Dumbledore - leaving to track Granger when Harriet was the true target, how he could -

Severus forced his arm under himself, levering onto his elbow. No wonder Black had had him swear this Vow - the agony - stupid useless _fucking_ thing, what measure of safeguard was it, if it crippled you as soon as it was tested?

Unless the Dark Lord already had her - unless he had already -

How long had he lain there, Severus wondered, clawing his way to his knees, his shaking arms braced against the door-frame. His wand slipped from his trembling fingers, and it cost him priceless long moments to coordinate picking it up again.

But she was not - not _dead_ , only in danger, or Severus himself would be dead -

His feet were under him now, his legs could almost support him. He would go - he would Apparate to the Dark Lord and do what he could. Perhaps if he could get to her, help her, the Vow would interpret this as fulfillment and he would regain some strength. Spying was over, now, it couldn't happen, he could not _wait_ , the Dark Lord already had her -

Shaking all over, he hauled the door open.

On the other side, now exposed, Moody, his wand raised, blinked at him, and then smiled his gash of a smile.

"Well, Snape," he said. "You're not looking too well."

Severus thought, _Sectumsemp_ -

" _Imperio_ ," said Moody, his smile twisting wider.

 _N_. . . _o_. . . Severus screamed from within the box, but he slipped away, unable to fight the spell, already walled off within himself.

His tattered control snagged in Moody's spell and tangled round it, bound so tight Severus could not move within it. Inside the box he'd raised around himself he was trapped. Even his will to break free of the box was held fast within Imperius. The floating serenity of compulsion was denied him; he saw and felt everything, but he was trapped.

"Now drop that wand," said Moody, "and tell me what you've done with Harriet Potter. The Dark Lord has made an appointment with her. . . and she's late."

* * *

Harriet crept invisible through the trees. Though leaving snow trenches behind herself, the night and the black trunks provided a screen. Wind moved in the branches overhead, wood clacking and snow husking, covering the sound of her breath.

At the edge of the trees, pulsing orange light drew shapes out of the dark.

Headstones. A graveyard.

Before an enormous marble headstone carved with hollow-eyed skulls, a fire burned, warping the shadows. A cloaked and hooded figure stood next to it, cradling a bundle of blankets in one arm. The other arm it held extended, its hand clutching a wand, pointed down at a shape lying prone and still on the snow-scattered earth. . .

Hermione.

It was the hardest thing Harriet had ever done, not running to her right then. She had never been more afraid in her life: not walking through the fire to face Quirrell in first year, not seeing Voldemort's face in the back of his head; not hearing the Basilisk slither around her or feeling the ground shake as the werewolf leapt or the scalding fire against her skin as the Ridgeback's flame seared the air; not even her mother's pleading screams as she begged for Harriet's life in her memory. Nothing had ever equaled the sight of Hermione's motionless face, her closed eyes, as she lay on the icy ground only feet away.

The bundle in the hooded figure's arms stirred, and Harriet's scar exploded with pain. Like her fear, the agony was unequaled; her wand fell from her slack fingers as she groped across her own face, as her own touch could stop it. Freezing snow hit her kneecaps; she was lying in the snow, unable to see, her head about to split open, her shoes scraping on the ground; she couldn't hold still.

The hood of her Invisibility Cloak was dragged off her head. Squinting, teeth grit, she looked up into a worn, pale, ratty face, a drop of sweat beading on the tip of his pointed nose -

 _Wormtail_.

She choked with rage, loathing and pain, groping through the snow for her wand.

She was suddenly jerked out of the snow, her Cloak falling completely away; she was flying through the air, over Hermione, over the fire -

Her back hit something painfully hard, hammering all the air out of her; wheezing, gasping, she slid down onto something hard and cold but not the ground -

Ropes flew out of nothing, writhing across her shoulders, her arms, her legs, her neck, dragging her against the marble headstone, binding her to it. She kicked and clawed at them but they wrapped tighter and tighter and she couldn't get free.

Panting, twisted and bound against the headstone, unable to move, not even to turn her head, she watched Wormtail limp around the fire toward the bundle of rags he'd placed on the ground.

The bundle stirred, like it held something angry inside it, and Harriet's scar seared until her eyes watered.

Something was being pushed between her teeth - an old cloth. She tried to twist her head away and Wormtail hit her, a solid burst of pain that exploded in her cheek. The cloth filled her mouth and her head throbbed from where it had knocked against the headstone.

A scraping, like something heavy being dragged, broke through the throbbing ache in her head. Harriet blinked her eyes free of tears. Wormtail was shoving a giant cauldron, much larger than himself, so tall a full grown man could have climbed inside it, to the foot of the grave against which Harriet was bound. Crackling blue-white flames he lit beneath it.

Harriet could only see Hermione's feet around the fire. The fear in her heart and the pain in her head were making it too hard to think clearly. Her wand was somewhere in the snow with her Cloak, and she couldn't even turn her head. . .

 _I only have one shot to call Dobby_ _and_ _I've got to get this rag out of my mouth first._

The bundle on the ground moved, the thing inside it stirring more angrily, insistently, as Harriet tried to push the rag out with her tongue. There was so much of the rag that her tongue could barely move.

The liquid in the cauldron in front of her was beginning to burn, churning steam into the icy air.

On the other side of the fire, Hermione's foot twitched.

 _Get out_ , Harriet thought, pushing hard at the rag with her tongue; it didn't budge. _Get away, run, get out of here_. . .

"Master," said Wormtail hoarsely.

Harriet twisted her hand against the topes, trying to get his attention, to distract him before he saw Hermione.

" _Hurry_ ," said a high, cold voice that echoed through the pain in Harriet's scar.

Wormtail extended his arm, wand out, and dragged Hermione around the fire.

She wasn't completely unconscious now but not fully alert either. There was a cut on her cheek, bleeding black in the choppy firelight, tears and stains all through her clothing. She scrabbled sluggishly at the ground as Wormtail's spell dragged her to the base of the grave, next to the cauldron.

Wormtail didn't seem to want to touch her. Hermione pushed herself up, shaking so hard Harriet could see it in the cut-up, wavering light.

And then she saw Harriet.

The pain and fear in her face were as strong as those in Harriet's heart. She shook her head slightly, as if she could deny Harriet's presence in front of her, trapped and bound against the headstone.

Harriet wanted to cry. She was terrified out of her mind.

But she couldn't let Hermione see it. She had to be strong for Hermione. She had to make her believe that help was coming, that they weren't going to die.

All that terror, she pushed away. She held Hermione's gaze and tried to think, _It's okay_ , _it'll all be fine_.

" _Kill the Mudblood_ ," said the high, cold voice.

Harriet got the rag lose as Wormtail raised his arm.

" _Wormtail!_ " she screamed.

His arm came down; Hermione threw her arms up to shield her face.

Blood spurted up in an arc and Hermione collapsed.

* * *

If it weren't for Sirius fucking Black and Severus' burning need to outwit him, he wouldn't have fallen prey to this weakness, he _knew_.

His only consolation was that if he still lived, so did Harriet. If she died, the Vow would kill him. He was alive and so was she. She was still alive. He had to keep it that way.

"So Dumbledore took the bait," said Not Moody. He rolled his wand between his fingers. "Went after me and the Mudblood. That's good, but we haven't long. I can't count on him continuing to be as much of a fool as he's been these past months, never guessing who I was. He's getting old. He and that pathetic Potter brat, the Dark Lord's greatest enemies."

Not Moody laughed. Had Severus control of his voice, he'd have goaded Not Moody to take him to the Dark Lord, whom Harriet had surely reached somehow. She'd circumvented this fucking impostor and got to him herself, somehow. If they both got out of this alive, he was going to kill her -

 _Pop_.

Dobby appeared, backlit by the fire.

Severus could not move. He was trapped in a box in his mind, trapped in his motionless body. _Get out GET OUT_ -

"Professor Snape Sir!" Dobby cried, and then saw Not Moody. His eyes darted back to Snape, and his ears flew straight up, and he pointed at Not Moody. He was not really a fool after all. "You shall not hurt Professor Snape!"

House-elf magic was different than human. With that one strike of Dobby's finger, Not Moody went sailing back through the air, tumbling over the arm-chair next to the fire. But Imperius held, and Severus could not signal, could not shout at Dobby to _**GET OUT**_ -

Not Moody threw a spell that hurled the chair to the side and slashed his arm through the air. " _Avada Kedavra!"_

Green light filled Severus' vision. He could not move.

The little body crumpled lifeless to the floor.

"That's a shame, you know," said Not Moody, climbing to his feet. "I always liked our elf. . . Winky. . . she was good to me. Loved me more than Father ever did."

The angle was wrong, uncomfortable, but Severus stared at Dobby, his open eyes, his look of surprise, on the blank little face that would never again be anything else.

"You're not paying attention, Snape," said Not Moody. He stepped into Severus' field of vision, the hem of his robes falling to obscure Dobby's face, his body.

Not Moody held his wand up in front of Severus' eyes.

"Let's play a game," he said softly. The firelight drew in the crags on his face. "It's called, 'Every Year I Spent in Azkaban, While Cowardly Shits Like You Walked Free.' Want to know the rules? 'Course you do. Can't play a game without rules. Here's the first one. . .

" _Crucio_."

The pain seemed little, through the pain of the Vow; like cracks in marble.

Inside the box where his free will dwelt, undamaged and unreachable, Severus thought, _Harriet loved that elf._

* * *

" _Is it ready?_ " hissed the high cold voice.

"R-ready, Master. . ."

" _Now_. . ."

Wormtail limped over to the bundle, but Harriet could only look at Hermione, lying motionless on the snow, a dark stain spreading beneath her shoulder, her hair tangled across her face, angled away.

Harriet couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

The cauldron hissed, its liquid surface glittering red with sparks as numerous as burning stars. Through a fog of grief, Harriet saw the raw, blackened face of an evil thing, an inhuman scab of a being in Wormtail's trembling arms, and her heart contracted with revulsion and hatred as her scar split apart with agony.

Then the monstrous creature disappeared into the cauldron; the leaping sparks in the water closed over its flat, slitted face and gleaming eyes, and Wormtail's faltering voice, shaking with the effort of speaking, said:

" _Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!_ "

The marble beneath Harriet cracked, but she did not fall in; dust misted up from the fracture in the stone, swirling toward the cauldron and falling onto the crackling surface. Sparks twisted like corkscrews up from the liquid, turned suddenly a vicious and poisonous blue.

" _Flesh - of the servant -_ " Wormtail's voice shook with sobs, as if he was the terrified one, as if he had watched his best friend cut down in front of him. "- _willingly given - you will - revive - your master_."

He drew a dagger from his robes, as long as his forearm and gleaming. Harriet did not shut her eyes; she held them open, watching with sick triumph at the suspicion of what he was about to do, as he held his right arm over the cauldron and gripped the dagger in his shaking left.

He swung the dagger up and screamed as his hand dropped with a _glorp_ into the cauldron. Harriet's heart beat hard with agony and grief, for Hermione did not stir, even though Wormtail's face was twisted up in the cauldron's glow as it morphed into a warning, knowing red.

Then Wormtail was limping toward her, cradling his bleeding stump of an arm across his chest.

" _Blood of the enemy. . . forcibly taken. . . you will. . . resurrect. . . your foe._ "

Harriet was bound too tightly against the headstone to resist. She strained against the ropes but they held. Wormtail was raising the dagger in his shaking left hand.

Harriet spat in his face.

He flinched, gripped the dagger, and stabbed her in the elbow, hard. She clenched her teeth together and did not cry out, though she ground her skull back into the marble headstone till it throbbed anew.

With her blood on the blade, Wormtail limped back to the cauldron and dropped the dagger whole into the roiling liquid.

The potion lit white, bright as starlight.

Wormtail slumped to the ground beside Hermione, moaning, cradling his arm.

Suddenly Hermione moved.

She raised a rock and brought it down hard, on his head. With a gasp he slumped aside.

She snatched up his wand as the cauldron threw off sparks brighter than diamonds, streaking the shadows with motes of light and after-images black as oblivion.

"Dobby!" shouted Harriet as Hermione, shaking, her shirt soaked with glistening blood, slashed at the ropes holding Harriet.

Hermione cried out and stumbled against the headstone. Wormtail had reached up and grabbed her ankle. She kicked back at his face and he fell off her. Steam was pouring out of the cauldron, whiter than the snow.

"DOBBY!" Harriet screamed.

He wasn't coming.

Something had happened. Something was wrong.

"Get out of here!" she shouted at Hermione, twisting against the ropes, but they weren't loose enough.

"Not without you!" Hermione cried.

Wormtail lunged up from the ground, knocking Hermione aside, groping for his wand, clubbing at her with his stump of an arm. Hermione kicked him in the gut and dug at his eyes, and he screamed.

Then Hermione froze, petrified by some sight beyond Wormtail, and he grabbed his wand, hitting her so hard across the face that she fell back to the ground. He knelt on the wound he'd inflicted earlier, and Hermione screamed, the sound tearing straight through Harriet's heart.

The dark outline of a man, tall and skeletal, was rising from the cauldron.

Harriet tore an arm free of the ropes and clawed at the ones binding her.

The face in the steam echoed through her memory, like the high cold voice that had spoken from the ground. She had seen it in the back of Quirrell's head. It was no less grotesque now that it was on the correct side of a face: bone-colored, nostrils slit where a nose should have been, irises stained as if with blood.

"Wormtail," said Voldemort, his voice soft with scorn. "Robe me."

Wormtail staggered off Hermione, who slumped prone on the ground. Harriet wrenched at the ropes, her torso free but her legs still tied, as Wormtail grabbed the robes that had been Voldemort's bundle, and dragged them over Voldemort's head.

Harriet's legs were free. She rolled off the grave and staggered, her legs tingling and her heart trying to hammer free of her chest, to Hermione.

"If only Nagini were awake," said Voldemort behind her, as she crouched over Hermione, who did not stir. "She could have taken care of the Mudblood for you, Wormtail."

Wormtail screamed behind them. Harriet brushed Hermione's hair out of her face and smiled down at her, though Hermione couldn't see it.

"It's all right," Harriet whispered, her voice nearly cracking. "It'll all be okay."

Harriet looked up at Voldemort, who was bent over a crumpled and sobbing Wormtail, holding his bared left arm up to the light.

The Dark Mark burned blood red, the same shape that she'd seen in shadow on Snape's arm.

"It is back," said Voldemort. "Now, we shall see. . ."

He pressed one long, skeletal finger to the Mark on Wormtail's arm.

Harriet's scar exploded with agony; Wormtail screeched. Harriet struggled to see through the pain, needing to know what was going on, desperate to see him suffer. Wormtail lay crumpled on the ground, whimpering; Voldemort stood over him, the firelight warping the shadows on his face, the snow at his feet gleaming in the starlight.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he asked the stars, voice soft. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

 _Snape_. Harriet's heartbeat faltered. If Snape came. . . no, no, _no_. . .

Voldemort stepped through the snow - over Wormtail, huddled and moaning faintly - toward Harriet. His eyes seemed to twist in the firelight.

"You sit, Harriet Potter," he said, "crouched over that Mudblood filth you call friend, upon the remains of my late father - a Muggle and a fool." He looked at his father's grave with dispassionate cruelty. "But he has proved himself useful in death."

He laughed, a short, light, cold sound, like a drop of snow.

"And that house on the hill." He brushed a hand toward it. "He lived there, and his family, for generations. I ended all that when I killed them, when I tore their filthy Muggle name from myself and forged myself anew. Why, I am growing quite sentimental, here amongst the relics of my heritage. . . But look, Harriet - my true family returns."

A soft susurration was filling the air - the sound of cloth dragging over snow, the brittle crunch of boots on the icy earth. In every shadowed space dark figures appeared: between the tombstones, out of the trees; their faces hidden behind masks that gleamed in the firelight, beneath the hoods of dark cloaks that hid them entirely. Though their faces were covered, Harriet imagined wonder and uncertainty and fear as they stared at the bone-colored figure who stood bareheaded and barefoot in the snow, watching them.

Then one of the Death Eaters dropped to his knees. He crawled to Voldemort through the snow, across the stains of Wormtail's blood and Hermione's, and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robe.

"Master," he murmured. "Master. . ."

Harriet pictured Snape doing what this man was doing and felt a stab of absolute revulsion, mixed with a drowning fear that he might be here, that he might have come.

Each of the Death Eaters began approaching Voldemort at a crawl, kissing his robes and then backing up, as if they were in the presence of royalty, to stand in a circle around Voldemort, the heap of Wormtail, Harriet and Hermione. But there were gaps, as if they were leaving spots for more Death Eaters to come. Harriet realized she was shaking - from cold, fear, she didn't know - nor did she know what to feel that she couldn't tell if Snape was there or not. She wanted to know he was emphatically _not_.

Voldemort looked around at the circle, and a shiver seemed to pass through them, like a wind carding at the last frail leaves of a tree on the edge of winter.

"Welcome, Death Eaters," said Voldemort, his voice quiet, yet it carried through the circle, silencing even that shiver of movement. Even Wormtail's whimpering fell silent. "It is thirteen years since last we met. . . yet you answer my call as if it were only yesterday. We are still united, then, under the Dark Mark."

He lifted a hand, as if measuring the wind, and asked even more softly, "Or are we?"

He turned slowly, his stained eyes traveling across the cloaked and hooded faces ringed around him; and though he was the one surrounded, he seemed to surround them all.

"I taste your guilt," he said. "It seeps from your pores. The guilt of health, of being whole, of possessing your powers intact - the guilt of your prompt appearances, of your readiness to return when I summon you _now_. . . the guilt that you did not come to serve me before, to aid me, your master, to whom you swore eternal loyalty."

No one in the circle moved or spoke, no one made a sound. Harriet did not think they dared. Hermione's pulse beat slowly against her fingertips.

"The guilt," Voldemort continued, still soft, "that you believed me broken. That you thought me gone. You slipped back amongst my enemies, pleaded ignorance, innocence, bewitchment. . .

"I ask myself, how could you believe I would not rise again? You who knew the steps I took long ago to guard myself against mortal death? You, who have seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living?"

"And I answer myself, perhaps you believed a still-greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort. . . perhaps you now pay allegiance to another. . . perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"

The circle didn't seem to like the sound of Dumbledore's name; they stirred, some muttering, shaking their cloaked heads, their masked faces.

Voldemort ignored them. "It is a disappointment to me, I confess. . ."

One of the men flung himself forward, out of the circle, collapsing at Voldemort's feet.

"Master! Master, forgive me, forgive us all!"

Voldemort laughed and raised his wand. " _Crucio!_ "

The Death Eater writhed and shrieked while the circle around him held still. For the first time, it occurred to Harriet how much noise they were making. . . what if someone should come? The police - anyone -

Voldemort flicked his wand and the Death Eater he'd been torturing collapsed into a heap, gasping.

"You ask for forgiveness, Avery? Thirteen years' repayment is my price. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"

Wormtail huddled in on himself, whimpering. Voldemort tilted his head slightly to one side, considering.

"You returned to me not out of loyalty, but out of fear - of your old friends, your enemies. . . you had nowhere to run but to me. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you?"

"Y-yes, Master. . . please, Master, p-please. . ."

"Yet you helped me return to my body," said Voldemort, his voice cold, his face without expression, his eyes burning and empty as he looked down at Wormtail cowering on the ground. There was no gratitude; only empty contempt. "Worthless and traitorous as you are, you helped me. . . and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers."

Voldemort raised his wand again. With a cutting sweep, he conjured from the air a writhing ball of molten silver. The ball twisted, morphing into a replica of a human hand, its gleaming light shining on Wormtail's tear-stained, trembling face. In awe he held up his arm, flinching as the hand dropped toward him, gasping as it sank onto his wrist. For a moment it still shone as if with inner light, reflected in his watery eyes.

"My Lord," he whispered. "It is beautiful. . . thank you, Master, _thank you_. . ."

Crawling forward, he kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes.

"May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail."

"Never, my Lord, never. . ."

Wormtail lurched to his feet and shuffled to his place in the circle, staring at his shining new hand, his face still streaked with tears and spattered with blood.

Voldemort turned to the masked man on Wormtail's right.

"Lucius, my slippery friend," he said, and Harriet felt like she'd been punched in the heart. "I am told that you have not renounced our old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius. Your exploits at the World Cup were fun, I dare say. . . but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"

"My Lord, I was constantly on the alert," came Lucius Malfoy's voice from beneath the hood. "Had there been any sign from you, any whisper of your whereabouts, I would have been at your side immediately, nothing could have prevented me - "

"And yet you ran from my Mark, when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer," said Voldemort, and Lucius Malfoy stopped talking. "Yes, I know all about that, Lucius. . . you have disappointed me. I expect more faithful service in future."

"Of course, my Lord, of course - you are merciful, thank you. . ."

Voldemort moved on around the circle, but Harriet was staring at the masked Lucius Malfoy. That was Draco Malfoy's father, and she'd seen Draco sulking at the Slytherin table and arguing with Asteria and sending her secret bottles of Valentine's poison. . .

"The Lestranges should stand here," said Voldemort, gazing at a gap in the circle wide enough for two people. "They are entombed in Azkaban, for they were faithful to me. They went to Azkaban rather than renounce me. When Azkaban is broken open, the Lestranges will be honored beyond their dreams. . ."

As he walked along the circle, he passed some Death Eaters without speaking. Others, he stopped and greeted, either promising them better victims or noting their failure to live up to expectations. Macnair, Goyle, Crabbe, Nott - men Harriet had met, or whose children she sat with in class - Hermione had hexed Crabbe and Goyle only days ago; Hermione who lay motionless in her arms, her pulse weak where Harriet kept her fingers pressed against her wrist, because it couldn't stop, it _couldn't_.

"And here we have six missing Death Eaters," said Voldemort quietly, looking at the largest gap of all. "Three dead in my service. . . one, who I believe has left me forever. He will be killed, of course."

 _Snape_ , Harriet knew, with a sick lurch in her gut.

"And one, too cowardly to return, has been dealt with. Perhaps your son wrote to you, Lucius?" He said it as if not expecting an answer, and Lucius shifted but did not give him one. "My most faithful servant begged me for the opportunity, and I gave him his reward. . . this final place is reserved for him. He is the reason our guests are here tonight - taken from beneath the very nose of that old fool Albus Dumbledore. Yes, Harriet Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call her my guest of honor."

His curving smile bared his teeth. The Death Eaters' eyes gleamed behind their masks in the firelight as they looked at her. Wormtail looked down at his silver hand.

Lucius Malfoy stepped forward from his right. "Master, we crave to know - we beg you to tell us - how you have achieved this. . . this miracle - how you managed to return to us?"

"Ah, what a story it is, Lucius," said Voldemort softly. "And it begins, and ends, with my young friend here."

He picked his way across the blood-spattered snow to stand over Harriet, who remembered the way his diary-self had screamed as she'd stabbed the book with the fang, ink coursing hot across her hands.

"You know that they have called this child my downfall?" His stained eyes rested on Harriet, who felt her scar begin to burn, to crack open as if it would split her head apart, and she lost sight of his face in the tidal pain as she tried to remain upright and hold onto Hermione. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill her. Her mother died in the attempt to save her, unwittingly providing her with a protection I had not foreseen."

He bent closer to Harriet, who hated herself for not daring to spit in his face as she'd done with Wormtail, for not mocking him the way she'd done Riddle-in-Ginny's body.

"Ancient magic," Voldemort said as his Death Eaters watched. "The sacrifice of a mother choosing death in exchange for the life of her child. _Love_." He laughed and Harriet's scar spiked, screaming, with pain. "Oh yes, powerful magic, as Dumbledore would have us all believe. In that, at least, he is no fool. I could not touch the child, not by hand or by spell. My curse rebounded and tore me apart. I would have died, were it not for the most powerful enchantments I had performed to guard myself against mortal death. The agony of separation from one's body. . .

"But here we are again, after thirteen long years. After living in hiding with no servant to aid me; after placing my hope in weak and foolish wizards; after being thwarted, time and again, by this ridiculous child who had been granted power beyond her understanding, I have flesh again. And the greatness of Lord Voldemort will no longer be vanquished by the foolish sacrifice of a weak Mudblood mother, or the chance luck of a stupid child. No. . ."

He extended one finger toward her face, and it took all of Harriet's willpower not to scramble away.

"That is all done with, now," he said softly, and touched her scar.

Her blood and bone had turned to fire, to molten metal, as if her skin were boiling away, as if her insides were burnt to ash.

She was lying across Hermione, curly hair in her mouth, Voldemort's feet in front of her face, the Death Eaters' laughter echoing around her.

"You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this stupid child could ever have been stronger than me. Chance after chance, and I so terribly weakened - no longer. I took my chance, when I placed my faithful servant at Hogwarts - when he reported to me that this Mudblood filth whom Harriet Potter called friend would step outside of Hogwarts' protection, in _his_ company! And I knew Harriet Potter. . . she had proved herself reckless, willing to risk so much for so little, and criminally stupid. Take her friend, and I would soon have Harriet Potter in my grasp, away from the protection of that Muggle-loving fool, Albus Dumbledore. With Harriet Potter in my grasp, the remains of her mother's protection could be stripped away. And so it has been.

"And I am now going to prove my power by killing her, here and now, before you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help her, no mother to die for her, no traitor to take her part. I will give her the chance - she will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt that we have all been fools. Tonight, our barriers of doubt will break. When tomorrow dawns, the wizarding world will lie before us, and our fears of defeat will be dispelled with the morning mist.

"Now rise, Harriet Potter," he said, eyes burning red. "Wormtail, find her wand."

* * *

Once Not Moody had relieved his feelings a bit by torturing Severus - in his mind-box, the pain was a softer wash against the crippling agony of the Vow - he kicked Severus in the side, hard.

"Get up," he said. "We're going to find Potter."

Severus strained against the confines of his mind-box, but he still couldn't touch the Imperius. The double pain of Cruciatus and the unanswered Vow kept him powerless.

"Do you know where she is?" asked Not Moody. "Answer me, Snape."

"No," said Snape, his voice raw, and it was the truth: he did not absolutely know where she was, only where she ought to be.

Not Moody kicked him again, knocking him down as he tried to rise in answer to the command to _get up_. "Tell me where she _should_ be."

"Gryffindor Tower."

"Then that's where we'll go. Get up."

At the outer door, Not Moody paused to pull on a Cloak of Invisibility, a cheap imitation of Harriet's heirloom. "If anyone asks, you're just looking after Potter. Headmaster wants her, you'll tell them. Stop limping, someone will think there's something wrong with you."

Obeying that command was extremely difficult in his pain-wracked body, but Severus had to manage it; Imperius saw to that.

Safe inside his mental fortress, he calculated: was the Vow assaulting him because Harriet's danger was imminent, or because she was actually in the Dark Lord's presence? He feared the latter, but Not Moody was clearly to have been her means of reaching the Dark Lord; how could she have got to him and eluded Not Moody?

 _Dobby_. The elf had burst into his rooms without being called. Could she have induced Dobby to bring her to the Dark Lord and then leave her there? Even given an order, would Dobby obey _that_? Harriet was not - had not been - in reality his master. . . But if she had needed him to. . .

Need.

 _The Room of Requirement_.

He was almost grateful for Imperio in that moment, for it did not let him falter and give away his thoughts. But in possession of his own will, he could have slit Not Moody's head from his shoulders, or have finagled his way to the Dark Lord. Under Imperius, he could only follow Not Moody's commands. No, he wouldn't fucking be grateful for Imperius.

" _There_ you are," said a snide, peevish voice. "You know, it's very inconvenient for you not to keep Hogwarts' paintings anywhere near you. How is a portrait to contact you?"

Phineus Nigellus was glowering at him from a painting of shepherdesses tending their flock.

 _Get away, get AWAY,_ Severus thought, because he could not signal the imitation fucking idiot and Not Moody was silent and invisible beside him.

"Something's happening with that blasted Room of yours," Nigellus said. "Dumbledore's gone off somewhere, can't be found by any of us. It's probably that girl of yours - we all know she traipses around the castle, invisible. Anyway, they thought you _ought_ to know and were being very _loud_ that for some reason the task should fall to me. I hope I've discharged this tedious mission and can hereafter be left in _peace_."

And he stepped out of the frame while Severus screamed inside with the impotent urge to reduce to ash every canvas that could house him.

"Isn't this interesting," said Not Moody quietly. "Tell me what he meant, Snape." He followed the command with a little shock of pain, jabbed into the back of Severus' neck.

"The Room of Requirement on the seventh floor," said Severus obediently, as inside he clawed at his own fortified walls. "He believes that's where Harriet went."

"Then take me there," Not Moody murmured.

* * *

Wormtail limped out of the circle, which shifted forward, drawing together until the gaps were closed. He threw Harriet's wand down in the snow beside her, as if not wanting to get nearer to her.

"Get the Mudblood out of the way," said Voldemort, vanishing the cauldron with an absent wave of his wand.

Harriet stood and pointed her wand at Wormtail, who hesitated, his eyes darting round. A few of the Death Eaters laughed at them both.

"You touch Hermione again and I'll kill you," she said to Wormtail, her voice shaking, with fear, with rage.

Voldemort's reptilian features looked amused; the Death Eaters laughed harder. Wormtail cringed and gripped his wand in his silver hand, his eyes anywhere but Harriet's face.

"Pathetic, Wormtail," said Voldemort. "Leave her, then. Get back to the circle, Wormtail, and out of my sight."

Wormtail hunched and lurched back toward Lucius Malfoy, who did not move to let him in.

"You have been taught to duel, Harriet Potter?" asked Voldemort, not loudly or mockingly, but with an underlying trace of iron cruelty. "We bow to each other to begin. The niceties must be observed. Your mother would not wish to learn her own daughter was so ill-mannered. Bow to death, Harriet."

The Death Eaters' laughter clattered around her. She felt sick with rage and loathing, but she would not bow, she would not be played with, even if he killed her -

"I asked you to _bow_ ," said Voldemort.

Harriet felt her spine curve, as if an enormous hand had cupped around her and bent her forwards.

"Very good," said Voldemort. "But, before we truly begin - you do not wish to beg, like your Mudblood mother? For your life, perhaps, or for the life of your friend?"

Harriet clenched her teeth so hard her jaw pulsed and gripped her wand until her fingernails ached against the wood. _Expelliarmus, Stupefy, Reducto, Protego_ \- she'd practiced them with Ron and Hermione, she'd done quite well, but they'd have to be _powerful_ tonight -

" _Crucio_ ," said Voldemort.

It hit her before she'd started shaping _Protego_ on her tongue, pain so intense it lit up every part of her, from the inside of her eyes to the underside of her skin, boiling through her blood and shredding her muscles, scorching her lungs and erupting from her throat -

Then it ended, and she was lying on the frozen ground again, Hermione's bloodied face next to hers. The Death Eaters laughed above her, like wind rasping through the branches of the dead trees.

She got to her feet, shaking all over from the pain. Voldemort's lipless mouth curved.

"That hurt, did it not?" he said. "You don't want me to do it again. Beg me, Harriet. Beg me not to hurt you again. _Beg,_ Harriet _._ Or if you will not - _Imperio!"_

Weightless fog settled over her mind, blocking out everything except a sensation of pure peace and a soft voice: _Say 'please don't hurt me.'_

 _I won't_ , Harriet thought, and she was suddenly aware of herself in the fog, solid and real in the peaceful nothingness.

_Say 'please' - just say it. . ._

_I'm not going to_.

 _Say 'please_ '. . .

"I WON'T!" Harriet shouted.

The whispering of the Death Eaters' laughter vanished in the echo of her voice, ringing round the graveyard. Voldemort's face shone reddish where the fire lit one side, dragging the other half into shadow.

"You won't?" he asked, and his Death Eaters made no noise now, not even to shuffle on the snow. "I can see that obedience is a virtue I must teach you before you die."

She saw the wand shift that time and she was ready.

" _Protego!"_ she shouted, throwing up her arm.

She had no idea if the Shield spell would protect her from Crucio - it would not be effective against Avada Kedavra; only her mother's death could protect against that - but Voldemort's curse rebounded, rippling against her shield with sparks like glowing embers. The impact of their spells' meeting drove her backward; her shoes skidded on the snow-packed earth, her arm trembled. Now, when it went down, then she would have to attack -

Voldemort's lipless mouth split wider as the Crucio sparks fell into nothing and her rippling shield dissipated.

" _Avada Kedavra!_ " he cried as she shouted, " _Expelliarmus!_ "

A roaring jet of brackish green light surged toward Harriet from Voldemort's wand like a tidal force as a blast of fiery red energy flew from her wand toward him. The red and green spells collided in midair, but instead of canceling each other out or absorbing one another, they - _fused_.

Energy rocketed down the connection into Harriet's wand, and her fingers clamped down in surprise. She gripped her wand in both hands as it began to crackle, buzzing in her grip, and the red and green light bathing the graveyard suddenly turned to gold.

The fused spells rippled in the air, shoots and sparks of golden light burnishing the darkness -

And from the golden wave of energy binding her wand and Voldemort's, a sudden eruption blew silently out, knocking the Death Eaters back, as gilded tendrils unwrapped from the nexus of glowing light and spun around the two of them, spellbound in the center.

Voldemort's eyes were wide on the other side of that living golden wave, as the shimmering, sparking cords encased them entirely. The woven spell-light rippled under Harriet's feet, stirring Hermione toward her. Harriet gripped her wand, hard, as Hermione rolled gently atop her feet and lay there, motionless again.

And then Harriet's skin prickled all over as a haunting melody - a sound that felt like her mother's phantom touch through an enchanted looking-glass, like the intangible starlight sparks of a Patronus - coursed through her body and settled in her heart.

Phoenix song.

 _Don't break the connection_ , whispered some instinct beyond a voice, and Harriet knew she couldn't, even as it became harder to hold on.

The spell-nexus between her and Voldemort rippled, like a wave cresting. Blinding beads of light rolled along the trough, headed toward Harriet. Phoenix song swelled around her, and she thought, or perhaps she dreamed or wished, that she heard her mother not begging for her life, as when the Dementors drew close, but holding her against her chest and whispering, _It will be all right, you'll see, darling_ ; and she saw her mother's handwriting on an old letter buried in a jewelry box, the g's the same as Harriet's own, _I hope I have a chance to give them to you myself. But if I don't, you must remember how much I love you. I'd give you everything in the world, if I could, and still it would never be enough._

The blinding white-gold beads, so near to the tip of her wand, which seared in her hand, began to roll back the way they'd come.

They gained momentum now, the rippling wave propelling them toward Voldemort, who watched them come in the golden light, his face lit from the front, no longer hidden in shadow, flat and almost fearful in the brightness.

Hermione's weight was warm and steady on Harriet's feet. She saw Hermione's face the first day she'd ever seen it, lit with apprehension and awe as she pulled a wand from a box in Ollivander's; she heard Hermione say, _I want to be brave, but sometimes I'm afraid that the Sorting Hat put me into Gryffindor because I wanted it so badly. I wanted us to be in the same House, because I wanted to be with someone who seemed to want to be my friend;_ she felt her own head resting against Hermione's shoulder and Hermione's cheek against the top of her head.

As the glowing bead connected with Voldemort's wand, the air flared hot with screams that sounded like echoes of Harriet's own voice. The explosion buffeted her, but the phoenix song carded across her skin, a soft exhalation to the brick wall of a Protego. In the golden light she and Voldemort both watched as the ghost of a silver hand touched the air and then disappeared; screams echoed again through the phoenix song; and then some greyish shape, as large as a person, began to unfold in the golden air.

It was an old man, one Harriet didn't recognize - but then she did, from an old dream-that-wasn't; the vision of Voldemort and Wormtail and someone else from the summer, when her scar had burned and brought her awake on a wave of green light.

"A real wizard, then, was he?" asked the old man, leaning on his walking stick. "Killed me, that one did. You fight him, m'girl. . ."

Another person was dropping from the wand, a woman Harriet vaguely recalled from the papers: Bertha Jorkins, missing since the summer. . . "Hold on!" she cried. "Don't let go!"

And Harriet understood: these were the people Voldemort had killed.

She did not drop her wand, though she knew who must be coming next. As the shadows of Bertha Jorkins and the old man circled the glowing dome around her, Harriet kept her gaze on Voldemort's wand, her eyes burning from the light, yearning for the shadow of her mother.

And then, it came.

Her mother's hair was long, trailing in the air like smoke. Her eyes, washed of all color, fixed on Harriet. She smiled, her face moving like clouds high on a windy day, and her voice made Harriet's chest ache harder than the Cruciatus or the phoenix song.

"It will be all right," she said. "Just hold on a little bit longer, Harriet. Your father's coming, he wants to see you - "

Harriet nodded. She didn't have breath in her throat to speak. Her heart was too full and her arms were shaking with the effort of hanging on to her wand.

Then, like an exhalation, her father was growing into sight, his hair messy like hers, his glasses crooked. His smile moved across his face like her mum's had done, and when he spoke it was in a quiet voice, only for Harriet and for her mum next to them.

"When the connection breaks, we'll linger for a few moments," he said.

"We'll give you time," her mum said. "Do you know how to revive Hermione?"

"She's hurt," Harriet said with the only breath she had.

"Say ' _Ren_ _nervate,'_ " her mum said. "The phoenix song will help you."

"The Room of Requirement will get you back," her dad said. He talked like he had a lump in his throat, but he smiled, in a way both fiercely proud and deeply sad. "Do it now, okay?"

Her mother's intangible hand brushed the air near her hair, and her voice was gentle, her smoky face fierce with yearning. "Be ready to run, sweetheart."

The ghosts of her parents were so close to her, and something powerful, some enormous feeling, was building in her heart. The phoenix song was swelling to a crescendo, almost painfully loud and piercing, as if that great, overwhelming feeling was driving it higher and higher.

"NOW!" Harriet yelled, and somehow she found the strength to pull her arm up, to shatter the golden nexus and break the connection between their wands.

The golden cage collapsed in a shower of sparks; the ghostly figures of her parents, Bertha Jorkins and the old man billowed toward Voldemort, blocking Harriet from his sight. The phoenix song died - but the Death Eaters were lying on the ground, groaning, stirring, disorientated somehow.

Harriet shouted, " _Ren_ _nervate!"_ pointing her wand at Hermione.

Hermione was stirring, opening her eyes, and Harriet grabbed her shoulder, panting, "Come on, we have to go!"

There were so many Death Eaters, and they wouldn't be down on the ground long - one of them was already getting up -

" _STUPEFY!_ " Harriet shouted, flinging a jet of red light at him; he keeled back over as his neighbor struggled to sit up.

Hermione scrambled to her feet, sluggish and disorientated; Harriet pulled Hermione's arm over her shoulder and Stunned another Death Eater as they pelted toward him. More of them were rising to their feet, and a jet of crackling orange light flew over her head, shattering a headstone of a nearby grave.

" _Impedimenta_!" she bellowed, throwing a spell wildly over her shoulder as she dragged Hermione into the maze of graves.

Her Invisibility Cloak lay crumpled in the snow behind a stone angel; snatching it up, she flung it over Hermione and herself, and with her arm around Hermione's waist now, propelled them into the trees.

Behind them, Voldemort screamed - " _Find them! Bring them to me!_ "

Hermione's breathing was harsh, her steps clumsy and uncoordinated, and whatever the phoenix song and the Rennervate spell had done, Harriet was afraid they were wearing off. They stumbled through the snow away from the light, hearing the shouts of the Death Eaters through the trees.

And just when Harriet's throat was closing up with terror - what if she'd imagined the ghost of her parents telling her to return to the Room, because how could the connection still be here - she saw light breaking in the gloom - a sliver widening into a door -

With a gasp she surged forward, now all but dragging Hermione, who was slumped against her side, her legs barely moving her along. Harriet threw out a hand and clawed the door open, pushed Hermione ahead of her and fell through -

The door swung shut behind her, melding with the wall. She lay draped over Hermione, panting, her breath shaking, feeling sick and miserable and terrified and empty and disbelieving.

Then someone dragged the Invisibility Cloak off her.

It was Snape.

And with Hermione a heavy weight in her own arms, Harriet broke down and sobbed.


	90. If You Are Prepared

She was in front of him -- she was not dead -- she did not even appear to be greatly injured -- dirty, smeared with blood, shaken; but she had pushed Granger through the door under, seemingly, her own power --

The screaming pain of the Vow, pulling his bones apart, dropped to a hiss.

But it was not silenced; he was still trapped inside his own mind, and Not Moody was hidden behind him, his wand pressing into the back of his neck, and Severus had no way to warn her.

 _Be suspicious_ , he thought, trying to shape it like a flint, to drive it through the walls around him, to shatter them wide and break free. _T_ _he fucking code, say it_ \--

She was hunched over Granger, who lay unmoving and covered in blood from a black wound in her right shoulder. Harriet’s blood-stained hands were pressed over her own face; she was struggling to breathe past the choking sobs.

“Her -- Hermione’s -- ” She dragged her arm across her face, only smearing the dirt and blood around. “Sh-she’s huh-hurt -- ”

Not Moody leaned in close to Severus and with the barest breath, inaudible over Harriet’s weeping, whispered: “Take them to the hospital wing.”

“Hospital wing,” said Severus. Imperius permitted him to conjure a stretcher and lift Granger magically onto it.

 _Ask me the code, notice something isn’t right_ , Severus thought, because he knew why Not Moody was permitting the hospital wing; it was isolated, and he could seal off the room.

But Harriet was barely looking at Severus. Her focus was on Granger. She put her hand on Granger’s wrist and kept it there as he floated the stretcher down the corridor, headed to the infirmary.

The castle was silent, cold and dark. Severus wished desperately for a ghost to cross their path; for someone to see Granger unconscious and Harriet stricken and to call Minerva to help them. A student or teacher Not Moody could kill -- or compel Severus to kill -- before they could bring help, but a ghost would be safe from him.

But Harriet might not be safe, should any alarm be raised. What might Not Moody do to keep his advantage if in danger of losing it?

The only safe option was to break the Imperius.

The Vow hurt less now than before, but still it scalded him, for walking along beside a puppet Severus in a madman’s presence, Harriet was in danger as great as if she walked next to the Dark Lord. Severus' mind was still perfectly boxed away, as he’d taught himself. He knew how to open the box when he had control of his own body, but the Imperius rendered his will inaccessible.

They made it to the hospital wing undisturbed. With every ounce of mental strength he possessed, he willed himself not to open the door.

It was like throwing water against bricks. His hand rose to open the door.

Then Harriet looked up, dragging her sleeve across her nose, and said, "I'm working on the Harriet-Slytherin Friendship Club."

_The code. She's said the fucking code._

The Imperius did not direct him to reply immediately.

And he saw it in her face, the moment she realized something was wrong.

* * *

Hermione’s pulse was jumpy, weak against her fingertips and Snape was acting so weird. He had not screamed at her or asked what had happened. He was acting _calm_  and it was freaking her out. She’d have felt more normal if he had shouted and fired curses and set the corridor on fire.

He’d been calm after he’d found her and Draco Malfoy with Karkaroff’s corpse. . . maybe this was just his way of dealing with her trauma. . . but she still felt like something was wrong.

Maybe it was just the shock of nearly dying and then getting away messing with her head. Maybe he was trying to stay in control because Hermione was hurt. That was probably it.

But she couldn't stop feeling like something was  _wrong._

She'd say the code, she realized. It was why they'd thought it up, after all, so she could know everything was okay.

Snape was reaching out to open the door to the infirmary. Sniffing, she said, "I'm working on the Harriet-Slytherin Friendship Club."

Snape did not reply. He did not even look at her. He went to push Hermione's stretcher into the infirmary.

Harriet lunged at him and caught him in the waist.

She knocked him away from Hermione and sent them stumbling into the infirmary. Snape didn't try to push her off or fight back or do anything; he just fell in a heap to the floor and lay there. He was breathing, but his body was like a puppet cut off its strings. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, but glazed, like he was --

The door echoed as it shut behind her. Harriet’s hand groped for her wand as she jumped to her feet, spinning round to see someone appearing from the darkness, slinging off a cloak of invisibility --

It was Moody --

His pocked, scarred face twisted, and he flung his arm up, hitting her in the chest with a spell before she could get out more than “ _Exp_ \--”

His hex hurled her through the air; she crashed into the wall and slid down, bouncing off a bedside cabinet and landing in a heap on the floor. Her head felt shattered, her body thundered with pain; she couldn’t suck in air to breathe.

 _Clunk, clunk_ his clawed foot echoed on the stone floor. Harriet pushed herself up -- she’d dropped her wand -- and rolled underneath the nearby bed.

Moody’s hex ripped the bed off the floor and flung it through the air, but Harriet was already sliding under the next one. Her wand lay out in the middle of the floor, an arm’s length away from Snape’s boot, and Snape still hadn’t moved from where she'd knocked him down. Hermione’s stretcher hung in the air, her hand dangling over the side.

“You have a talent for staying alive, girl,” said Moody. “It’s wasted on you. . .”

Harriet dived at her wand; Moody fired a crackling hex at the floor that seared a long gash in the stone, driving shrapnel at her face as she leapt out of the way. Her cheeks stung; without her glasses, she’d have surely got a chunk in the eye. But she’d snatched up her wand; her hand was bleeding, and a long burn ran up her arm, but she had her wand.

“ _Stupefy!”_ she shouted, but he deflected it with a shield, his teeth bared.

“ _How_ you escaped the Dark Lord,” he said, “not once, but twice -- you, who can’t even duel without showing your every move -- with no talent, no cleverness -- no power to equal _his_. . .”

His face was twisting, his eye bulging. Standing in front of Snape (it had to be Imperius, that was the only reason Snape could be so blank and still) and Hermione, Harriet gripped her wand and fought not to be sick Moody’s roving eye popped out of his skull and clattered to the floor --

He snarled, twisting his neck, as the skin on his face melted like hot wax, his nose crumpling, his lips pulled wide --

And with a grotesque sucking sound, his face solidified into someone else’s.

He panted, wiping one hand across his damp face. He was younger than Moody had been, with waxy pallor and fair hair and mad eyes. She had no idea who he was, but she understood one thing, at least: _Polyjuice_.

“ _That’s_ better,” he said, grinning, or something like it; the way a skull grins, missing its skin. “Not to wear that battered old mug of that deformed fucker any longer.

“Don’t know me, girl, do you?” He held his wand at waist-level, pointed at her. His left foot edged forward then back, to the side and straight again, like a nervous tic. Harriet tried to focus on his wand, not the dancing foot. She didn’t know him, but it didn’t matter.

“You were supposed to wait for me, Potter.” His eyes were dark, only pinpricks of light shining on the iris. Even though it was only a reflection of the lamps, Harriet felt like she was being watched by something that dwelt somewhere deep and dark inside him. “I told the Dark Lord I would bring you. . .” His tongue pressed against the corner of his mouth. “Was he angry?”

Harriet’s heart stung with the desire to hex him, but she was afraid that if she went on the offensive she would put Hermione and Snape in danger. She’d have to shield them --

“WAS HE ANGRY?” shouted Not Moody and he flung another bed out of the way. It crashed into a window, shattering glass, and Harriet prayed someone would come -- Dumbledore; where was Dumbledore through all this? Where was Madam Pomfrey? 

“He said you were his most faithful servant,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level. Keep him talking, till Dumbledore or someone figured out where they were and stopped him. . .

 _What if no one comes?_ _Hermione and I were alone in the graveyard -- we had to get ourselves out -- if it wasn’t for the ghosts of my mum and dad we’d have died there. . ._

_I prayed Snape wouldn't come and here he is and he's trapped too --_

“And how did he greet them?” Not Moody took half a step toward her; but he didn’t seem to be advancing for a curse, only unable to hold still in his agitation. “Those _traitors_ and _cowards_ who turned their backs on him, who renounced him, all those years ago? Tell me what he did to them -- what he said -- ”

“He tortured them.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it was clear that if she told this mad bastard that Voldemort had been pretty lenient for a twisted-up maniac, it would not go over well. “He wanted to know why they hadn’t helped him -- ”

“Yes.” Not Moody's breath hitched. “Yes -- they did _nothing_ \-- like that sack of shit behind you -- ” His wand dripped sparks, blood-red.

“He said he’d honor you.” Harriet kept her back to Snape, Hermione on the stretcher behind him. “Above everyone else.”

“Yes.” That pinprick of light in his eyes did not grow in size but seemed to shine more brightly. “And how do you think he will honor me when I deliver you to him again -- with this _traitor_?”

His curse flew through the air, and she barely got her Protego up in time. She banished one of the hospital beds toward him, and he knocked it back at her with a laugh. She hit it with Reducto, splitting it in half.

Not Moody dived toward her, breaking through the split halves of the bed, and knocked her flat with a spell that felt like a sledgehammer to the chest. She couldn’t get any air into her lungs; she lay on the floor, trying to gasp, to breathe, as he stepped on her wand hand and ground his heel down. She would have screamed except she couldn’t breathe.

He laughed. “The Dark Lord’s _great_ adversary. I’ll enjoy --”

Then he gasped as a gash opened up on his right shoulder. He raised his hand to it, looking surprised.

“ _Sectum--sempra_ ,” hissed Snape’s voice.

Blood exploded from Not Moody’s front -- his legs, his torso, his face. He sagged to his knees, his hands shaking, raising his wand --

Snape had pushed himself up on one arm. His wand-arm lashed out again, driving his spell like a carving knife. Not Moody’s head dropped backward almost off his shoulders, his neck spurting blood.

His body slumped to the floor and lay still.

Harriet dragged in air, her lungs still not feeling like they were expanding, and curled her throbbing wrist against her chest. Everything hurt and her head felt like the entire cosmos was spinning through it.

Snape lay twisted on his side, panting like he was in pain, hair hanging in his eyes.

 _Are you okay?_ Harriet wanted to ask, but she couldn’t speak. She coughed and felt like her chest was caving in.

“Don’t,” said Snape. His voice was hoarse, like he’d been horribly ill. “Just be. . . still. . .”

He was trying to pull something from his robes, but he was shaking so much he couldn’t get it on the first two tries. Harriet tried to sit up again, to help him, but he hissed at her. “ _Don’t!”_

He got the thing out of his pocket and dropped it. Harriet had seen him carrying that two years ago, when they’d found Penelope Clearwater petrified on the floor: a kind of round stone. He closed his shaking hand around it.

“Minerva,” he said hoarsely. “Poppy. Infirmary. Danger.”

Then he collapsed onto his back and lay there, breathing in sharp, shallow, intermittent gusts.

Harriet wanted to lie there too. She felt like her heart had been wrung out, like everything else inside her had been carved away and just that one flattened organ left. Her chest spiked with pain when she breathed. Her head was swollen, her back ached, her wrist throbbed.

But she had to check on Hermione.

Snape’s fingers closed briefly on her forearm. She wanted to turn her hand over and clutch back, but she suspected Not Moody had sprained it. She wanted to hold still, to memorize that warm imprint of his hand through her sleeve, placed voluntarily on her arm, a gesture of comfort when she had never felt more in need of it.

But Hermione needed her.

“ _Stop that_ ,” Snape said raspily as Harriet heaved herself over on her left side, her sprained wrist curled against her chest. Her chest still felt like it would cave in, and she would have cried out except for a moment she couldn’t breathe again.

She got her feet under her and unfolded her legs as best she could -- not all the way to standing, but enough that she could crouch and balance. She gripped Hermione’s stretcher with her left hand, pulling it toward her, fumbling until she got Hermione’s hand in hers and felt the low, weak thread of her pulse.

Harriet’s head swam, and she couldn’t hold herself upright any longer. She slumped down, her breath hitching, pain hammering against her sternum with every breath.

An odd, fluttering touch brushed her shoulder. Snape’s fingers were  _plucking_  at her jumper. She grabbed him with her good hand and hung on.

They hadn’t died. She’d been _so scared_ that they wouldn’t survive it, and they had, and all she wanted to do was _scream_ \--

And then she remembered.

“Dobby,” she croaked.

Nothing happened. He didn’t come. Snape’s fingers dug into hers. She lifted her head, peering at him through her dirty glasses.

His face told her without her having to ask the question.

Something was building inside her -- something painful and black and enormous, as if Not Moody’s crushing curse had been cast from inside of her. Hermione’s hand was cold and still in her own, the pulse beneath her skin slow and faint; her mother’s hand had passed straight through her because she wasn’t really there; she was gone, they were all  _gone_ , and she and Hermione had been _alone_ ; and she had known all along that no one could protect her from Voldemort, no one, but she’d failed to protect Dobby or Hermione, she’d _failed_ \--

A knock on the doors shook the room, then, not a “hello” knock, but a reverberating _bang_ , like a battering ram. The doors trembled, and on the second strike they cracked open, slivers splintering off as they swung inward.

Professor McGonagall advanced into the room, her wand held combat-ready. Seeing her, Harriet wanted to cry, like she had with Snape in the seventh-floor corridor.

McGonagall’s grim expression flickered with shock and fear at the sight of them -- Snape and Harriet on the floor, Hermione on the stretcher, Not Moody’s corpse mutilated in a pool of blood -- but before she could take another step into the room, Snape -- whose hand was tighter than ever on Harriet’s shoulder -- said:

“Your Patronus.” His hand was around his wand, his eyes narrowed. “Show me.”

Professor McGonagall blinked but swept her arm in an arc, and a silver starshine tabby flew through the air, landing lightly at her feet.

“Awake Filius,” she told it. "Alert Pomona and Poppy. Tell them that no one must enter this room.”

The tabby bounded past her feet and disappeared through the door in a shower of glittering sparks.

"I called Poppy -- " said Snape, still hoarse.

"She and Pomona are dealing with a catastrophe in Hufflepuff." 

Professor McGonagall swept a quick spell through the room before striding over to kneel between Harriet and Snape (who had gripped her hand hard, one last time, and then swiftly released it).

“The girls need to be taken to St. Mungo’s _immediately,_ ” Snape said. 

“I wouldn’t count yourself out of that, Severus.” McGonagall swept her wand over Harriet and put a hand on her forehead, as if checking for fever. 

“Crushing Curse,” Snape said, “I don’t know what happened to Granger -- the Dark Lord had her -- ”

“ _What_?” McGonagall stopped, then rose quickly and ran her wand over Hermione. “He’s _back_ , Severus?”

“Y-yes.” Snape grit his teeth and managed to sit up. “And I have to go -- ”

“ _No_ \-- ” Harriet fell into a coughing fit that hurt as bad as Cruciatus. He couldn’t go; she wouldn’t allow it --

“You aren’t going anywhere except St. Mungo’s, Severus,” said McGonagall, her sharpness almost disguising the tremor beneath. “For God’s sake, man, you can’t even stand!”

“I _have_ to -- ”

“He’ll -- kill you,” Harriet gasped, pressing her throbbing arm against her chest as if that could help the pain.

“Stop trying to talk!” Snape said, but McGonagall talked over him.

“Miss Potter is right, Severus. You’re coming with us to St. Mungo’s.” 

She strode into Madam Pomfrey's office, not flinching as she passed Not Moody's corpse. 

“Note that I am waiting to ask what happened until a better time,” said Professor McGonagall as she returned, carrying an old dented kettle. Her hand shook slightly as she handed it to Snape, who’d managed to haul himself to his feet using the bedstead behind him. “We’ll have to leave  _him_  here for the present, until one of us can deal with the Aurors.”

To Harriet’s surprise, Professor McGonagall scooped Hermione out of the stretcher and held her, a bit awkwardly but firmly. “Take my arm, Miss Potter. Severus -- ”

Severus held out the kettle -- the Portkey -- so that Professor McGonagall could maneuver her hand to grasp it.

Snape suddenly looked angry and chagrined. “Why, you old -- ” he started, his voice shaking, perhaps with fatigue, perhaps with fury, and he tugged at the kettle.

“I know you too well, man,” said Professor McGonagall, and Harriet realized that she had somehow stuck Snape’s hand to the Portkey so he couldn’t let go at the last minute and stay at Hogwarts -- to head odd to Voldemort. Harriet loved her then, more than she ever had.

“Hang on tight, Miss Potter,” Professor McGonagall said.

And with that familiar feeling of being pulled down a drain faster than the speed of sound, they were leaving the hospital wing behind and hurtling through the streaking darkness toward St. Mungo’s -- wherever that was.

* * *

St. Mungo’s was a magical hospital. Witches and wizards in lime-green robes ran up to them as soon as the Portkey dumped them into a reception area. Someone conjured another stretcher for Hermione and began to rush her away. Harriet tried to follow them, but Professor McGonagall took her by the shoulders and held her back.

“They need to work and _you_ need healing. You too,” she said to Snape, who had collapsed into a chair and was breathing in pained hisses as another doctor hovered a wand over him.

“But -- Hermione -- ” Harriet managed, only to be lifted onto a stretcher by a wizard she hadn’t noticed. She did not appreciate being manhandled, but when he tapped her with his wand, the crushing pressure on her chest eased. . . at least on the outside.

“Crushing Curse,” Professor McGonagall said to Harriet’s doctor. “And we all three need to stay together.”

“Of course, Professor,” said the witch working on Snape.

“I can take care of myself,” Snape said, opening his eyes to glare at everyone; but then he glanced at Harriet and fell silent.

Harriet’s stretcher was pulled along the hall toward the lift, while Snape refused all help and limped along by himself, his crackling energy forbidding anyone from touching him.

But then Snape stopped and his eyes widened -- he swayed as he looked at something down the hall -- and Harriet levered herself up to look as McGonagall sighed with relief.

Professor Dumbledore had swept through the doors at the end of the hall and was striding toward them.

Voldemort’s words came back to Harriet from the graveyard: “ _Perhaps they believed a still-greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort. . . perhaps they now pay allegiance to another. . . perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?”_

The Death Eaters had muttered and shaken their heads, but she wondered if they felt this whenever they saw Dumbledore, a sense of power both benevolent and grim. As he strode toward them, she looked back at Snape and saw him relaxing; when the doctor put a hand on his arm to hold him upright, he didn’t throw her off; it was like it didn’t matter, suddenly; and Professor McGonagall looked, too, like she was regaining strength.

Professor Dumbledore took swift stock of them all -- relief as he glanced over Harriet, and something. . . _more_ as he looked at Snape. Harriet remembered the way she’d felt when Hermione had risen and hit Wormtail with that rock, not dead after all but alive and full of fighting, and she wondered if her face had resembled Dumbledore’s now.

He took Snape’s arm and Snape didn’t look happy about it but didn’t shake him off. Professor McGonagall stayed next to Harriet’s stretcher as they stepped into the lift.

But when they got out of the lift, Snape’s doctor started to steer him away into a room as Harriet’s doctor took her further along and she tried to sit up. She had already lost track of Hermione, she couldn’t also lose track of Snape.

“We’re -- supposed to -- stay together,” she managed.

“I need to speak with Severus, Harriet,” said Dumbledore. “But you will rejoin us once you’ve healed.”

Snape let Dumbledore guide him into the room the doctor held open, but his gaze followed Harriet as she was pulled away.

* * *

“This is Healer Itiowe,” said Professor McGonagall to Harriet, as the wizard measured Harriet’s vitals. “He was in Hufflepuff, about twelve years ahead of you, and particularly abysmal at Transfigurations.”

“Transfigurations,” said Healer Itiowe calmly, “was particularly abysmal at _me_. Does this hurt, Harriet?”

Harriet didn’t ask how he knew her name. He was holding her elbow and gently straightening her wrist.

She nodded tightly. He performed a spell that made her muscles feel like they were expanding, then contracting again, and immediate relief spread through her wrist into her hand.

“That should do for that,” he said. “What do you think?”

His calm manner reminded her of Parvati’s mum, Anaita, but it didn't help. She felt him place her hand back on the bed. In the corner of her eye, she saw him wave his wand over her chest. Perhaps that did something to the outside, but Harriet didn’t feel anything. There was something terrible trying to get _out_ of her chest, and it needed all her concentration to keep it _in_.

Dobby would never help her again. He would never give her another pair of odd socks. Last night was the last time she would ever have seen him.It was her fault that he was dead. That was the last reckless request she would ever give him. 

And Hermione, if she was hurt too badly.

And Snape, if he went to Voldemort.

“I need to see them,” she said suddenly, her voice unexpectedly loud. “Hermione and Snape -- I have to see them.”

“Harriet,” said Professor McGonagall. It was the first time she hadn’t said ‘Miss Potter.’

Harriet sat up. It was hard, and her chest clenched with pain. Healer Itiowe lay a hand on her shoulder, but Harriet jerked out of his grasp and swung her legs over the side.

“A moment, please, John,” Professor McGonagall said, and after a moment's pause Healer Itiowe nodded and left them alone. He moved faster than Harriet could, so he was out the door before she’d set her feet on the floor. Standing created a sharp pressure on her chest but she could still breathe.

“I have to see Hermione and Snape,” she said, not looking at Professor McGonagall but focusing on the door.

Professor McGonagall put her arms around her.

Harriet went still. The howling thing in her chest roiled.

She had never been held like this, as if by a mother. Her mother couldn’t, because she was smoke and phoenix song.

Harriet’s hands were shaking. She curled them into Professor McGonagall’s robes. The howling thing in her chest was a storm, hot and uncontrollable; her eyes were stinging. Her breath was shaking in her throat.

Professor McGonagall’s hand brushed against her hair. “I’m here, my girl,” she said, an unsteady hitch in her voice. Harriet felt the vibrations of her voice, the warmth. “I’m here.”

Harriet sobbed, once, and pressed her mouth shut. Professor McGonagall’s arms tightened, her fingers brushing against Harriet’s ear.

“It’s all right,” said Professor McGonagall. “Let it out, dear child.”

And Harriet had to. 

* * *

 

Severus let the healer work. He drank the inferior pain potion, tolerated her prodding, answered standard questions about what had happened. As was usual with healers, this one’s clear if unspoken attitude was, “Next time, try not to get hit with repeated bouts of the _Cruciatus_ Curse.”

What healers did was necessary and useful but Severus loathed them.

Dumbledore was quiet, sitting in a chair beside the door in the narrow room. He looked as old as that night when Severus had found him in the grips of an odd despair that he wouldn’t explain.

“And there’s _nothing else_?” the healer asked, peering into Severus’ eye with the tip of her wand. He jerked his head out of the way and she pursed her lips. “Nothing you’re not telling me? Because there’s damage I can’t account for.”

“I didn’t realize you were old enough to have treated extensive bouts of Cruciatus,” he said, hoping his rudeness would drive her away.

“You don’t think we get plenty of Aurors in here?” She made a note on his chart with a sharp jab, probably imagining the parchment was his skin. “You’d think Dark wizards would be more creative, but they always fall back on the same old tricks.”

The three Unforgivables: not nearly the worst the Dark Arts had to offer -- there were plenty of deaths you’d rather not suffer, other curses to strip your will and being to pieces -- but the easiest to cast and therefore the most virulent. He said nothing as she marked a few more notes and then eyed him narrowly.

“I’m keeping you here overnight for observation. We need to make sure there’s no permanent nerve damage. Someone else can cover your classes tomorrow.”

Without waiting for a retort, she tucked his chart under her arm and whisked herself out of the room. 

Dumbledore spelled the door shut and raised locking and muffling spells around the room.

“Are you well enough to report?” he asked quietly.

Severus wondered what he was really asking, because he was healed enough to _talk_. “Barty Crouch Junior has been masquerading as Alastor Moody. I killed him, after he’d put me under Imperius and -- injured Harriet -- ”

He stopped, then, because he had only just realized -- with a dim but growing sense of confounded surprise -- that he’d been calling her ‘Harriet’ in his mind for some time now without taking any notice. He felt that he wanted to snatch the name back, but that was. . . absurd, wasn’t it? He had killed for her without a qualm. He remembered the way her face had gone bloodless when Crouch Junior stomped on her hand, the suffering and determination in her posture as she’d forced herself up to tend to Granger, the stunned misery when she’d realized the house-elf Dobby would not answer her call. He was _glad_ Crouch Junior was dead. His only regret was that it had been over for that shit-sack so _soon_. What was a name, to that?

He wanted to see her, to be sure her healer wasn’t a complete incompetent, even though Minerva wouldn’t let the man cock up; even though Severus needed to leave and find the Dark Lord; to begin what he had always promised he would do when this day came. Harriet would put up a ridiculous fuss; it would be better that he left now.

But the itch lived under his skin, despite all logical assertions.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore heavily. “I knew, when Miss Granger’s parents contacted me to ask me where their daughter was, that I had not sent her away with the real Alastor Moody. It became. . . all too clear that this was the spy we had been hiding all year.” He looked every one of his one-hundred-and-thirteen years then. “He was clever, and his trail led me only to the middle of nowhere. He must have given her to an accomplice to take to Tom -- Wormtail, I presume.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Severus said. “I never got to -- Miss Potter.” That felt safer, and yet he could not relax. How many walls separated them; how many people might come and go, posing a threat of which they weren’t even aware? Thank God for Minerva. He’d never, he realized, seen her called upon to fight; known her as a formidable witch, understood her to possess great power, but never seen her ready to face an enemy and in possession of herself when faced with such devastation. During the first war their paths had crossed only in meeting rooms; he had seen her only after battles, never in the midst of them. She relied on Dumbledore, like they all did, but when necessary she had taken control and kept it. And he could have offered Harriet none of that comfort, that stability. Her grip on his hand had been desperate, something haunting passing through her skin into him, and what had he given in return?

“Severus?” 

Severus brought himself back immediately. “She had escaped the castle by the time I got your message. She used the Room of Requirement,” he said, and couldn’t help the stab of ‘ _I fucking told you so_ ’ he injected into it.

Dumbledore made an odd sound. “When it comes to Harriet’s safety, Severus, I am learning to trust you implicitly. So Tom took Miss Granger to lure Harriet, and he succeeded in that goal. . . and in using her to raise himself back to power, it would seem. And yet they escaped him.” 

He was silent a long moment and then spoke words that sent ice crackling to Severus' heart. “I have failed, Severus,” Dumbledore said, as if _he_ needed succor, not Severus, who had sworn with both his life and his death to keep Harriet safe and accomplished nothing.

(He had been so helpless, until that final moment when his rage and hatred and terror had blown his prison apart and he'd flooded back into himself.)

“I have not kept evil from the halls of Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore. “I have not kept Harriet from harm, and I have not prevented Tom Riddle from rising again.”

“She’s -- still here,” Severus said, even though they’d both failed so terribly. Tumbling out of the Room, Harriet had begun to sob when she’d looked up at him, her arms around Granger; but he had given her nothing, she had managed it all, saved herself and her dearest friend, and when had he ever done anything a mite so brave?

“By her own powers, her own grace, she’s alive,” said Dumbledore, echoing him. “And I am. . .  _afraid_ , Severus. If I should fail again. . .”

 _If_ we _should fail,_ Severus thought. _Fail Harriet like we failed Lily._

“I swore an Unbreakable Vow,” he said. “To Black, to protect -- Miss Potter. That was why Crouch was able to -- so easily -- ”

“I am almost thankful that you did,” Dumbledore said. “I’m correct, I think, in believing you’d have Apparated immediately to Voldemort’s side if you had not found her in Gryffindor where she should have been?”

Severus didn’t bother denying it, though his self-loathing at his inability to help her, his fury at Dumbledore for being _thankful_ of it, blotted out his mind for a moment.

“You _knew_ about the Vow,” he said finally.

Dumbledore didn’t bother with denials either. “For some time now. It was done. There seemed no reason to bring it up.”

Severus thought so too. And it was all done -- Harriet was alive, the Dark Lord returned, and he had a promise he could not fail to fulfill. There was no reason to linger.

“I need to leave now.”

“Soon.”

Then Dumbledore . . . hesitated.

“ _What_?” Severus narrowed his eyes as his heart began to beat quickly for no reason he could define. An instinct for danger was stirring at the uncertainty in Dumbledore's face.

“There is something we need to discuss before then.”

“So pressing it needs to happen _now_?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve discussed everything pertinent for months now, I’d’ve thought.”

“This is a subject I thought I would have more time to broach.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes and seemed to find some final bit of steel inside, for when he opened them, his gaze was regretful but sure. And Severus realized that whatever Dumbledore had to say, he did not want to hear it. He was as sure as if he stood facing an old wardrobe with a boggart inside and knew that he did not want to open the door and learn whatever shape it would take.

“Surely this can wait till after I’ve returned -- ” _If, if, if._

“It is where you have to go and what you have to do that makes this conversation necessary,” said Dumbledore, not unkindly but firmly.

Severus wanted to jump up from the bed, throw off his locking spells and flee the room, but when Dumbledore took that tone, he couldn’t, even had he been strong and not weakened by curses.

“I have thought long on this subject," said Dumbledore, "and I’ve determined that for you to face Tom without confronting. . . this. . . will most likely be fatal.”

That feeling of dread only increased, as if the wardrobe had rattled as the boggart threw itself against the door, hearing a beating heart on the other side; tasting its amorphous fears, shaping itself around them.

“You need to confront this knowledge, which I believe you already possess but do not wish to face, before you see him. You need to master it.” And as Dumbledore’s voice became kinder, Severus’ desire to run grew exponentially.

“Dumbledore -- ” 

“Harriet’s feelings are not one-sided,” said Dumbledore.

Severus stared at him. At first he wanted to -- laugh. He couldn’t -- be serious. He -- it was simply --

“This is absurd." His voice seemed to be coming from someplace far away. "I need to go, Dumbledore.”

“Severus. . ."

Severus shook his head, staring over Dumbledore’s shoulder. The healer had taken his wand and handed it over to Dumbledore, or Severus would be hexing the door off its hinges now. He willed it to break apart as he had willed the infirmary doors not to open.

“I can explain the lag in time first by Crouch’s interference -- needing medical attention, needing to seem as if I have fooled you into believing I am _your_ spy -- but this cannot go on forever, you _must let me leave_ \-- ”

He started to rise from the bed -- he was still shaking, it must be residue from the curses; that healer was incompetent -- but Dumbledore put a hand on his arm. Severus looked at it. He would not look into the old man’s face and see the laughter there, the joke; how he could play with such an idea, as if Severus were -- as if he could -- a child, Lily’s child --

“I have to go,” he said, pushing past Dumbledore to the door. He put his hand on the door; his hand was shaking. “Let me out. I need to go.”

“Severus, you cannot go in this state.” He paused, then said, “I am sorry. Clearly I've been mistaken in my phrasing. I meant only that Harriet is important to you for her own sake, not only for Lily’s. I did not mean to imply anything beyond that, Severus. It never entered my head that my wording could be so unwise. Forgive me, my friend.”

And Severus made the mistake of looking at Dumbledore’s face. His expression was open and encouraging, with nothing in it beyond what he was saying now. _Believe me_ , said his clear, straightforward gaze.

And Severus knew him to be lying.

Dumbledore had meant what he’d said. Though he was trying with every ounce of his power as an Occlumens to project sincerity, he was lying now. It had not been a joke. He called Severus “friend,” but he thought --

“I’m sure Harriet will want to see you before you go,” said Dumbledore. “This will be hard on her. . .”

Hard on her.

Severus pictured her face after Skeeter's article had come out, when she’d sat tense and miserable in his classroom as he drew near, prepared to be as cruel as he could be, and then found himself unable to speak.

_It was the Vow. . ._

On the owlery steps in the glittering ice and the impersonal moonlight he’d told her that there was no point to his living if he outlived her. She’d remembered it and repeated it, after the elf Dobby had declared the same. Severus had known how she would feel when she learned Dobby had died. He had not been able to tell her but she had known, and he had felt himself being torn apart by her grief. Imprisoned in his own mind, he had watched Crouch hurting her until he knew he would die if he watched another moment of it.

It was not. . .

It. . .

Was. . .

“I need to go,” he said, his lips hardly moving.

He felt the blackness rising within him, as if he were descending to someplace dark and cold, where all cares and caresses were gone. They could not dwell down there in the cold, in the dark, where no light reached. He took only with him the smallest flame, pale and silver, giving off no heat, so he could find his way. With every step he felt the calm that brushes against the edge of terror and fury, building around him film of ice that could shatter with a touch.

He had known himself here before. It was. . . familiar, an old path he’d walked many times before. There was no light in the darkness but that one flame that lit him from within, yet he knew his way; he had not forgot it at all.

Silent, holding his gaze, Dumbledore held out his wand.

“If you are prepared, Severus,” he said quietly.

“I will do my best to return.”

Dumbledore’s hand closed over his a moment where the wand joined them. Severus remembered the way he’d gripped Harriet’s shoulder when the infirmary doors had cracked open.

He pulled his hand from Dumbledore’s and unlocked the door. The knob cracked off and fell to the floor.

Ah. He’d overdone it. In the darkness, all seemed so calm.

He took the stairs, and no one stopped him. A healer opened her mouth as he passed and then closed it, turning away. People were moving off to the sides as he came near. No one wanted to look him in the eye.

He went to the Apparition place and concentrated on the Dark Mark, feeling for that thread that would lead him to the Dark Lord’s side. That, too, was familiar, almost like recalling a melody you thought you had forgot.

He had talked for months as if his death tonight (whatever night this happened) was a prominent possibility. He had thought it would be.

He had been wrong. He could not die.

And when he returned from the Dark Lord’s side, his new position certain, he would deal with. . . the girl.

He Apparated.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (and my sanity) owes a great debt to sageandginger <3
> 
> And I owe a great debt to you all, for everything wonderful you sent my way after the last chapter (88).
> 
> And as a final note, farewell, Alan Rickman. The world seems less bright without you.


	91. On Behalf of the Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape couldn't face Harriet after Dumbledore forced a light into the darkest part of that thing he didn't have anymore; that thing which some people would call a heart. But if the Dark Lord doesn't kill him, what other option will he have?

The crushing pressure of Apparition faded, and the pull within the Dark Mark slipped away, like a touch dropping off his shoulder.

Malfoy Manor loomed above the tall hedges, its towers dark against the darker sky.

Of course the Dark Lord had come here. He’d always preferred the old luxury and splendor.

The gate’s black bars melted into Severus like mist and the gravel drive crunched beneath his feet as he strode up the walkway.

He did not even have to knock. The spell on the gate must have sent a message straight inside, for as he mounted the first step up to the door, Narcissa’s face pale appeared in the dark gap of the front doors’ opening. At first she did not speak, as if words had caught in her throat.

“Severus. The Dark Lord is waiting.”

Candlelight shone in the black well of her eyes, her pupils all but swallowing her irises in the dark. Her palm was freezing through his wool sleeve, her grip so tight his hand might soon go numb.

He said, “Then take me to him.”

“You shouldn’t have come, Severus,” she whispered. Fear seeped through her voice, like the mist of the gate passing through his body. But then she, too, was out the other side, her familiar cool facade gaining strength.

“He’s in the drawing-room upstairs,” she said.

Releasing his arm, she turned and mounted the sweeping staircase. The silken hem of her gown hissing on the marble made the only sound in the tomb-like stillness.

Deep inside his own heart gone dark and cold, Severus imagined he feared nothing in this house so much as what he’d left behind.

The walk to the drawing-room was as familiar as the black, tingling presence at the end of it. Dark magic was like the sound of the moon rising into the sky, like the taste of a winter storm; it prickled through his blood and clamped to the root of his soul. The Dark Lord’s shadow stretched down the hall toward him, a discordant melody he’d never forgotten.

Narcissa turned to him at the door. Her face looked bloodless in the candlelight; her gaze was steady.

“You have been a good friend to me, Severus,” she whispered, and then she pushed the door open.

Severus did not speak to her or return her touch. That part of him that valued her friendship belonged to someone else, someone left far away behind him.

He stepped over the threshold.

Candle flame and firelight floated on patches of darkness like moonlight glittering on a black lake. The Dark Lord sat in a chair beside the fire, a long-fingered hand playing with a bone-white wand. His face, flat and slitted, was barely human, his head a skull stretched with skin that belonged to a corpse.

Severus remembered being a young fool kneeling at this creature’s feet and swearing loyalty. He remembered his own self with a surge of self-loathing and triumph.

The Dark Lord glanced up and blinked once, slowly.

“Severus. . .” he said, and Severus remembered every cadence of his voice. “Have you come to die?”

“If that is your wish, my lord.”

The Dark Lord almost smiled at him, like he had done a lifetime ago. He stood, his robes trailing around him in whispers, and held out his arms, as if in benediction.“You were always a brave man, Severus.”

* * *

The Calming Draught made Harriet’s mouth taste funny. She was still angry at the Healer feeding it to her and not telling her what it was, but the feeling seemed far away. It was like looking at the moon and trying to grab it and getting only air.

It wasn’t _her_ fault they’d made her so angry. They’d let Snape leave. It was only natural she should throw a bedpan against the wall and shout, even if she _had_ shouted at Professor Dumbledore. He’d took it calmly, anyway. Professor McGonagall hadn’t seemed to know what to do. The Healers had looked shocked and disapproving. Maybe Rita Skeeter would write another article: _Big-Headed Teen Diva Does Her Nut at St. Nutters._

“I hate it here,” Harriet muttered, slumping onto the camp bed the Healers had let Professor McGonagall set up next to Hermione’s bed.

The walls of St. Mungo’s were mint-chip green. Who had decided that was a good combination with the Healers’ lime green robes? It would make anyone feel ill.

“I want to go back to Hogwarts,” she said. “I’m surprised the Goblet hasn’t tried to kill me again.”

Professor McGonagall’s hands paused, then resumed smoothing Harriet’s blankets down. “The situation is different, I suppose. No one here is trying to keep you from the next task.”

“How does the stupid Goblet know? I don’t even care about the bloody tournament,” Harriet said listlessly.

She twisted onto her side so she could observe Hermione. Wizards didn’t use IV’s, but a spell light flickered above Hermione’s chest, measuring her vitals. The Healers said they’d put her in a Healing sleep. They weren’t sure when she’d be ready to wake up.

Harriet saw Hermione lying in the snow, blood spattered on her neck and face, and the Hermione-in-a-hospital-bed blurred. She shut her eyes. She was not going to cry. Not again.

“I don’t imagine you do,” said Professor McGonagall above her. “I find I’m sick of it myself. Try and get some rest, now.”

Rest? How was she supposed to rest, with Hermione in a magical coma and Snape. . .

Through the Calming Draught, Harriet felt something cold and sharp running deep through her.

She watched Hermione sleep until she must have fallen asleep herself, because the next thing she heard was Professor McGonagall whispering at the door. The voice on the other side sounded like Professor Dumbledore’s. Harriet squinted at Hermione, but her spell-light was still flickering steadily.

Harriet rolled over and drifted back to sleep, where dark dreams stalked her like jagged shadows.

* * *

_The front door burst open and Potter, James Potter fully grown, came running down the hall toward him_

His feet hit the floor

_“Avada Kedavra!” hissed the Dark Lord and Potter dropped lifeless to the floor_

voices rattled in his head

_Up the stairs behind the door at the top, frantic thuds of furniture shook the door from the other side_

the lights were bright

_This door exploded inward the same as the other, and beyond it, Lily clung to the crib as the baby cried behind her; Lily’s face was full of terror and pleading and hopelessness and a shining thread of defiance_

his knees jarred as they struck the floor

_“Stand aside, you silly girl,” said the Dark Lord’s voice_

The room tilted around him and thrummed with noise and the lights fanned the fog in his brain

_“Not Harriet, please, not Harriet, I’ll do anything--”_

“Get. . . Dumble. . . dore,” he said to the shocked face hovering above him.

The foyer of St. Mungo’s and the memories the Dark Lord had shared disappeared in a flood of inky oblivion that washed everything black and silent.

* * *

 

Harriet knew she was dreaming, but that didn’t help. She was dreaming of swimming through cold, dark water; swimming down, down, down, looking for Hermione; she only had an hour to get to her, and then it would be too late, Hermione would never wake up --

The dream changed. Snape stood in front of her. He looked tired and sad. He was speaking to her, telling her something, and she didn’t want to hear it. The longer he spoke, the sadder he looked. She knew if he said another word she’d do something horrible, something she’d never consciously wanted to do; she’d hurt him, and she’d hope it felt good --

Her mother and father shone in front of her, foggy and indistinct, the golden light of a shining cage beaming through them; they reached out for her but they couldn’t touch her --

A clatter pulled her awake. She stared blindly at the unfamiliar ceiling, no idea where she was.

Then she sat up because she remembered.

She rather shocked the Healers who were levitating a stretcher over to the room’s second bed.

“What--” the first Healer said as Harriet jumped to her feet.

“Is he okay?” she demanded, trying to get close to the stretcher to see Snape better -- he was unconscious but if they were putting him in here with Hermione he had to be all right in some sense, hadn’t he?

The second Healer pushed her away. “You need to step back--”

“Get _off_ ,” Harriet snarled, shoving the Healer’s hand off her shoulder.

“It’s all right,” said Dumbledore from behind her. “Harriet is authorized to be here.”

The Healers didn’t look happy about it, but they had to turn away from Harriet to move Snape off the stretcher onto the bed.

Harriet perched on the edge of Hermione’s bed, her arms folded tight across her roiling stomach, and watched the Healers arrange Snape on the bed. They ran spells over him, murmuring to each other, but were done surprisingly fast. They set a spell-light above him, just like Hermione’s, and started to leave.

“That’s _it_?” Harriet said. “He looks half dead!”

“Perhaps you can explain, sir,” said one of the Healers to Dumbledore, giving Harriet a look that might have impressed Aunt Petunia, and followed her colleague out of the room.

“They have already treated Severus,” Professor Dumbledore said. “Like Hermione, he will now rest for a while in a Healing sleep.”

“When did he get back?” And nobody thought to tell her!

“A little over an hour ago.”

Harriet was shaking inside. She could have thrown another bedpan, but she didn’t want to disturb Hermione or Snape. How much could you hear, in a Healing sleep?

She stood on shaky legs and went over to Snape’s bed. She’d got almost used to seeing him look like Death’s best friend, but he looked even worse now. His skin was a color you didn’t normally associate with human beings, or at least didn’t want to see on them. The skin around his eyes was so shadowed, he might’ve plowed face-first into a wall. His lips were cracked and his hair was filthy. He looked like he’d lived ten years in one night.

He was alive. He hadn’t died. He’d come back.

She lay her palm flat against his shoulder and felt warmth. It was more reassuring than the spell-light that flared and dimmed as he breathed.

The hospital corridor outside hummed and clicked with voices and footsteps. A scream built in her chest, massive in the stillness and the silence. She clenched her jaw and breathed, pushing it _down_.

The Calming Draught had worn off. Her insides felt shredded.

She curled up on her camp bed and watched Snape and Hermione sleep. Professor Dumbledore sat in his chair in the corner and did the same. They kept their friends company without speaking.

* * *

 

He crested into consciousness gradually. The space around him was dark, void of human voices, though he could hear sounds as if through walls.

Not Malfoy Manor, then. It didn’t smell like Malfoy Manor, either. Instead of old wood and the soft lilac Narcissa favored, there was something astringent on the air. Nor was the bed anything Narcissa would have permitted in her house: lumpy, thin mattress, scratchy blankets.

_Collapsing to a floor, feet and babble around him. . ._

_St. Mungo’s_.

Fitting, because his body was one fierce ache. It was a miracle he’d made the trip without splinching himself into twenty-seven pieces.

He cracked open his eyes. A dim, standard double-occupancy hospital room tilted gently around him before settling where the ceiling seemed to be up and the floor down. No windows, no clue to the time, nothing to tell him how long he’d been out.

Had the Second Task happened already? Had. . .

His heart jolted as the memory of Dumbledore’s words hit him like a Stunner to the chest.

Something moved on his right. He hurt too much to turn his head, but he moved his eyes and he saw. . .

Harriet stepped up next to his bed, her expression grim and electric and her eyes storming. He remembered defiance blazing through Lily's fear, but it was Potter he saw in Harriet’s face, an echo of his last moments laid over the child who was glaring down at himself.

His insides churned, like he’d left them behind on his Apparition flight across Wiltshire and they’d just been summoned back to him, crammed together in his throat. He shut his eyes.

“I am _so_ pissed off with you,” Harriet said.

That made him open his eyes again. From the look on her face, he wouldn’t be surprised if she socked him in the nose. He glanced behind her, hoping for a Dumbledore he could at least _appeal_ to, but the room was empty, save for Granger lying in a Healing sleep on the other bed. At least she hadn’t died. Harriet would be quite upset if Granger died.

He brought up his hand -- it was shaking -- and pressed it over his face.

“D’you want me to get a Healer?” Harriet sounded worried now.

And when he breathed in, it seared. But that wasn’t just the aftereffects of Cruciatus, the fading echo of wondering if this would be the last night of his life; not even the memory of Potter falling dead at the ghost of his feet and Lily’s last words.

He’d survived his first meeting with a newly risen Dark Lord. Now he had to survive this moment, and all the moments to come.

“Snape?” Her shoe scuffed on the lino as she took an uncertain step forward.

“I don’t need a Healer.” He sounded like he’d been eating gravel.

“I think you need about twelve of them,” Harriet said. “You look like an elephant herd ran you over.”

She sounded, suddenly, like she was barely keeping it together. Oh God, if she started --

“Don’t cry,” he croaked, squinting at her.

“Why would I _cry_?” Her anger was searing; it should have comforted him. “You only went off to Voldemort _without telling me_ while my best friend was in surgery because she almost _died_. I’m not going to fucking _cry_.”

She dragged her sleeve under her nose. “I thought you were going to _die_ but why the bleeding hell would I _cry_ about that?”

“Don’t,” he said, absolute panic pressing up inside his chest.

“Don’t tell _me_ what to do!” She turned her back to him and stormed around Granger’s bed, scrubbing at her face -- he heard her stop a sniffle -- and then fussed with Granger’s sheets. He wanted to self-immolate.

It was not just panic thrumming in his chest, it was. . . was. . .

“Has the Second Task been dealt with?” he croaked.

Harriet shook her head. “Tomorrow morning.”

“How long. . . ?”

“It’s 9 PM now. You’ve been asleep all day -- about twelve hours.”

The spell-light that measured Granger’s vitals flickered on the lenses of Harriet’s glasses. Smothering her tears must have worn her down, taken away her last defense for energy, for she looked suddenly exhausted. Had she slept at all? It wouldn’t be like her, unless the Healers had given her something.

The not-panic beat around his heart; so very like panic, shaking him from the inside, flooding both hot and cold, everything unsteady and sharp. He could almost wish the Dark Lord _had_ killed him, if this is what he would be living with from now on.

She was moving back around Granger’s bed, back toward his, and he shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

“We thought you were going to die,” Harriet said quietly. From the gentle scraping noises, she was pulling a chair along the floor between the two beds. “Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore didn’t say but I know that’s what they were thinking. They just didn’t want me to worry.

“They gave me a Calming Draught,” she said, her low voice now touched with anger, “because I shouted. And threw a couple of things. But they’d just let you bloody _leave_.”

He heard her trying to steady her breathing. The solid mass of ache that was his body tensed with a new rush of pain. How was he to endure this? How could you handle this -- grief -- on behalf of the living? And for someone whom you could not reach out to, for even the cause of the pain was twisted and grotesque. . .

By all the gods that had ever existed, let him return to the man that cared only for the dead.

_And to the life with no Dark Lord? You never lived there. You have done this to yourself._

“I could not afford the time it would take for you to become accustomed to the reality,” he said. “I had to get to the Dark Lord. You had dealt with too much to permit me leaving.”

He imagined her glaring at him, but he could not look at her.

“He said he was going to kill you,” she said. “In the graveyard, when all the other Death Eaters arrived. He said you’d left him forever and you’d be killed.”

“He intended it,” Severus muttered. “He’d been expecting to hunt me down, not invite me into. . . the house. The curiosity stalled him. Which is why it was imperative I went as soon as I did.”

Harriet made a noise like a repressed sob. Acute misery and self-revulsion pierced him and he gritted his teeth.

“Th-they don’t know if Hermione’s going to wake up,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Some impulse, perhaps a refusal to stay at the mercy of his cowardice, made him finally look at her. She sat hunched over in her chair, her forehead pressed against the heels of her heads, her breath shaky.

He felt helpless, more than he’d felt at the Dark Lord’s feet. There, he knew what to do: to lie, to swear false loyalty, to suppress every better impulse with an ease that would have troubled a good man; to survive and carry back to Dumbledore everything he’d been trusted with. He’d been powerless to fight back with spells, but his words, his secrets, were his weapons and his shields.

But how was he to offer comfort to Harriet? He, whose heart knew scarcely an un-cruel thought, who shuddered in terror from the impulse of compassion? If he could shred this tenderness out of himself, he would; he would amputate it if it took a hundred years, every moment agony, if he could just _get rid of it_.

But he’d wished the same almost twenty years ago, when Lily had severed their friendship and he’d kept caring, and his wishing had been to no avail. It would be the same this time.

So he said, “Granger will be all right.”

Harriet raised her head. Her eyes were red but there were no tears on her face. He felt an aching, endless sadness echo through him. 

She didn’t ask how he knew, which was good, because he had no idea. Granger might slip away, might suddenly take a turn for the worse, might exist many long years without ever waking again. Or she might, as he said, be all right.

“Yeah,” Harriet said at last, and dragged her sleeve across her nose again. “Thanks,” she said quietly.

It had been a pathetic piece of false comfort, hardly deserving a thank you.

“She’ll be all right,” he repeated, which was no better. It was simply all he had.

Harriet nodded. She curled up in her chair and watched Granger sleep, the vital-monitoring spell casting light and shadow across her face as it followed Granger’s breath.

Severus closed his eyes and did not sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this isn't as long as my chapters usually are - I've been sitting on it for ages, trying to write more, but as I was tearing at my hair I realized that this and the following action can each make a chapter of their own. So, I give this short chapter to all you patient, wonderful people who are still here. I love you very much, truly ♥︎


	92. At Last the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape returned from Voldemort not really a changed man, but with new self-knowledge. He knows it is his fate to live with it; he has lived with terrible truths before. But there is one last thing he needs Harriet to understand. . .

The twenty-fourth of February had dawned with dark reluctance and menacing wind. Cold and biting, it chopped at the water, snapped the rigging on the Durmstrang ship where it lay moored out on the dark water, and ripped at Severus’ robes as if wanting to scour him from the outside in.

He watched one of the Scrying Screens that flickered over the lake. There was one for each of the champions, but if the other three screens had shown their champions being eaten by the Giant Squid, Severus hadn't noticed. He watched Harriet card through the darkness, her arm around Weasley’s chest, her glasses frosting as the water grew brighter and the surface closer.

Dumbledore had not asked Severus that morning if he was sure he ought to go. He had merely lent his arm, and because the headmaster was both an excellent actor and more intelligent than any of the people he had to fool, had made it appear that Severus was the one propping him up.

Bleachers for the Second Task loomed on the bleak lakeshore; iron clouds scudded the frosted hillside behind them. When Harriet and Weasley sloshed out of the lake into the arms of an irate Madam Pomfrey, they were shivering so hard Severus could see it from where he sat. Pomfrey bundled them into blankets and forced steaming beakers of Pepper Up on them. Severus was aware of cheering and whistling, and other creatures, which may have been three champions and their charges, emerging from the deep; he continued taking stock of Harriet, who sat steaming next to Weasley, her hair dripping on her blanket. Severus didn’t need an eavesdropping charm to see that Weasley had picked up on Harriet’s mood. 

It was likely that Weasley didn’t know what had happened to Granger. He’d been placed in an Enchanted Sleep early that morning, according to Dumbledore. . . but now he was looking around, and it was clearly dawning on him that Granger was nowhere to be seen.

Minerva had noticed him noticing, for she stood from her seat in the bleachers in the lowest tier, for she had come in late, having taken Harriet from St. Mungo’s early that morning. Now she made her way across the shore to where Weasley was speaking rapidly to Harriet, who’d dropped her forehead in her hand and was staring at the rocks beneath her feet.

The clapping and cheering as the scores were cast into the air set an odd counterpoint to Harriet’s defeated slump and Weasley’s pale face beneath his water-logged hair.

The other champions were clapping at each other’s scores, but they kept shooting looks Harriet’s way. They seemed nervous around her, like sheep sensing a wolf in the undergrowth.

They didn’t even know about the Dark Lord, yet.

Minerva was placing a hand on Weasley’s shoulder and giving, probably, an injunction to come along with her. He didn’t look reassured -- wise boy, Severus thought, too tired for scorn.

He watched Harriet rise, too, drawing her blanket around her like a cloak. Minerva, calling to mind a shepherd escorting two favorite lambs, ushered them away, across the frostbitten grass toward Hogwarts.

Dumbledore had arrived in the stands while Severus had been watching the children go.

“How have you been faring, my boy?” he asked, scanning Severus with a concerned eye.

“I’ve survived.” 

Dumbledore dropped a hand on his shoulder, a brief warmth that Severus did not want to feel grateful for. Had he been stronger, he would have resented it. But he was tired and weak.

Dumbledore sat down next to him and prattled about the champions’ feats in the water as the stands emptied. Of course he knew Severus wasn’t listening. When the last of the spectators had trickled out of earshot, Severus interrupted:

“I need to talk to Harriet.”

Dumbledore was silent a moment. “Severus . . . she has been through a great deal--”

“This cannot be put off.”

He’d decided, in the long hours of the night, when he had not slept and Harriet had sat in silent vigil as Granger did not wake. He’d decided what he must do.

Another moment filled with wind and far-off chatter, the folding hush of the lake in eternal movement. Then Dumbledore sighed.

“Name the place, and I will tell her.”

Severus already had one in mind. “What did you do with . . . Dobby?”

* * *

Harriet thought she should probably bake Professor McGonagall a cake, or do something else nice. Maybe she could ask Dobb. . .

No. She couldn’t.

Professor McGonagall took Ron off somewhere while Harriet went to have a bath and change. At least, Harriet supposed she must have done these things, because somehow she got out of her swimming gear and into regular clothes and wandered down to the Entrance Hall.

She stared at the doors to the Great Hall, wondering if she should go inside, or if she should try to think of where Professor McGonagall and Ron would be. . .

Someone touched her shoulder. She looked around, then up, because the person was taller than she was; she was about on eye-level with their collar.

“Hi, Asteria,” she said.

“H-hi.” Asteria’s expression flickered. “Are you all right?” she asked in a sudden burst like a pheasant erupting from a bush.

Harriet considered a couple of replies, finally deciding on a shrug. Asteria bit her lip, her gaze searching.

“Professor Snape asked to see you,” she said timidly. “He said he’d be in the Confessor’s Garden -- it’s in the North Wing, just past the turn for the Owlery, do you know it?”

Harriet blinked as something rushed through her chest, a sensation or an emotion. But it was a sensation she didn’t know how to describe, an emotion she had no name to give. She hadn’t known what to feel when she’d seen him sitting in the stands at the Second Task, just as she hadn't known what to feel last night when he’d said Hermione would be all right. . . 

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks,” she added.

Asteria nodded, uncertain, and stood there as Harriet headed off for the North Wing.

An ancient door, which might've been commissioned in William the Conqueror's day, gave onto the garden. A surprising amount of greenery hung over the walls and crept across the snow scattered earth.

Snape was sitting on a bench in the midst of all that green stuff. All in black, he looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors and snipped a hole in the courtyard. His sallow face was drawn, and even sitting down he was leaning on a cane.

He looked up at the crunch of Harriet’s shoe on the snowy ground. Most of his face showed no reaction, but something, maybe in the bones around his eyes, flickered like the wind on the water.

Harriet had scolded him last night. There was no other word for it. He’d gone off to face a man who’d sworn to kill him, and she’d _scolded him_.

And she’d do it again if a Time Turner shot her back fourteen hours. She couldn’t see how Voldemort had let him live. If she hadn’t sat next to him all of yesterday, she’d have thought he was a Polyjuiced Impostor.

“Congratulations on your performance in the Second Task,” Snape said.

If he hadn’t said it in a flat, emotionless voice, she’d have had a heart attack right there. Maybe he _had_ been Polyjuiced since she’d left the hospital.

“Thanks,” she said, eying him. “‘I’m working on the Harriet-Slytherin Friendship Club,’” she said: the code phrase she had bullied him into accepting. Through notes delivered via . . . via Dobby. 

Snape almost looked like his old self for a second. The way his mouth twisted, she might've been asking him to take Neville out to lunch. “‘That name gets worse each time you say it.’ Now please think of another _code phrase_ before I ever have to hear that one again.”

“Sure,” Harriet said, and they lapsed into silence until she remembered why she was there. “Asteria said you wanted something.”

“. . . yes."

A sort of serrated tiredness draped over him. He gestured with the hand gripping the cane. Harriet looked in the direction he’d indicated, and saw. . .

Her throat filled with something, maybe bitterness or grief or guilt crushing her from the windpipe out.

Set near the wall was a little tombstone. All that was carved into it was a single name: D O B B Y

It got bigger the longer she stared, until it filled her vision. Her feet had carried her over to it. Then she was suddenly cold, because her legs had folded and dropped her to the ground.

“The Headmaster thought you would want to compose the epitaph,” Snape said, as if he’d never heard anything so brainless.

Did she want to? What could she say that would ever . . .

“I’m the reason he’s dead.”

She hadn’t said it before, even though the knowledge had sat inside her like a curse planted in her heart, eating at her as she’d watched over Hermione and Snape in that dark, too-quiet hospital room.

“You’re the reason he was free,” said Snape, which was so unexpected that she looked up. Snape was staring at Dobby’s tombstone, though he seemed to be looking at something a lot farther away. “Because of you, he was a free elf -- he lived free, and he died free, in service to someone he loved. This is war. The orders you give can have terrible repercussions. Sometimes your soldiers will die. If we can’t learn to live with that. . . then something much worse will happen. That is guaranteed.”

His voice was flat, glassy. His gaze was far away, ridged like moonlight rising behind a mountain peak. Harriet’s eyes felt damp at the corners. She had no idea whether she felt comforted or punched in the gut.

“How did he die?” She did not want to know, which was why she had to ask.

Snape blinked once, twice; she could imagine his body casting a spell to summon him back to himself. When he looked at Dobby’s grave, it was as if he was really seeing it this time.

“Crouch killed him,” he said. “The Killing Curse.”

Harriet scrubbed angrily at the wet corners of her eye.

“There was no point, was there?” she asked. “He died for -- _nothing_.”

“Did he?”

“It didn’t make any difference. I asked him to -- I was going to c-call him.” She swallowed. She wasn’t going to be craven, weeping over Dobby’s grave before she'd confessed all of this. “In the graveyard. I _did_ call him. I -- if Moody hadn’t killed him, I’d have dragged him into a meeting of Voldemort -- ”

Snape flinched.

“ -- and those, those -- like he couldn’t be killed -- after I _said_ I didn’t want him to risk himself.” She wanted to spit; her mouth tasted foul.

“This is the lesson no one wanted you to learn,” said Snape. “We fear death, for ourselves, for those we love, and yet when it is the real outcome, we think there must have been some mistake. We look back and can’t believe . . .”

Harriet thought that later she would probably marvel at this conversation, the realest exchange she'd ever had with Snape that was being offered freely.  

“Anyone would be better giving you this speech than I,” he said, now not so much flat as hollow. “All I can tell you is that if that elf were still alive, he’d do exactly what he did, even a hundred times more.”

Harriet stared fixedly at Dobby’s tombstone, at the letters of his name carved into it, willing herself not to do something mortifying like break down in a storm of weeping. Snape stayed silent. The only noise was the icy wind shifting the leaves that overhung the walls.

“In that case,” she said, holding her voice steady, “it -- this thing -- should say he was a free elf.’”

“I’ll tell the Headmaster,” said Snape.

Harriet nodded. She placed her hand on Dobby’s tombstone, feeling the cold, rough rock, and thought, _I didn’t deserve you._

“There is something I have resolved to tell you,” Snape said, and for some reason she felt that this was how he might have said, ‘ _I am going to see the Dark Lord_ ,’ if he hadn’t walked out without telling her.

She looked up, her skin prickling. In his eyes was a burning darkness, like a flame inverted.

“If the Headmaster, or your godfather or Lupin knew I was going to tell you -- as much of it as they know, at any rate -- they’d seal me up in a coffin and drop me in the lake. But we’ve all been lying to you, in that way we adults lie to children.”

The _children_ label stung, but more than that, she was afraid . . . and fascinated. She felt like she was hovering out of reach of a Hungarian Horntail, her eye trained on the golden egg far, far below. Anything that could make Snape look that way . . .

It would be smarter to say she didn’t want to hear any more and to put as much of the castle between them as fast as she could . . . But Snape volunteering information -- volunteering something, whatever it could be, that had been kept from her . . .

A whisper of caution flitted through her, a reminder of thinking the same thing in his Pensieve memory . . . But Snape was talking, and the time for running had past, surely . . .

“Have you never wondered why the Dark Lord singled you out?”

Harriet blinked. She blinked some more. Snape was watching her with a peculiar expression -- scornful, or sardonic . . . but not, somehow, directed at her.

“I . . .” She tried to get her brain working. “I asked Professor Dumbledore after the whole thing with the Philosopher’s Stone, but he said he’d tell me when I was older.”

Snape did not ask her if she was ready to hear it. She’d _been_ ready three years ago, but Snape didn’t ask. He went on, almost merciless.

“There was a prophecy -- made by your Divinations professor, the risible Sybil Trelawney.” (Harriet didn’t know what ‘risible’ meant, but the flicker of his lip into the familiar sneer was as good as a dictionary.) “She foretold -- let's see -- ' _T_ _he one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, the Dark Lord will mark her as his equal, but she will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives_.’”

That sardonic bite in his voice had carved into his face, and the black look in his eye burned darker than ever. “I have the memory, if you want to see the real thing," he said. "Of course, mine is incomplete.”

“W . . what?” she said, not understanding.

“I heard the prophecy when Trelawney gave it -- but only half. I was eavesdropping. The Dark Lord had heard there was a teaching position open at Hogwarts and had sent me to finagle my way into it. When I saw Dumbledore strolling through Hogsmeade, I tailed him to the Hog’s Head, where he was meeting Trelawney. She went into a kind of babbling trance and started proclaiming about the Dark Lord -- naturally I listened to what so dearly pertained to my master. Only I didn’t hear the whole thing, because the barman found me and tossed me out.”

It was like when she’d moved toward Dobby’s headstone until it had filled her vision, only she wasn’t moving now. It was like her legs had melded to the frozen earth, but Snape was all she could see -- Snape, the planes of his face biting sharp, his voice crushing --

“But I went to the Dark Lord and told him what I’d heard. I didn’t hear the ‘marking her as his equal’ segment, which as it turned out was key. He thought it would be easy -- kill the whole family. He went to Godric’s Hollow that night, on Hallowe’en, killed your father at the front door, and then proceeded upstairs and told your mother to step aside. And when she wouldn’t -- she begged him not to, but you hear that when the Dementors get near you -- he killed her and turned his wand on you. You know this part. Because she refused to give you up, she saved your life. But for her, you’d be as dead as either of your parents -- because of what I told him.”

Harriet was not breathing. She realized this only when she saw that Snape was breathing as if he’d run a hundred yard dash.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?” he said, without mercy or pity.

_Not Harriet, please not Harriet. . ._

_Stand aside, you silly girl. . ._

_Just hold on a little bit longer, Harriet. Your father's coming, he wants to see you. . ._

She was . . . she felt . . .

The garden rose around her. She’d stood up.

Snape --

The ground jarred beneath her feet. She was walking away. 

Her knees and hands were cold.

* * *

There were imprints in the snow where she’d knelt. Severus couldn’t seem to stop staring at them.

He was shaking. He wanted to stop, or to tell himself he was just cold. But his heart was thundering, and he hadn’t felt like this, like he’d been electrocuted, when he’d walked into Malfoy Manor.

“ _I hate you._ ” He’d been prepared for her to say that -- to scream at him -- to hit him with a curse. “ _I wish you’d died instead of them_.”

Simply walking out. . .

Was it more final? Or had he _not_ been prepared after all?

He rested his forehead against his fist that gripped the cane, and closed his eyes.

“It’s done,” he whispered. “It had to be done.”

The Dark Lord’s face had resembled the skull on Severus’ arm as he’d stood over the Pensieve. “ _Come, Severus. I wish to show you what your loyalty wrought on that fateful night. . .”_ And as Severus had watched the Potters’ front door shatter, as he’d seen James Potter rush into the hall and fall dead at Severus’ own ghostly feet, as he’d looked on Lily’s last moments as she begged for the life of her child, as the baby -- Harriet -- had cried, he’d known what he must do if he survived. It would be, and it had been, cruel. But she could not go on not knowing, could not go on feeling that he. . .

And once she knew, she would no longer believe that he. . .

“It had to be done. . .”

He sat on the freezing bench and wished to turn to ice, to stone.

* * *

The hospital room was dark and quiet. Outside in the corridor, voices murmured and shoe soles whispered. The light of Hermione’s monitoring spell flickered on the lens of Harriet’s glasses.

She closed her eyes.

One of the Healers had a Bristol accent. She’d walked up and down the hall thirteen times that Harriet had counted. One of the medication carts had a gimpy wheel that clacked as it rolled idly along.

The fifth time the medication cart rattled past, Harriet climbed onto Hermione’s bed and curled up next to her. Hermione was warm and still. The spell light shimmered against Harriet’s eyelids.

The Bristol Healer went by eight more times. The medication cart went clackety-clack three times more.

Something fluttered against her hand.

She opened her eyes. Hermione had turned her head, her curls brushing Harriet’s cheek. The monitoring spell sped up, dancing like a lightning storm, reflecting on her open eyes.

“H. . . arry?” she whispered. 

Harriet gripped her hand, hard.

“Welcome back,” she said, and felt Hermione’s fingers close around her own.

_End: Goblet of Fire_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see my tumblr post for my closing notes of the first part of what is now a series: http://laventadorn.tumblr.com/post/144841189173/about-the-never-ending-road
> 
> If you want to read future installments, you can subscribe to "The Never-ending Road Series" I have now made this a part of :)
> 
> To everyone who has made it this far with me: you probably can't know how much your words, encouragement, enthusiasm and kindness have meant to me along the way, but take the length of this fic as a start. Thank you endlessly and forever ♥︎

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [On the Run](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6967009) by [RisqueSno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisqueSno/pseuds/RisqueSno)




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